Irfan Ahmed Nazir

Marhaba!

My name is Irfan Ahmed Nazir.

I am a social scientist and qualitative researcher with five years of experience designing and conducting interdisciplinary research on politics, education, migration, international relations, and the Middle East. My work primarily examines how states construct and promote national values and identities, with a particular focus on multicultural, non-citizen-majority societies in the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula.

I have submitted my PhD thesis to the School of International Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and am currently awaiting my viva voce. My doctoral research examines debates on national identity in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) within evolving social, economic, political, and demographic contexts, and their implications for school education. My fieldwork in the UAE was supported by the Sheikh Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi Foundation for Policy Research in Ras Al Khaimah and the Humanities Research Fellowships for the Study of the Arab World at New York University Abu Dhabi.

My broader research interests include state-society relations in the Middle East and South Asia, India’s engagement with the Middle East, migration and diaspora dynamics along the South Asia-Gulf corridor, and education policy and expatriate schooling in the Arab Gulf states. I employ a range of qualitative methods, including content analysis, interviews, field observation, and archival research. My research articles have appeared in Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism (Wiley) and Contemporary Review of the Middle East (Sage). I am also curating the India-Gulf Digest, a monthly digest on India-Gulf relations, published on LinkedIn and this website.

In addition to this website, you can follow my work on Academia, ResearchGate, LinkedIn, X, and Bluesky. If you would like to get in touch, please feel free to email me at irfanahmednazir.in@gmail.com.