Distinctions
Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation Emerging Scholar Award
Stanford Humanities Center Dissertation Prize Fellowship
Robert Bayard Textor Award for Outstanding Creativity in Anthropology, Stanford University
Clayman Institute for Gender Research, Graduate Dissertation Fellowship, Stanford University
Areas of interest
Saad Lakhani is an anthropologist of politics, ethics, and religion in South Asia and the Muslim world. His research examines the relationship between marginalization, value creation, and political struggle. His current project is an ethnographic study of Tehrik Labaik Pakistan (TLP), a deeply violent and authoritarian religious movement in Pakistan that calls upon the “poor masses” of Muslims to reclaim their personal dignity and restore the Prophet’s honor by taking violent action against those deemed ‘blasphemers’ and by publicly exposing Muslim elites as co-conspirators. This study shows how the anti-blasphemy movement came to be viewed by its supporters as a collective struggle against social suffering and a shared striving for mutual recognition. His next project examines the relationship between religious creativity and social stigma in the cultural life of caste-oppressed communities in Pakistan.
Academic credentials
B.S. Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology; M.A. University of Warwick; PhD. Stanford University
