Dr Farhan Samanani was commissioned as a freelance Research Associate to support our 'Race in Britain: Inequality, Identity, Belonging' conference on 1-2 November 2018, with a pre-event Briefing Report and post-event Conference Report including recommendations for future action.
Farhan works on questions surrounding everyday cooperation, grassroots community building, and the shaping of political consensus in diverse areas. He completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge in 2017, which focused on local understandings of community and diversity in the London neighborhood of Kilburn.
Since October 2018 he has been a socio anthropology researcher in the Department for Socio-Cultural Diversity at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, working on a project on links between grassroots political movements and larger-scale policy change. You can find out more about this work here. Farhan was previously based at the University of Oxford, where he was researching the everyday experiences of new parents and the communities around them, in the wake of austerity.
Drawing on this background, Farhan has worked with a range of community, national and international organisations, ranging from local community groups in Kilburn, to the World Bank and Oxfam. In this work Farhan has advised on a range of issues surrounding migration, diversity, policy and inclusivity. Farhan has also written about his research in the popular press, including articles in Aeon Magazine and the Huffington Post.
Cumberland Lodge publications
Race in Britain: Inequality, Identity, Belonging - Conference Briefing (October 2018)
Race in Britain: Inequality, Identity & Belonging (October 2019)