Zulfikar Hirji is Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at York University, Toronto (Canada). He is interested in how human societies articulate, represent and perform understandings of self, community and other, and on issues of knowledge production, representation and identity, visual, material and sensory culture, and critical pedagogy. His research focuses on Muslim societies in a range of historical and contemporary contexts, particularly around the Indian Ocean. He has conducted archival research and multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork in various parts of the world including East Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, South Asia, Europe and North America. He received his DPhil in Social Anthropology from the University of Oxford (2002), MPhil in Islamic Studies from the University of Cambridge (1997), and BA (Joint Honours) in Religious Studies & Anthropology from McGill University (1989).