Khalid Anis Ansari

Areas of Interest & Expertise

  • Democracy, Populism, and Social Movements
  • Sociology of Caste and Religion
  • Pluralism and Minority Studies
  • Discourse Analysis

Biography

Khalid Anis Ansari is a sociologist interested in postcolonial modernity, democratic deepening, anti-caste movements, and transformative politics in general. Khalid acquired his PhD from the University of Humanistic Studies (UvH), Utrecht, The Netherlands. 

His doctoral work explored the conceptual relationship between pluralism, democracy, and internal minorities through the case study of the anti-caste Pasmanda Muslim movement in India. He has emphasised the limitations of the dominant religious lens (and associated conceptual dyads like majority-minority and secularism-communalism) in understanding contemporary minority politics. 

His most recent publication is an article titled Revisiting the minority imagination: An inquiry into the anticaste Pasmanda-Muslim discourse in India’ (Critical Philosophy of Race, 2023).

Before joining the University, Khalid worked as an Associate Professor of Sociology at Glocal University and headed the Ambedkar Centre for Exclusion Studies and Transformative Action (ACESTA). Khalid has an experience of over twenty years in the academic and social sectors. Before joining academics in 2013, he was associated with various community development projects supported by international agencies such as the Hivos, Mensen met een Missie, Action Aid, and The Gandhi Foundation. 

Khalid advocates and engages passionately with democratic social movements. He has published and lectured widely in reputed academic and popular spaces. Khalid is a research partner with the Simagine International Research Consortium, visiting scholar at the US-based advocacy and policy collective South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT), and on the advisory board of Hindus for Human Rights (HfHR).

He enjoys cooking, playing badminton, and listening to music in his leisure time.

Courses

Publications

Chapters in Edited Books

Journal Articles

Working Paper

Book Review

Newspaper Articles

Magazine articles

Online Articles

Blog Posts

Interviews

Translation

  • Yakoob, K. (2011). Awwal Kalima (Ansari, K.A., Trans.). Hans, 298(1), 88 – 89. (Original work published in 2010).

Conferences, Workshops and Talks

Videos