Dr Heewon Kim

• Phone: 0121 204 4266
• Email: h.kim4@aston.ac.uk

Heewon Kim is Lecturer in Politics and International Relations. Prior to joining Aston University, she was a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at SOAS, University of London. She completed her BA and MA at Sookmyung Women’s University (Seoul) and her doctorate at SOAS in 2015.

Her main research interest is in the politics of South Asia with special reference to the management of religious diversity in India since 1947. She has recently published The Struggle for Equality: India's Muslims and Rethinking the UPA Experience (Cambridge University Press, 2019), and is currently working on a project titled ‘Modi and Muslims: development, exclusion or path dependence?’. Her work focuses on public policies on religious minorities and the demands for equality among these groups in South Asia and beyond. Related subjects include majoritarianism, authoritarianism, populism, the rise of Hindu nationalism since 2014, group-based inequality, communal violence, and post-conflict reconstruction.

The other main interest is religions and development which informs the reading of public policy in India and other South Asian countries. This builds on the close connections that she has been able to develop with the Religions and Development Research (DFID funded) programme at the University of Birmingham and SOAS to explore the comparative dimensions of the subject in Asia and Africa.

• the rise of Hindu nationalism in India since 2014
• communal violence in South Asia since 1947
• public policy in India with special reference to Muslims
• comparative public policy
• religions and development
• the role of faith-based organisations in post-conflict reconstruction
• multiculturalism and religious diversity in developed liberal democracies

• PhD Department of the Study of Religions, SOAS, University of London.
• MA International Organisations and Human Security, Sookmyung Women’s University.
• BA International Studies, Sookmyung Women’s University.

2018

British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship

£320,000 FEC