Dr Saba Hussain

PhD (Sociology) University of Warwick

MA (Development Studies) London School of Economics

MA  (Sociology) Delhi School of Economics

Prior to working in academia, Saba worked as a Social Development consultant working for organizations like DFID, Save the Children, World Bank on issues of gender equality, education and social protection, particular among migrant population, urban poor and minorities.

Between 2012-17, she completed her PhD in Sociology from University of Warwick. Saba's doctoral work based on empirical research in India offered a post-colonial feminist analysis of subjectivities available to school-going Muslim girls. This research puts forth a ‘new’ conception of ‘good girlhood’ that combines traditional gender roles with discourses of modernity, choice and aspirations. A monograph based on this research titled Contemporary Muslim Girlhoods in India: A Study of Social Justice, Identity and Agency in Assam has recently been published by Routledge. During this period Saba held several part-time teaching and research roles, at University of Warwick, Bath Spa University and University Collage London.

In 2017 Saba was funded by the Leverhulme Trust to undertake a three-year research project interrogating teachers’ understandings and experiences if the counter-terrorism/Prevent agenda in British Schools. During this time, she also developed and lead PG and UG modules on Sociology of Education, Race in Contemporary Britain, and South Asia in Britain (IATL).

Between 2019-21, Saba was working as a Lecturer in Education at Coventry University leading modules on race, global inequalities, and youth. She was also a part of the research Center on Global Learning and Education. Her focus there was on decolonisation of education, gender, diversity and inclusion. During this time Saba was funded by Coventry City of Culture to undertake research on South Asian Women’s experiences of maternal healthcare using art-based method.

Saba joined University of Birmingham as a lecturer/Assistant Professor in Oct 2021.

Research interests

• Identity and belonging
• Gender and education
• Muslim women
• Girls and Girlhoods in the Global South
• Racism and Islamophobia
• Youth and politics in educational spaces
• Decolonisation
• Tran-nationality

2021: PI Coventry, City of Culture University Partnership Grant for Recovery & Transformation: Call the Midwife: South Asian Women’s hidden histories in Coventry

2019: Co-PI, Research and Development Grant, University of Warwick ‘Making and un-making Citizens: A case study of Assam’s National Registrar of Citizens’ (2019-20)

2017: PI, Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship, University of Warwick- Three-year Project ‘(Re)constructing Teacher identity: Prevent and Securitization in Birmingham Schools’

Non academic publications 

Hussain, Saba (2021) India: election loss in West Bengal may be start of a backlash against Modi’s handling of COVID crisis, The Conversation

Hussain, Saba and Nazia Hussain (2020) Migrant ethnic minority women in academia during the twin pandemics of COVID-19 and racism, Bristol University Press and Polity Press

Hussain, Saba (2020) Continuities of state violence and policing in settler colonial and post-colonial contexts: From Hashimpura, to Delhi to Minneapolis, Discover Society (Forthcoming July 2020)

Hussain, Saba (2017) The OFSTED Hijab controversy: Beyond the Hijab, Discover Society, December

Hussain, Saba (2017) Old Problem, New Lexicon: The EU Workplace Headscarf Ban, April 2017