Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Office: Atalpa 221
Tel.: +358 (0)40 190 1351
Email: ali.qadir@tuni.fi
Research interests
My research interests center on global similarities and variations in cultural transformations wrought by processes of modernization. I have an abiding interest in global Islam, sociological institutionalism, and philosophical hermeneutics. My current research project at the Collegium, entitled Governing God: Parliamentary discourses on Islam in the modern world polity, focuses on modern political governance of Islam. My aim in this research is to investigate how Islam is governed in national societies that are all, today, globally integrated. For this, I adopt a sociological institutionalist approach to examine parliamentary debates in the 21st century across four countries. The research also draws on recent developments in religious studies regarding post-secularism.
My doctoral dissertation, entitled Tangential Modernity: Culture of Higher Education Reform in Pakistan, has been published by the Tampere University Press. The dissertation explores cultural trends underlying modern higher education reform in Pakistan and their historical construction, emphasizing continuities between contemporary patterns and British colonial institution of education for Muslims in the sub-continent. I am also presently co-editing and contributing to a book entitled National Policy-Making: Domestication of Global Trends to be published by Routledge this December. In addition, I have in published in international journals on social sciences, culture, and religion, besides contributing to books and writing policy reports in these fields. For a complete list of publications, please see the UTA Research Information System here.