The below A-Z directory provides profiles of all Research Fellows, listed alphabetically by surname.
A - B C - F G - J K - L M - O P - R S T - Z
Featured Research Fellow:
Masooda Bano, ESRC/AHRC Research Fellow at Oxford Department of International Development (ODID) & Wolfson College
In recent years, development theory and practice has come to recognize that informal institutions, such as norms, values and beliefs, matter just as much, if not more, in shaping development trajectories followed by different societies, as do the formal economic and political institutions.
My intellectual curiosity rests in understanding the working of informal institutions, with a particular interest in mapping the processes of change or consolidation within them. I also love exploring how developments within informal institutions often closely correlate with developments in the formal institutions and vice versa.
My book ‘The Rational Believer: Choices and Decisions in the Madrasas of Pakistan’, published by Cornell University Press in March 2012 dwells on these very questions by drawing on rich ethnographic and survey data on madrasas in Pakistan. It provides an insight into the working of madrasa hierarchy in Pakistan before moving on to counter the claims that link Pakistani madrasas to recruitment for jihad. The book also provides my initial findings on factors shaping the emergence and birth of female madrasas in Pakistan— a subject which is the focus of my current comparative project on Pakistan, northern Nigeria and Syria.
My other major monograph, Breakdown in Pakistan: How Aid is Eroding Institutions for Collective Action, also published this March with Stanford University Press, tests similar theoretical concerns while looking at another development puzzle: aid given in the name to mobilize collective action in developing countries often is seen to have a reverse impact, groups that worked very well lose their members when aid becomes available. Why aid often erodes existing stock of social capital in a community or hinders the process of generating dense social networks, is today a serious development challenge. Drawing on ethnographic and survey data, I demonstrate that existing mechanisms of aid disbursement provide strong material incentives to motive the leaders of these groups, leading to a ‘crowding out effect’ whereby the leaders’ intrinsic motivation to undertake activity is gradually crowded out. This changed motivation, changes the behavior of the leaders of the groups in ways that gradually makes their members start to questions their commitment.
Having both the monographs out at the same time is a great feeling. I hope the books will generate active discussion and debate. It was a pleasure to see that the launch this March of Women, Leadership, and Mosques: Changes in Contemporary Islamic Authority (Brill, 2012), a large volume on female Islamic preachers, that I co-edited, generated much interest. Apart from working on my next monograph that provides a detailed account of the interplay between the global and local forces that have led to the birth and expansion of female Islamic movements since 1970s across the Muslim world, I am currently developing another large comparative project on changing patterns of knowledge formation within Muslim societies and Muslim communities in diaspora. The first conference under this project will take place in Oxford this August. Thus, it is exciting time ahead!
