School of Social and Political Science

Shaira Vadasaria

Job Title

Senior Lecturer in Race and Decolonial Studies

Photo
Shaira Vadasaria

Room number

5.07

Building (Address)

Chrystal Macmillan Building

Street (Address)

15a George Square

City (Address)

Edinburgh

Country (Address)

UK

Post code (Address)

EH8 9LD

Research interests

Research interests

My research and teaching advances interdisciplinary social inquiry on genealogies of race & racial violence constitutive of settler colonialism, imperialism and empire, with an interest in ethics, methodology and anti-colonial social movements and social thought. I enter these fields of inquiry through epistemological and methodological considerations, two of which have been central in my scholarship and teaching: First, how do we account for the continuity of race and racial violence as it changes in grammar and political form? Second, how do displaced and dispossessed communities make claims to sovereignty under on-going processes of social & material death and expulsion?

My recent scholarship has contributed towards socio-legal, anthropological and social inquiry on Palestinian expulsion and return, as navigated under and against the racial politics of settler nation building, humanitarianism and legal redress. Some of my recent publications include, “The Racial Question of Palestine and Question of Anti-racism in Palestine,” Journal of Palestine Studies 2025; “Sensory Politics of Return: Hearing Gaza under Siege,” in Gaza on Screen, Duke University Press 2023; “Race and Colonialism in Socio-Legal Studies in Canada (co-authored with Carmela Murdocca and Tim Bryan),” in Violence, Imagination, and Resistance: Socio-legal Interrogations of Power, Athabasca University Press, 2023; “1948-1951: the racial politics of humanitarianism and return in Palestine,” Oñati Socio-Legal Series, 2020;  “Uninhibited Violence: Race and the Securitization of Immigration” (co-authored with David Moffette), Critical Studies on Security 2016; “Necronationalism: managing race, death and the nation’s skeletons,” Social Identities 2015 & “Anti-Colonial Poetics: A Methodology from and for Palestine” Imaginative Inquiry: Innovative Approaches to Interdisciplinary Research, 2014.  

My SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council) funded doctoral research received the ‘Sociology Distinguished Dissertation Award’ issued by the Department of Sociology at York University and subsequently, received an additional award issued by the Canadian Sociological Association.

Topics interested in supervising

Race & racial violence; settler colonialism; imperialism and empire; socio-legal studies; redress; ethics and methodology;  anti-colonialism; national liberation movements; resistance; Indigenous sovereignty; Gender & Sexuality; Palestine

Background

Shaira Vadasaria in a Senior Lecturer in Sociology in the School of Social and Political Science and Senior Associate Fellow of the Alwaleed Centre. Prior to joining UoE, she held an Assistant Professorship appointment at Al-Quds University, Bard College, Palestine (2016-2019) and a Visiting Professorship in the Global and International Studies program at Carleton University, Canada (2020).

Upon joining UoE in 2020, she co-founded RACE.ED, a university-wide multidisciplinary teaching and research repository on the study of race and decolonial studies at the University of Edinburgh and established a university-wide multidisciplinary curricula on the subject. 

Between 2023-2025, she co-led in producing the "University of Edinburgh and the Question of Palestine: Balfour's Imperial Legacy and its Afterlife" section of UoE's race and history report entitled, Decolonised Transformations: Confronting the University of Edinburgh’s History and Legacies of Enslavement and Colonialism  (2025).

Works within

Staff Hours and Guidance

Course Office Hours (Chrystal Macmillan Building, 5.07): 

Tuesday 14:30 - 15:30 - Understanding Race and Colonialism (SSPS08013, Undergraduate Course)

Tuesday 15:45 - 16:45 - Anticolonial Social Theory and Global Thought Seminar (SCIL10044, Postgraduate Course)

Or by appointment

Publications by user content

Publication Research Explorer link
Vadasaria S. The racial question of Palestine and the question of anti-racism in Palestine. Journal of Palestine Studies. 2025 Apr 24;(213). doi: 10.1080/0377919X.2025.2488782
Vadasaria S. Sensory politics of return: Hearing Gaza under siege . In Yaqub N, editor, Gaza on Screen. Duke University Press. 2023. p. 157-171 doi: 10.1215/9781478024576-008
Murdocca C, Vadasaria S, Bryan T. Race and colonialism in socio-legal studies in Canada. In Alam M, Dwyer P, Roots K, editors, Violence, Imagination, and Resistance: Socio-legal Interrogations of Power . Athabasca University Press. 2023. p. 33-58 doi: 10.15215/aupress/9781778290022.01
Vadasaria S. 1948 to 1951: The racial politics of humanitarianism and return in Palestine. Oñati Socio-Legal Series. 2020 Jun 3;10(6):1242-1269. Epub 2020 Jun 3. doi: 10.35295/OSLS.IISL/0000-0000-0000-1128
Moffette D, Vadasaria S. Uninhibited violence: Race and the securitization of immigration. Critical Studies on Security. 2016;4(3):291-305. Epub 2016 Nov 24. doi: 10.1080/21624887.2016.1256365
Vadasaria S. Necronationalism: Managing race, death and the nation's skeletons. Social Identities. 2015;21(2):117-131. Epub 2015 Jun 10. doi: 10.1080/13504630.2015.1041014
Jahangeer R, Vadasaria S. Introduction: Violence in a Far Country: Other Women’s Lives. In Perera S, Razack SH, editors, At the Limits of Justice: Women of Colour on Terror. University of Toronto Press. 2014. p. 143-148
Vadasaria S. Anti-Colonial poetics: A methodology from and for Palestine. In Fogel C, Quinlan A, Quinlan E, editors, Imaginative Inquiry: Innovative Approaches to Interdisciplinary Research. Academia Press. 2013. p. 167-181
Shaira Vadasaria's Research Explorer profile