Dr. Umair Javed is Assistant Professor of Politics and Sociology at the Mushtaq Gurmani School of Humanities and Social Sciences (MGSHSS). He completed his PhD at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 2018, where he was a recipient of the LSE Centennial PhD Studentship.
His doctoral research focused on politics and practices of accumulation, and labour relations in Pakistan's informal economy, with a specific focus on the retail-wholesale (bazaar) sector. More broadly, his research interests span various aspects of political economy, socio-economic informality, and urban public life in South Asia. His academic work has been published in the IDS Bulletin, Antipode, Catalyst: A Journal of Theory and Strategy, and Economic and Political Weekly. He has also contributed book chapters to volumes on Pakistan's political economy published by Cambridge University Press and Routledge, and on the sociology of South Asia published by Palgrave Macmillan. He is currently working on two major research projects: a study of social transformation, politics, and informal access to services in village settlements engulfed by urbanization in South Asian cities; and a comparative study of state welfare and citizen attitudes towards charity, taxation, and zakat in Egypt, Morocco, and Pakistan with colleagues based at the International Centre for Taxation and Development (ICTD).
Dr. Javed also contributes a fortnightly current affairs column for Pakistan's leading English-language daily, Dawn. His research and political analysis has been featured by a number of international print and electronic media outlets, including BBC, Sky News, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, The Economist, and the Washington Post.