Mahbub ul Haq Research Centre at LUMS

Dr. Umair Javed is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Politics at the Mushtaq Gurmani School of Humanities and Social Sciences (MGSHSS). He completed his PhD at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 2018. At LUMS, Dr Javed teaches courses on sociological theory, political sociology, and political economy of development.

His academic interests center around the political dimensions of social and economic development, primarily in urban Pakistan. Drawing on questions and debates in political economy and sociology, Dr Javed's research looks at the politics of urban development, accumulation and labor relations in the informal economy, and non-state and informal welfare in contemporary Muslim societies. His research portfolio includes collaborative, multi-method projects drawing on surveys, interviews, and ethnographies across the aforementioned themes, in a variety of country contexts, including Pakistan, Egypt, and Morocco. Dr Javed's research has been published, or is forthcoming, in Studies in Comparative International Development, Development and Change, Antipode, IDS Bulletin, Catalyst: A Journal of Theory and Strategy, and Economic and Political Weekly. He has also authored book chapters on Pakistan's political economy in edited volumes published by Cambridge University Press, Palgrave MacMillan, and Routledge. 

He is currently working on three research projects: 1) a book manuscript, drawing on his doctoral research, on the politics of informality in Pakistani bazaars; 2) a study of social transformation and differentiated citizenship in urban village settlements engulfed by high-income residential developments in Lahore; and 3) a survey-based assessment of informal social protection and zakat in Pakistan, with colleagues based at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS, Sussex) and the International Centre for Taxation and Development (ICTD). 

Outside of academia, he contributes a fortnightly political and social affairs column for Pakistan's leading English-language daily, Dawn. His research and analysis has been featured by a number of international print and electronic media outlets, including BBC, Sky News, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, The Economist, Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post.