Biography

I work as an academic who strives to bridge research and practice, looking at questions of how we build community and common cause across lines of difference. I completed my PhD in Social Anthropology as a Gates Cambridge Scholar, held a post in Human Geography for a year at the University of Oxford, and am currently a Fellow at The Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity. At Cambridge, my research focused on how people imagined and worked to build community in a highly-diverse London neighborhood, and what drew people together or held them apart. At Oxford, I looked at how cuts to public services were impacting the experiences of first-time parents, and at how the design of our cities and services shapes possibilities for care. My current research explores how community organizers in East London work to build diverse coalitions to drive meaningful grassroots-led political change -- and who or what gets included or left behind in these processes. I am committed to producing public-facing research that's capable of producing real change, and have worked for a range of non-profit and community groups, from the small to the international.

I've written for a range of academic and popular-press publications. If you want a sense of the sort of work I do, check out: https://aeon.co/essays/whats-the-best-way-to-find-common-ground-in-public-spaces

Links

https://farhansamanani.net