Social Sciences

Safwan Amir is a social anthropologist with a keen interest in histories of the present. He specialises in anthropology of religion and sociology of caste with a focus on Muslim lifeworlds. Prior to joining Ahmedabad University, he was at Krea University as a Senior Research Associate for the World Humanities Report – India/South Asia, a joint initiative by the CHCI and CIPSH, in collaboration with UNESCO, and supported by the Andrew W Mellon Foundation. He was a Fulbright Visiting Doctoral Fellow at the Department of Anthropology, Columbia University in New York between 2017 and 2018.

He is trained in a variety of disciplines that include sociology/anthropology, history, literature, and Islamic studies. He holds a Masters in sociology from the Delhi School of Economics and a Bachelors in English Honours from Ramjas College, Delhi University. Professor Amir is currently working on a manuscript which is a revision of his PhD dissertation titled The Muslim Barbers of Malabar: Histories of Contempt and Ethics of Possibility. As an Assistant Professor at the School of Arts and Sciences, Ahmedabad University, he contributes to building linkages between humanities and social sciences intellectually.
 

Safwan Amir’s research area broadly covers Islam and South Asia across premodern and modern eras. He is particularly interested in questions around embodiment, time, and work. His work is primarily ethnographic research and utilises sources as varied as novels, poems, supplications, songs, jurisprudence manuals, ethical booklets, oral narratives, rejected articles, and writings on water. Professor Amir’s PhD, a historical anthropology, looks at how the barber, from a position of possibilities in the past, comes to be the subject of contempt in the contemporary. It is an intervention in the domains of “Caste and Islam” and “Anthropology of Islam”.

• Amir, S. 2024. 'Staying Committed, Staying Relevant: Publishing Margins in India’, The World Humanities Report, CHCI
• Amir, S. 2024. ‘Temporary Sisterhoods: Thinking Ethics Through Postnatal Care Among South Asian Muslims’ in Care(ful) Relationships Between Mothers and the Caregivers They Hire, eds. Katie B. Garner and Andrea O’Reilly, Demeter Press.
• Amir, S. 2023. ‘The Ethical in the Transmission of Sunnah: Rethinking the ‘Ulama-Qussas Conflict’’ in Hadith and Ethics Through the Lens of Interdisciplinarity, ed. Mutaz al-Khatib, Brill. 
• Amir, S and Mital, I. 2021. ‘The Anatomy Of Obesity: Cartman And The Economy Of Consumption In South Park’ in Food Culture Studies in India: Consumption, Representation and Mediation, Springer Nature.
• Amir, S. 2019. ‘Contempt and Labour: An Exploration through Muslim Barbers of South Asia’ in Religions 10 (11), 616 (https://doi.org/10.3390/rel10110616)
• Amir, S. 2014. ‘History of Kathakali: Of art, agency, and aesthetics’ in Literophile, Issue 3, Volume 7: ‘History: Writing/Re-Writing - Manipulation?’ 
• Amir, S and Mital, I. 2013. “I’m Not Fat! I’m Big Bones: Cartman’s Diet and Appetite for Authority” in Literophile, Issue 3, Volume 6: ‘Consumerism, and Cultures in Consumption’
   

• Self and Society in the Study of Religion
• Caste and the Contemporary
• Ahmedabad as a Gateway to the World
• Historical Anthropology
• Ethics and the Everyday
• Anthropology of Islam
• Qualitative Research Methods
• Ethnography
• Sociology of India
   

• “Basheer and the Barber: Limits to Provincialising Modernity” in 1st Modernities Redefined Conference, Gitam University, Bangalore on 22nd February 2024
• “The Barber-nama: Ordinary Stories, Extraordinary Storytellers” Invited speaker, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment, Bangalore on 21st February 2024
• “Pamuk’s Istanbul” In conversation with the author Pallavi Narayan, Ahmedabad Writing Program, Ahmedabad on 14th February 2024
• “Affect and Shari’ah: Exploring Emotions in the Islamic Tradition” Invited speaker, Hadhara Dialogue, Department of Civilization Studies, Darul Huda University, Chemmad on 26th December 2023
• “Modernity, Ethics and the Self: Formations and Contestations” Invited speaker, Bukhari Knowledge Festival, Kondotty on 26th December 2023
• “The Study of Islam in India: Old and new trajectories” Invited speaker, Ma’din Academy, Malappuram on 17th December 2023
• “Alternative Ethics: Theorising Tradition from the Field” Invited speaker, School of Advanced Studies, CISR, University of Calicut, Calicut on 14th December 2023
• “The Tradition of Loving the Prophet: An alternative genealogy to South Asian Islam” Invited speaker, Humanities & Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar on 28th September 2023 
• “An Egyptian Saint across Time and Space: Rethinking Vulnerability in the Indian Ocean” in ‘Indian Ocean Crossings cluster’ (cluster conveners: Safwan Amir & Murari Jha), 14th Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Biennial Conclave, Ahmedabad on 28th July 2023
•  “Ocean as Method” In conversation with Professor Dilip Menon, 14th Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Biennial Conclave, Ahmedabad on 28th July 2023
• “Downcastes: Situating Muslims in Contemporary India” Invited speaker, ‘Hindu Majoritarianism, Caste Politics and Minoritisation’ workshop, Swedish South Asian Studies Network, Lund University, Lund on 30 May 2023
• “Affect, Caste, and Cinema” Invited speaker, ‘Representation in Indian Cinema’ panel, National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, Ahmedabad on 13th April 2023
• “The Muslim Midwife as Mediator: Rethinking Premodern Gender Relations in Malabar” Invited speaker, Ka.Cha.Da.Tha.Pa, Olive Literary Festival, Calicut on 4th December 2022
• “Origins of the Muslim Barbers of Malabar: Recovering pasts through the field” Invited speaker, Ka.Cha.Da.Tha.Pa, Olive Literary Festival, Calicut on 3rd December 2022
• “From method to concept: Vestigiality as an intercessor in the Anthropology of Islam” in ‘Muslim imaginaries beyond mediation’ panel, 17th European Association of Social Anthropologists Biennial Conference, Queen’s University Belfast on 26th July 2022
• “Formations of the South Asian Muslim Elite: A Modern History of Caste and Islam” in ‘Caste among Muslims’ panel, British Association for South Asian Studies Annual Conference, University of Southampton on 1st April 2022
• “Rethinking Caste Studies In/Via The Islamic Tradition: The Case Of A Muslim Barber’s Rejected Article” Invited speaker, International Webinar on Caste among Non-Hindus, Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi on 11th November 2021
• “Young Minorities: Concerns and Hope” Invited speaker, Vidyajyoti College of Theology, Delhi on 30th September 2021
•  “Tracing Islamic Pasts From Field: Towards A Vestigial Approach” in the 13th Annual Anthropology in Transit Conference by Department of Anthropology, University of California, Irvine on 10th April 2021
• “The Caste Conundrum: Marriage in the Islamic Tradition” in international conference on Islamic Traditions and Practices in South India by Department of Historical Studies, The New College, Chennai, India on 2nd March 2020
• “The Ethical Dimension of Absence/Presence in Transmitting Sunnah: Rethinking the ‘Ulama-Qussas Conflict” in Hadith and Ethics: Concepts, Approaches and Theoretical Foundations by Research Centre for Islamic Legislation and Ethics, Hamad bin Khalifa University, Doha, Qatar on 30th April 2019
• “‘To Sit and Tell Stories’: Islamic Preaching Practices in Early Malabar” in Raw.Con Annual National Conference by Centre for Comparative Literature, University of Hyderabad on 28th February 2019
• “Caste and Islam” Invited speaker, panel discussion by Compass Foundation for Academic Networking, Chair for Islamic Studies & Research, University of Calicut on 19th August 2017
• "Research and its nuances: Scope in Arts and Social Sciences" Invited speaker, department of English, Farook college, Calicut on 1st August 2017
• "Studying the Mappila: the inevitable past, present, and future" in 6th French Network on Asia conference by GIS ASIE, Sciences Po, Paris - France on 28th June 2017
• "Historicizing Fields, Rethinking Archives: Of Genealogies and Ethnographies" in '1st National Level Young Researchers Workshop; sponsored by UGC-SAP, Department of Sociology, University of Hyderabad on 22nd January 2015
• “I’m Not Fat! I’m Big Bones!: Cartman’s Diet and Appetite for Authority” in Food for Thought; seminar by Outreach Programme, Jamia Millia Islamia University on 18th April 2013
• “Going Down South Park: Goin Outta line” in Coming Apart at the seams: Interrogating Madness; seminar by Grub Street, Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi on 3rd March 2012
• “Depoliticization” Invited speaker, Politics in Delhi University, Ramjas Literary Society, Ramjas College, University of Delhi on 1st September 2009
   

• 2017 – 2018: Fulbright Nehru Doctoral Fellowship, Education and Cultural Affairs, U. S. Department of State.
• 2016 – 2017: MIDS Institute Fellowship, Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai
• 2013 – 2015: ICSSR Doctoral Fellowship, Indian Council for Social Sciences Research, Delhi