Dr Riyad Mustafa

Riyad Mustafa holds a DPhil and MPhil from Oxford and a B.A. in Anthropology and Development Studies from the American University in Cairo. Prior to his doctoral research he has worked with a number of UN agencies, civil society organisations and research centres on Organizational Development, Refugee Issues, Capacity Building, Advocacy and Training.

Research Interests

Riyad Mustafa's doctoral research was an ethnographic study of Ban Krua locality, a Muslim community in Bangkok, Thailand. The research focus was on community rights, social reform and cosmopolitan, humanist, universal ethics at the grassroots level. Ban Krua was for over 12 years, under threat of eviction by the government which intended to utilise the urban space to construct an expressway. The community members' non-violent civil protest became a model of a successful civil right protest in modern Thai history as it eventually resulted in blocking the eviction project. In the process, new place-making contexts were produced by the locals which generated, at the community level, new values stressing the autonomy of the individual, freedom of choice, and the right of self-invention. Riyad studied the community before and after the end of its protest, and traced the social transformations that accompanied the locals' enhanced awareness of human rights and political participation. Main themes of research: included: Islam, diversity, ritual and performance; embodiment of cosmopolitanism; anthropology of emotion; and identity politics, urban governance and place.

His current research interest include: Muslims and Cosmpolitanism; diversity, policing and communal ethics; Anthropology, qualitative analysis and research new methodologies (including digital anthropology and online ethnography). In addition to the monitoring and evaluation of various government and non-government development and relief projects in the Middle East and Southeast Asia regions

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