Shirin M. Rai

Who is Shirin M. Rai?

Shirin M. Rai is a political scientist, known for her research on the intersections between globalisation, post-colonial governance, processes of democratization and gender regimes. She is the Director of the Gendered Ceremony and Ritual in Parliament Programme, a four-year interdisciplinary project funded by the Leverhulme Trust that studies the performances of ritual, ceremony, symbolism and affect in the British, Indian and South African parliaments.

Rai's research focuses on gendered readings of governance and developmental policies in post-colonial states and most recently, the symbolic and performative aspects of parliamentary processes from a gendered, racialized, sexualized, embodied perspective.

Rai was awarded the distinction of membership within the Academy of Social Sciences in 2011 and serves as part of the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick, UK .