Dr Adnan Hossain
- Lecturer in Sociology (Sociology)
Biography
Adnan Hossain is an interdisciplinary scholar with a strong committment to bridging the gap between theory and practice. He was an European Research Council-funded Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Amsterdam and a Visiting Sccholar at the University of the West Indies at St. Augustin Campus in Trinidad and Tobago. He was also a Research Affiliate with Amsterdam Centre for Research on Gender and Sexuality, University of Amsterdam. Prior to joining the University of Glasgow, he was an Assisstant Professor of Gender Studies and Critical Theory at Utrecht University.
Research interests
His research interests and expertise concern gender and sexual diversity, masculinities, transgender and intersex studies, heterosexualities, race and ethnic relations, body politics, decolonization, postcolonial studies, cricket, higher education studies, reparation movement and global inequalities in knowledge production.
He is the author of ' Beyond emasculation: Pleasure and power in the making of hijra in Bangladesh' (Cambridge University Press 2021). This project not only challenges the dominant representation of hijras as either a third gender or a form of transgender but also the phallogocentric logic that obscures alternative sites and sources of bodily power and pleasure, emphasizing how hijras craft their own subject position. This book proposes the hijra as a counter-cultural formation that embodies not only a direct contrast to hegemonic patterns of masculinity but also an alternative subculture offering the possibility of varied forms of erotic pleasures and practices otherwise forbidden in mainstream society.
A second book, based on the same research was published with Methuen Drama, 2022 (An imprintg of Bloomsbury Publishing). This collaborative project, drawn from Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, examines the diverse ways in which practitioners negotiate present contexts, enact genealogies and mobilize, different, if not competeing futurities. With its focus on performance, interdisciplinary perspectives and trans-regional treatment, this book responds to the existing India-centricity within the field of hijra, queer and trans scholartship in South Asia by foregrounding muslim traditions that have an important hand in forming transnational networks of relationality within and between all three countries.
Grants
2022: Climate-change Induced Immobility (CLIMO): Investigating the Historical, Socio-cultural, and Political Interlinkages (With Bishawjit Mallick & Ajay Bailey). Total amount € 10,000. ONGOING.
2021: “Intersex justice in South Asia: A comparative review” (with Prashant Singh & Nikoletta Pikramenou), funded by WFD (Westminster Foundation for democracy). Total amount: £10,000. COMPLETED.
2021: Project Co-Director. Contract from the Canadian High Commission in Bangladesh to develop a research summary and policy suggestions for the Canadian LGBTQ advocacy plan in Bangladesh. December 2020-May 2021. Value of contract: $8000. COMPLETED.
2020: “Trans and hijra lives in times of Corona” in the Netherlands and Bangladesh, funded by ShareNet International. Total award €20,000. COMPLETED.
2020: Seed grant for the project “Towards a Better Future: Developing an Alternative Analytical and Methodological Approach of Marginalization, Indigeneity, and Development in (post-) Covid South Asia” (with Ellen Bal & Marina De Regt), funded by the Institute for Societal Resilience, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Total award €10,000. COMPLETED.
2018: NUFFIC OKP: STITCH: SRHR Tailor-made information and training to contribute to occupational health and safety conditions of factory workers in the ready-made garments sector in Bangladesh. Orange Knowledge Programme, Institutional Collaboration Projects, Project number OKP-ICP-BGD-103153; Total award €897,645. With Ellen Bal and Runa Laila at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. COMPLETED.
2018: ISR (Institute for Societal Resilience) seed grant at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam to write a proposal (with Ellen Bal). Total amount €10,000. COMPLETED.
2018: Seed grant for writing a research proposal at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Amsterdam. Total amount €2,500.
2017: Seed grant for writing a research proposal at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Total amount €2,500.
2011: Conference Travel Grant, Graduate School and the Department of Social Sciences Grant, University of Hull. Total amount £1,000.
2008: Departmental PhD Bursary, the Department of Social Sciences, University of Hull.
Supervision
I am interested in receiving expressions of interest from potential doctoral students in the following thematic areas.
Gender and sexual diversity including global heterosexualities, trans and intersex studies
Race and ethnic relations, body politics and nationalism
Decolonization, reparation and higher education
Global inequalities in knowldege production and the social sciences
Projects focused on 'global south' contexts are particularly welcome.
Additional information
Fellowships
2021–2023: Academy in Exile Fellowship, Freie Universität Berlin and Forum Transregionale Studien. DECLINED.
2017–2020: Visiting Scholar, Amsterdam Centre for Research on Gender and Sexuality, University of Amsterdam.
2015: Visiting Scholar, Institute for Gender and Development Studies, the University of West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago.
2009: Post-conference Visiting Scholar Fellowship at the International Association for the Study of Sexuality Society and Culture VII Conference on “Contested Innocence – Sexual Agency in Public and Private Space”, Hanoi, Vietnam.
2009: Visiting Scholar Fellowship for Research on LGBT rights in Bangladesh for Universal Periodic Review funded by the Sexual Rights Initiative at the Human Rights Council, United Nations, Geneva, Switzerland.
2007: Visiting Fellowship at The Regional Institute on Sexuality, Society and Culture, The South and Southeast Asia Resource Centre on Sexuality and Institute for sexuality and Gender (IGS) Renmin University of China, Beijing.