SOAS University of London

SOAS South Asia Institute

SSAI Academic Staff

SSAI Staff
Institute Director Professor Edward Simpson
Deputy Director Dr Navtej Purewal
SSAI contact email ssai@soas.ac.uk

Anthropology

Edward Simpson
Director, SOAS South Asia Institute
Edward Simpson
Ethnography of western India; social theory and the Indian Ocean; disaster and reconstruction anthropology; post-colonial rural change; infrastructure development in South Asia
Stephen P Hughes
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Stephen Hughes
India, especially the Tamil-speaking south, and Sri Lanka: popular cinema, media theory, historical anthropology and visual anthropology
  • Tel: 020 7898 4070
  • Email: sh37@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 558
  • Office Hours: Wednesdays 11.00-13.00
David Mosse
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
David Mosse
India, especially Tamil Nadu and adivasi western India; caste and religion, dalit politics, vernacular Christianity, environmental history, common property resources, indigenous irrigation, participatory rural development, aid agencies, anthropology of development
  • Tel: 020 7898 4426
  • Email: dm21@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 573
  • Office Hours: Mondays 9.00-11.00 (By Email Appointment)
  • On Sabbatical:2017/18
Caroline Osella
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Caroline Osella
Kerala, South Asia, South Asian diaspora: ethnophysiology, concepts of person, gender, ethnicity, psychology and anthropology.
  • Tel: + 44 (0)20 7898 4427
  • Email: co6@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 582
  • On Sabbatical:Terms 1 and 2
Damian Walter
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Damian Walter

Nepal; shamanism and ritual practice; anthropological theory, past and present

Emma Crewe
Professor of Social Anthropology
Emma Crewe
South Asia and the UK; anthropology of institutions (including the UK parliament and development NGOs), international development, policy, planning and practice, technology, gender, children's rights, violence and inequality.

Development

Jonathan Goodhand
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Jonathan Goodhand
South and Central Asia; complex political emergencies, humanitarian aid; NGO capacity building, aid, conflict and development
  • Tel: +44 (0)20 7898 4483
  • Email: jg27@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 258
  • Office Hours: Wed 1 - 2 and Thurs 3 - 4
  • On Sabbatical:Full Year (18/19)
Richard Axelby
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Richard Axelby

Richard Axelby is an anthropologist whose research interests span three interlinked areas: natural resource use; citizenship and identity, and the politics of development.

Feyzi Ismail
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Staff Silhouette

NGOs and social movements, politics and development in Nepal and South Asia, global protest and change, alternatives to neoliberalism and imperialism.

  • Tel: 020 7898 4723
  • Email: fi2@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 4418
  • Office Hours: Tue. 1 - 3
Anna Larson
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Anna Larson

Democratisation in Afghanistan and other conflict-affected states, with a particular focus on gender and democratic institutions (elections, political parties and the legislature). Recently this has included work on the impact of Afghanistan's reserved seats system for women, the way elections shape and are shaped by local political landscapes, the internal dynamics of Afghan national assembly, political party institutionalisation and women's role in parties over time.

  • Email: al46@soas.ac.uk
  • Office Hours: TBC on Moodle (following reading week)
Jens Lerche
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Jens Lerche
India; labour, social movements and globalisation; labour and the ILO; labour and caste in India; agrarian political economy.
  • Tel: 020 7898 4505
  • Email: jl2@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 295
  • Office Hours: Wednesday 12 - 2
  • On Sabbatical:Term 1 (18/19)
Alessandra Mezzadri
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Alessandra Mezzander
International trade, global commodity chains; production networks and industrial systems; informality and processes of labour informalisation; inequality and social structures of oppression; gender, feminisms and reproduction; the political economy of the garment industry; the political economy of India  
  • Tel: 0207 898 4533
  • Email: am99@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 4421
  • Office Hours: Wednesday 11-1pm
Peter P Mollinga
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Peter Mollinga
South Asia, Central Asia; comparative political sociology of water resources and development; technology and agrarian change; boundary work in natural resources management; interdisciplinary social theory.
  • Tel: +44(0) 20 7898 4631
  • Email: pm35@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 4415
  • On Sabbatical:Terms 2 and 3 (18/19)
Paolo Novak
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Paolo Novak

Trans-nationality with particular reference to migration; refugee regime; borders and NGOs.

  • Tel: 020 7898 4214
  • Email: pn4@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 368
  • Office Hours: Mon. 3 - 5 (Term 1 & 2); By appointment (Term 3)
  • On Sabbatical:Terms 2 and 3 (18/19)
Nigel Poole
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Nigel Poole

Research: Agri-health and nutrition, natural resources and food value chains, poverty reduction.

Navtej K Purewal
Deputy Director, SOAS South Asia Institute
Navtej K Purewal

Purewal’s interests fall within two areas, both with a distinctive Punjab (India and Pakistan) focus. The first is on feminist scholarship and gender in South Asia, including female feticide and routes and barriers to girls’ education. The second area is the sociology of religion. Purewal was the principal investigator on a large project under the Religion and Society programme (AHRC and ESRC) on popular religious practices and contemporary transgressions of religious boundaries in South Asia focusing specifically on the region of Punjab across India and Pakistan.

Tom Selwyn
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Tom Selwyn

Tom Selwyn is a Professorial Research Associate at the Department of Anthropology and Sociology and the London Middle East Institute. He was awarded an Emeritus Professorial Research Fellowship by the Leverhulme Foundation in 2014. He is widely published in the field of the anthropology of tourism/pilgrimage with regional interests in Palestine/Israel and Bosnia-Herzegovina. He directed/co-directed four major research and development projects in Palestine and Bosnia-Herzegovina for the European Commission between 1995-2005; founded the MA in the Anthropology of Travel, Tourism, and Pilgrimage at SOAS in 2010; and was awarded the Lucy Mair medal by the Royal Anthropological Institute in 2009. Recent publications include 'The Future of Palestinian Tourism' in Isaac,R., CM Hall, F. Higgins-Desbiolles (eds), 2016, Power and Politics of Tourism in Palestine, London, Routledge; 'Tourism and Sight Prevention' in Andrews, H.(ed) 2016, Tourism and Violence, London, Routledge; 'The Rise and Fall of Orientalism in Travel, Tourism, and Pilgrimage: Report from Palestine/Israel', Tourism, Culture, and Communication, 17, 2017.

Bhavani Shankar
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Bhavani Shankar

Research: Analysis of economic drivers of over- and under-nutrition, nutrition transition, dietary policy evaluation, impact assessment and the role of agriculture in enabling better nutrition and health.

Subir Sinha
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Subir Sinha
South Asia: institutions of development, NGOs, social movements; the environment, common property institutions and resource use
  • Tel: +44(0) 20 7898 4495
  • Email: ss61@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 287
  • Office Hours: Mon. 11 - 1

Economics

Antonio Andreoni
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Antonio Andreoni

Production Structures and Capabilities; Learning, Organisations and Innovation; Automation and Robots; Industrial Ecosystems; Linkages, Diversification and Industrial Renewal; Financialisation of manufacturing; Political economy of industrial development; Political settlements and corruption; Structural Economic Dynamics; Global Policy.

  • Tel: +44(0) 207 898 4107
  • Email: aa155@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 231
  • Office Hours: Fridays: 13:00 to 15:00 (Term 1)
Sonali Deraniyagala
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Staff Silhouette
South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa: technical change and productivity in manufacturing, industrial policy, the impact of trade liberalisation on manufacturing performance
  • Tel: 020 7898 4515
  • Email: sd11@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 297
  • Office Hours: Tuesdays: 1pm - 3pm
Mushtaq Khan
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Mushtaq Khan
South and South East Asia: institutional economics and political economy; the economics of rent seeking, corruption and patron-client networks; late industrialisation and the state
  • Tel: 020 7898 4546
  • Email: mk100@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 233
  • Office Hours: Fridays: 15:00 to 17:00 (Term 2)
Satoshi Miyamura
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Satoshi Miyamura
Regions: South & East Asia. Countries: India, Japan. Subjects: Development economics, Labour economics, Institutional economics, Labour-management bargaining; Research methods in economics.
  • Tel: +44 (0)20 7898 4544
  • Email: sm97@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 275
  • Office Hours: Mondays: 10:00 to 11:00 and 13:00 to 14:00
Pallavi Roy
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Pallavi Roy

Pallavi is a lecturer in International Economics at the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at SOAS.

  • Tel: +44 (0)20 7898 4833
  • Email: pr16@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 235
  • Office Hours: Monday 2-4pm
  • On Sabbatical:2017/18

Finance & Management

Pasquale Scaramozzino
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Pasquale Scaramozzino
Macroeconomics; fiscal policy; applied econometrics
  • Tel: 020 7898 4055
  • Email: ps6@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 528
  • Office Hours: Monday 3 - 5 (or by email appointment)

History

Michael W. Charney
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Michael Charney
The history of Buddhist societies in South and Southeast Asia and of culture, technology, and warfare in colonial Africa and Asia
  • Tel: 020 7898 4612
  • Email: mc62@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 237
  • Office Hours: Wednesdays 2-3pm or by appointment.
Roy Fischel
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Roy Fischel

History of precolonial South Asia, in particular Muslim polities and societies; the Deccan, 1300-1700; South Asia and the early modern Muslim world.

  • Tel: 020 7898 4643
  • Email: rf26@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 326
  • Office Hours: Mondays, 2.00pm-4.00pm
Eleanor Newbigin
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Eleanor Newbigin

History of modern South Asia, particularly the transition to independence; gender, family and law in colonial and post-colonial India

  • Tel: 020 7898 4625
  • Email: en2@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 307
  • Office Hours: Tuesdays from 2-4pm and by appointment
Mandy Sadan
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Mandy Sadan

Ethnicity and conflict in mainland South East Asia, cultural production, non-national histories of Eastern Himalayas and South East Asian Massif and the South, South East and East Asian borderworlds of Burma

  • Tel: 020 7898 4622
  • Email: ms114@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 302
  • Office Hours: By email appointment
Shabnum Tejani
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Shabnum Tejani

Nineteenth and twentieth century social and intellectual history, particularly of the Bombay Presidency; communalism and nationalism in India; debates around secularism and religious intolerance

  • Tel: 020 7898 4613
  • Email: st40@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 314
  • Office Hours: Mondays 3-5pm

History of Art & Archaeology

Crispin Branfoot
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Crispin Branfoot
Architecture, sculpture and painting in South Asia, especially in southern India; pilgrimage and sacred geography; material religion; colonialism and material culture.
Heather Elgood, MBE
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Hettie Elgood
Dr Heather Elgood is the Course Director of the Diploma in Asian Art. She is a specialist in Persian, Jain, Sultanate and Mughal manuscript painting as well as the ritual arts of Hinduism.
  • Tel: 020 7898 4445
  • Email: he2@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: B310
  • Office Hours: Tuesdays 2-5pm or by email appointment

Languages and Cultures

Sahana Bajpaie
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Sahana Bajpaie
  • Tel: +44(0) 20 7898 4648
  • Email: sb165@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 374
  • Office Hours: Tues & Wed: 15.00 - 16.00, By Appointment Only
James Caron
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
James Caron

Islam in South Asia; Afghanistan and Pakistan; Indo-Persianate sociocultural history; transnational non-Western history; activism and social movements.

  • Tel: +44 (0)20 7898 4295
  • Email: jc84@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 468
  • Office Hours: Tuesdays 3-5 p.m
Rachel Dwyer
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Rachel Dwyer
Hindi Cinema; Indian popular culture; Indian film; Hinduism; new middle classes; Mumbai/Bombay; Gujarati language and literature; Gujarati diaspora esp UK and East Africa; comparative Indian literature.
  • Tel: 020 7898 4294
  • Email: rd3@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 457
  • Office Hours: Tues: 13.30-15.30.Please e-mail for an appointment
Michael J Hutt
Member
Michael Hutt
Nepali literature; the Nepali media; Nepali politics; Bhutanese refugees.
  • Tel: 020 7898 4286
  • Email: mh8@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 359
  • Office Hours: On research leave in 2017/18
Stefanie Lotter
LOTTER Stefanie - SA IMG - 485 186 56

Nepali society and culture; museology; social and cultural anthropology of the Himalaya; elite studies; heritage studies

  • Tel: +44(0)20 7898 4711
  • Email: sl70@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 460
  • Office Hours: Tuesdays: 12.00-13.00 & Wednesdays: 11.00-12.00
David Lunn
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
David Lunn

19th and 20th century Hindi and Urdu literature; cinema; music; journalism; north Indian literary history; intellectual history; literary translation; literary and cultural history of Southeast Asia; Malay.

Rakesh Nautiyal
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Nautiyal Rakesh - SA IMG - 240, 186, 56
Hindi language
  • Tel: +44(0) 20 7898 4304
  • Email: rn17@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 452
  • Office Hours: Tues & Fri: 10.00-11.00 by Email Appointment
Francesca Orsini
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Francesca Orsini
Hindi Literature; North Indian literary cultures; Hindi; Urdu.
  • Tel: + 44(0)20 7898 4242
  • Email: fo@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 419
  • Office Hours: Tuesdays 11:00 - 13:00. Email for an appointment
Krishna Pradhan
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Staff Silhouette
Nepali Language
  • Tel: +44 (0)20 7898 4297
  • Email: kp15@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 460
  • Office Hours: Mondays 11:00 - 13:00
Naresh Sharma
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Naresh Sharma
Urdu and Hindi language
  • Tel: +44(0) 20 7898 4296
  • Email: ns19@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 452
  • Office Hours: Monday 1-2pm; Thursday 3-4pm
Amina Yaqin
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Amina Yaqin
Urdu language and literature; post-colonial literature and theory; gender studies; South Asian literatures in English; feminism in a Third World context; gender and politics in Pakistan
  • Tel: +44(0) 20 7898 4305
  • Email: ay@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 470
  • Office Hours: Wednesday 13.30pm-14.30pm; Friday 13.30-14.30pm

Law

Samia Bano
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Samia Bano

Muslim Family law in the UK and Europe, Family Law, Multiculturalism, Citizenship, Islamic Jurisprudence and Human Rights, Feminist and Critical Social and Political Theories, Issues concerning the rights of Muslim women and Gender Equality.

  • Tel: +44 (0)20 7898 4668
  • Email: sb169@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: S134
  • Office Hours: Monday 13:00 - 15:00
Philippe Cullet
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Philippe Cullet
Law and environment, law and natural resources, intellectual property, water, human rights, international law, India.
  • Tel: +44 (0)20 7898 4651
  • Email: pc38@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: S338
  • Office Hours: Wednesday 15:00 to 17:00
  • On Sabbatical:Term 2 (2018/19)
Vanja Hamzić
Member
Vanja Hamzić

Law and Society of South Asia (esp. Pakistan), South East Asia (esp. Indonesia) and West Africa (esp. Senegal); Islamic Law; Legal and Social History; Legal and Social Anthropology; Gender, Sexuality and the Law; Colonialism and Slavery in the 18th and 19th Centuries; Marxism; Critical Theory; Law of Tort; Global Law/Governance; Cold War Studies.

  • Tel: +44 (0)20 7898 4501
  • Email: vh1@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: S336
  • Office Hours: Monday 15:30-17:30
Kanika Sharma
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Kana Sharma

Law and colonialism; Law and society in South Asia (especially gender issues); Law, image, and architecture; Psychoanalytic jurisprudence; Critical legal theory

  • Tel: +44 (0) 20 7898 4657
  • Email: ks72@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: S339
  • Office Hours: Tuesday 11:30 - 12:30 & Wednesday 11:30 - 12:30
Mayur Suresh
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Staff Silhouette

Anti-terror laws (particularly of South Asia); law and anthropology; legal theory (particularly on theories of emergency legality); sexuality and gender identity in South Asia.

  • Tel: +44 (0)20 7898 4646
  • Email: ms148@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: S333
  • Office Hours: Monday 15:00 - 17:00
  • On Sabbatical:Term 2 & 3 (2018/19) tbc

Library & Information Services

Burzine K Waghmar
Member, SOAS South Asia Institute
Staff Silhouette

Indo-Iranian History, Historical Geography and Philology (Avestan, Old Persian, Parthian, Pahlavi, Sanskrit, Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Urdu, Pashto, Balochi and Kashmiri); Languages and Religions of Late Antiquity and the Silk Road (Bactrian, Khotanese, Sogdian, contacts among Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism and early Islam); Pakistan studies (Ancient and early Medieval History, Dardic and Nuristani dialectology, ethnography and topography of NWFP, FATA, Northern Areas and Trans-Karakoram Tract); Pakistani minorities; HUMINT counterterrorism and linguistic analysis; South Asian Muslim psycho-sociology; Muslim non-Muslim relations (Iran, Pakistan, Bangladesh).

  • Tel: +44 (0)20 7898 4144
  • Email: bw3@soas.ac.uk
  • Office Hours: Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays

Media & Film

Somnath Batabyal
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Somnath Batabyal

South Asia with a focus on India; transnational news spheres with a special focus on India; Development discourses in India and its articulation in mainstream and alternate news forums; environmental politics.

Murali Shanmugavelan
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Murali Shanmugavelan

India; Tamil Nadu; caste (and media); Dalits; mass media; critical media theory; mobile phones; digital media practices including mobile apps; ethnography of communication and media; social anthropology 

Music

Richard Widdess
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Richard Widdess
History and theory of Indian classical music; dhrupad; Newar music of Nepal; historical ethnomusicology; analysis of musical performance; cognitive approaches to music; music and meaning; music and religion
  • Tel: 020 7898 4685
  • Email: rw4@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 507
  • Office Hours: Wednesdays 11 - 1
Richard Williams
Academic Staff
Richard Williams

Music of South Asia; Hindustani classical music; historical ethnomusicology; cultural history; historical musicology and musical aesthetics; lyric, song, and musical literature; music and gender; music and religion; history of emotions

Politics & International Studies

Rochana Bajpai
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Rochana Bajpai

Contemporary political theory, particularly multiculturalism; methodology, particularly political ideologies; modern Indian politics

  • Tel: 020 7898 4750
  • Email: rb6@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 208
  • Office Hours: Thursdays 3pm - 5pm
Sutha Nadarajah
Sutha Nadarajah

International security; peacebuilding; securitized development; civil wars; North-South relations.

  • Tel: +44 (0)20 7898 4464
  • Email: sn22@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 4435
  • Office Hours: Tues 5-6pm and Wed 6-7pm
Matthew J Nelson
Academic Staff
Matthew Nelson
Comparative Politics, Comparative Political Thought, South Asia, Islam, non-elite politics, democracy.
  • Tel: +44 (0)20 7898 4742
  • Email: mn6@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 218
  • Office Hours: Wednesdays, 11am - 1pm
  • On Sabbatical:Term 2 & 3 2017/18
Rahul Rao
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Rahul Rao
International relations theory, critical theory (especially postcolonial and queer
theory), comparative political thought, gender and sexuality, South Asia
  • Tel: +44 (0)20 7898 4534
  • Email: rr18@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 4423
  • Office Hours: Fridays 2pm - 4pm
Lawrence Sáez
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Lawrence Saez

International political economy, comparative political economy, emerging markets; energy security; fiscal federalism; South Asia

  • Tel: +44 (0)20 7898 4725
  • Email: ls4@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 202
  • Office Hours: Wednesdays 1-3pm
Simona Vittorini
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Simona Vittorini

Nationalism; South Asian politics; modern Indian politics

  • Tel: +44(0) 20 7898 4573
  • Email: sv4@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 461
  • Office Hours: Tuesdays 11:00 - 13:00

Study of Religions

Peter Flügel
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Peter Flügel

Jaina Studies; South Asian History & Culture; Anthropology & Sociology of Religion

  • Tel: +44 (0)20 7898 4776
  • Email: pf8@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 341
  • Office Hours: Mondays 3-4pm
Sian Hawthorne
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Sian Hawthorne

Narrativity; Cultural Memory; Religion and Gender; Feminist Historiography; Postcolonial theory; Postsecularism and gender; Intellectual history in the study of religions.

  • Tel: 020 7898 4215
  • Email: sh79@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 337
  • Office Hours: Wednesdays 11am-1pm
  • On Sabbatical:Research leave - Term 2 - 2017-18
Almut Hintze
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Almut Hintze

Professor Hintze takes an interest in all aspects of Zoroastrianism, the religion of pre-Islamic Iran.

  • Tel: 020 7898 4598
  • Email: ah69@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 334
  • Office Hours: Office hours: by appointment
Ulrich Pagel
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Ulrich Pagel

History of Buddhism in Tibet, Mahāyāna Buddhism, Kanjur Studies, Vinaya, Religions of Central Asia, Tibetan, Sanskrit. 

  • Tel: +44 (0)20 7898 4782
  • Email: up1@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: Room 343
  • Office Hours: Mondays 4:00-5:30 p.m
Cosimo Zene
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Cosimo Zene

Anthropology of religion, theory in the study of religions, continental philosophy, Gramsci and religion, intercultural and inter-religious dialogue, minorities (Dalits), mysticism and heresy, non-Western Christianities, Mediterranean anthropology; South-Asia (India, Bangladesh), Sardinia, world philosophies.

Richard Axelby
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Richard Axelby

Richard Axelby is an anthropologist whose research interests span three interlinked areas: natural resource use; citizenship and identity, and the politics of development.

Sonali Deraniyagala
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Staff Silhouette
South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa: technical change and productivity in manufacturing, industrial policy, the impact of trade liberalisation on manufacturing performance
  • Tel: 020 7898 4515
  • Email: sd11@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 297
  • Office Hours: Tuesdays: 1pm - 3pm

Professorial Research Associates

Peter Robb
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Peter Robb

The history of modern South Asia; early Calcutta, c.1780-1830, Indian agrarian history, especially Bihar and Eastern India.

Werner Menski
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute
Werner Menski
Classical and modern Hindu law; Muslim Law; Laws of South Asia; Family law; Comparative law; South Asians in the UK; Immigration law; Ethnic minorities

Research Associates

Bisakha Goswami
Research Associate, SOAS South Asia Institute
Bisakha Goswami

Historical ethnomusicology of South Asia focusing on India, Sanskrit manuscripts on Indian musicology, music and gender studies, Rabindrasangit.

Mara Malagodi
Research Associate
Mara Malagodi

South Asian laws and politics, especially Nepal, India and Pakistan; comparative constitutional law; law and conflict; human rights

Jennifer Ung Loh
Research Associate, SOAS South Asia Institute
IMG Jennifer Ung Loh

Gender and sexuality, particularly in India; LGBT movements; gender and law 

Ayesha Siddiqa
Research Associate, SOAS South Asia Institute
Ayesha Siddiqa

Dr. Ayesha Siddiqa is an expert on civil-military relations in South Asia. She has worked extensively on Pakistan military - its politics, decision-making and arms procurement. In the past few years her work has focused on understanding the drivers of radicalism and militancy in Punjab and Sindh that led her to explore the ideological and philosophical linkages between South Asia and the Middle East with an emphasis on transfer of knowledge since the late 18th century.  

Post-Doctoral Research Fellows

Adrija Dey
Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, South Asia Institute
Adrija Dey - ad84 - SSAI - IMG

Dr Adrija Dey is currently a British Academy post-doctoral research fellow at the SOAS South Asia Institute. Her research is titled Gender Based Violence in Indian Universities: A Study of Campus Life, Student Activism, and Institutional Responses.

Charles Wallace Trust Research Fellows

Nukhbah Taj Langah
Nukhbag-nl18-SSAI

Postcolonial and South Asian Studies with emphasis on resistance in regional literature (primarily poetry) from Pakistan. Translation: Theory and Praxis.

Epsita Halder
Epsita Halder - eh32 - SSAI

Popular piety, Muslim sonic and visual cultures and the impact of new media on vernacular Islam of Bengal.