Shirin M. Rai, Indian-English political scientist and academic
Shirin M. Rai (born 1 December 1960), is a political scientist, known for her research on the intersections between globalisation, post-colonial governance, processes of democratisation 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 (particular India) and most recently, the symbolic and performative aspects of (especially) parliamentary processes from a gendered, racialised, sexualised, embodied perspective, a four-year interdisciplinary project funded by the Leverhulme Trust.Rai is a fellow within the Academy of Social Sciences and serves as part of the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick, UK . She has also collaborated with international organisations related to the United Nations, such as the United Nations Development Programme, Division for Women's Advancement, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs and Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance and the World Bank for consultancy work, and public speaking engagements. In 2021 she was elected a fellow of the British Academy.