Research Fellow

Email: ghulam-ali.shair@warwick.ac.uk

Location: E0.21

Instagram: Alishair_Arts

Twitter/X: @GhulamShair

Profile

Dr G. Ali Shair joined the Department of Sociology in March 2024 as a Research Fellow on the project EXIT: Exploring Sustainable Strategies To Counteract Territorial Inequalities From An Intersectional Approach , a cross-national project funded by Horizon Europe. Prior to this, Dr Shair was an Early Career Fellow in the Institute of Advanced Studies (IAS) at the University of Warwick where he had been building on his PhD research via several outputs. He completed his PhD in the Department of Sociology at the University of Warwick in 2023. Dr Shair also currently holds a part-time Teaching Fellowship in the School of Humanities at Coventry University where he is leading modules in the areas of race, media, popular culture, global divisions and inequalities.

From May 2025, Dr Shair will be a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the School of Global Studies, Sussex University, where he will commence a new project exploring the urban soundscapes of the Pakistani diaspora in Britain.

In his current role as a Research Fellow for the EXIT project, Dr Shair is playing a key role in assisting Dr Ajmal Hussain, the principal investigator for this project in the Department of Sociology. Drawing on his expertise in researching marginalised communities, Dr Shair is helping in generating and analysing data for the UK case study exploring: (a) how communities and territories come to be designated as ‘Left Behind’ in public and policy discourses; (b) perceptions held by a range of stakeholders in the two fieldwork areas of Stoke on Trent and Rochdale toward being designated as ‘Left Behind’; and (c) the ways in which communities and territories respond to the designation ‘ Left Behind’. Specifically, Dr Shair is undertaking a significant amount of the fieldwork for the project: interviews, focus groups, field observations, analysis of parliamentary debates, and social media analysis.

Research Interests

Dr Shair’s research interests lie in the areas of cultural studies, diaspora and racialised soundscapes with a particular focus on conceptualising Muslim modernity and musical sound at the intersections of ethnicity and religion. Deploying a Gramscian framework, his doctoral research explored the relationship between religious nationalism and ‘Hindustani’ classical music in the South Asian context of Pakistan. Based on ethnography, interviews, and archival research, his PhD addressed two major questions: 1) how do hereditary practitioners of Hindustani classical music in Pakistan navigate local pressures with regards to this music form’s contested place in the Pakistani National Culture? and 2) how do such pressures result in the global invisibility of Pakistani classical music?

Recently, Dr Shair has been expanding his research interests by testing the significance of cultural studies approaches/frameworks for a nuanced understanding of spatial and territorial inequalities. In particular, he is interested in exploring the sonic aspects of urban experience to conceptualise marginalities and exclusions at the intersections of race, religion, gender and class.

Selected Publications

Journal Article. (in print, expected early 2025). “Spatialising Culture: Baithaks and Surviving Scene of Classical Music in Pakistan” in HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory

Book chapter/ Peer Reviewed: Shair, G. A. (2025). "Sound and Politics of Classical Music in West Punjab", In Punjab Sounds: In and Beyond the Region. (eds. Kapuria and Duggal). New York. pp. 60-75 Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003406983

Review Article: Shair, G. A. (2024).Music in Colonial Punjab by Radha Kapuria. London: Bloomsbury Pakistan (https://bloomsburypakistan.org/book-cover-music-in-colonial-punjab/)

Book chapter: (Forthcoming) Shair, G.A. and Kalra, V. S. (2025). “South Asian Diasporic Classical Soundscape”, in Dissonant Sounds: Diaspora, Technology, Culture and Politics (eds. Bull and James). London. Bloomsbury.

Reports and Briefs:

a) Literature Review Summary: Conceptualising ‘Left-Behind’ and Territorial Inequalities in the UK (January 2023)

b) Report on the policy drivers of territorial inequalities (UK Case)

c) Report on the analysis of key policies and strategies regarding territorial inequalities (UK Case)

d) Report on the exploratory analysis of gaps between factors of inequality and perception (UK Case)

e) Policy brief on ‘left-behind’ and policy responses (UK Case)

f) Report on experiences and perceptions of being left behind in the UK

g) Report on strategies to counteract territorial inequalities in the UK

Grants and Awards:

1. Leverhulme Early Career Fellow (May 2025 - May 2028), School of Global Studies, University of Sussex.
2. IAS Award, Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Warwick
3. Early Career Fellow in the Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Warwick
4. Doctoral Bursary, The Charles Wallace Pakistan Trust
5. Chief Minister Merit Scholarship (CMMS), Punjab Education Endowment Fund (PEEF), Government of Punjab, Pakistan.