SARC Research Students

There are over 20 Wolfson research students working on South Asia, as well as a large number of students from South Asia at Wolfson who contribute to larger conversations on their home regions.

Below is a sample of their interests and work.

Nayan Bedia is a D Phil candidate in Oriental Studies exploring early modern religious practice in India.

Sohail Choudhry, currently a third year DPhil student at the Institute of Social Policy, researches the dynamics of poverty, social exclusion and shame amongst the vulnerable groups in Pakistan. This is part of a bigger 'poverty and shame project' led by Prof. Robert Walker of the Institute of Social Policy.

Prof Walker’s project is currently undertaking similar research in seven countries, which include the UK, Pakistan, India, China, Norway, Korea and Uganda. Its intended outcome is to suggest how best to design and deliver poverty reduction policies that enhance human dignity and agency.

Megan Robb's work focuses on the intersection of media and authority among Muslims in South Asia. Her current project looks at print media in the decades leading up to Independence in 1947 to determine whether engagement with media was a necessary aspect of authority for religious leaders during that period.

Umar Salam’s research interest is in the political economy of higher education and science policy, with a particular interest in South Asia. Specifically, he has been researching the knowledge economy as a development discourse through detailed case studies of those institutions that have been especially prominent in its promotion, such as the World Bank and the OECD. From a theoretical perspective, he is interested in commodification, the politics of markets and governmentality.

Stephanie Yorke studies representations of disability in the Indian novel in English for her DPhil. Her work deals with the legacy of attitudes toward disability as they are represented in contemporary writing.