Research in Progress Seminars

Aine K. Leadbetter, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Political Science, McMaster University

Professor Liyakat Takim is the Sharjah Chair in Global Islam at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada. A native of Zanzibar, Tanzania, he has authored more than seventy five scholarly works on diverse topics like Islam in America, the indigenization of the Muslim community in America, dialogue in post-911 America, war and peace in the Islamic tradition, the treatment of women in Islamic juridical literature, Islamic law, Islamic biographical literature, reformation in the Islamic world, jihad in Shi‘i law, the charisma of the holy man and shrine culture, Islamic mystical traditions, and various aspects of Shi‘i history and figures. He teaches a wide range of courses on Islam and offers a course on comparative religions. Professor Takim’s second book titled Shi'ism in America was published by New York University Press in summer 2009. His first book, The Heirs of the Prophet: Charisma and Religious Authority in Shi‘ite Islam was published by SUNY press in 2006. He is currently working on his third book, Ijtihad and Reformation in Islam. Professor Takim has taught at several American and Canadian universities. He has also lectured at many institutions in different parts of the world.

Elke Winter is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Ottawa. Her research focuseson interethnic relations, multiculturalism, and national identity in Canada and Western Europe.Specifically, she works on classical sociology and conceptions of 'race', interrelations of multinationalismand immigrant integration, and redefinitions of citizenship and identity in public policy and discourse. Dr. Winter is the author of Max Weber et les relations ethniques (Les Presses de l'Université Laval, 2004) and of Us, Them, and Others: Pluralism and National Identity in Diverse Societies (University of Toronto Press, 2011).

Peter Nyers is Associate Professor of the Politics of Citizenship and Intercultural Relations with the Department of Political Science. His research focuses on the social movements of non-status refugees and migrants, in particular their campaigns against deportation and detention and for regularization and global mobility rights. He is the author of Rethinking Refugees: Beyond States of Emergency(Routledge 2006), co-editor (with Engin Isin and Bryan Turner) of Citizenship between Past and Future(Routledge 2008), co-editor (with Kim Rygiel) of Citizenship, Migrant Activism, and the Politics of Movement (Routledge, 2011), and editor of Securitizations of Citizenship (Routledge 2009). His current research project theorizes the idea of Irregular Citizenship and includes studies of complex cases where citizenship has not been revoked per se, but where it has been rendered inoperable, or irregularized. He serves on the Editorial Boards of the journals International Political Sociology and Materiali Foucaultiani and is the Associate Editor of the journal Citizenship Studies.

Aine K. Leadbetter is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Political Science at McMaster University. She holds a Master of Arts in Work and Society from the School of Labour Studies at McMaster University. Her research interests include the political economy of migration; comparative labour market and immigration policy, and social inclusion, exclusion and segmentation. Her dissertation research focuses on the role of power and framing in policy responses to undocumented labour migrants.