Dr Javeria Khadija Shah

BA, MA, PGCE (PC), PhD, SFHEA
Job title
Member of the Principal's Office, Associate Director of the Centre for Inclusive Pedagogy and Practice
Black and white headshot of Javeria Shah
Orcid ID
0000-0002-6153-7763
Institutional Repository

Profile

I am a cultural sociologist and interdisciplinary scholar with expertise in policy, media education, sociology, and the visual arts. I specialise in person-centred research that interrogates and re-frames societal positioning(s) of the individual and their self-identity formation - and my current research is strongly focused on the conceptualisation of socialisation as ‘social performance’.

In 2018, I brought together the various strands of my practice and research to establish the Social Performance Network, which is an evolving community of practice that exemplifies a digitally convergent and socially engaged platform, that is focused on connecting understandings of ‘social performance’ and inequality using concepts of ‘social theatre’. The network works collaboratively with academic and practitioner communities from within the arts, humanities, and social sciences to extend dialogue and practice that interrogates and explores, socialisation, to consider its impact on the way we live and formulate our self-identities. Key articulations of this work include a ’de-socialising through art’ initiative which amplifies the work of global majority artists, the OffScript! podcast, which features a range of global voices on issues of identity, and our training consultancy services in which offer uniquely interdisciplinary training that intersects the arts, education, policy, and cultural sociology to focus on a range of themes including arts education, fostering inclusion, decolonisation, anti-racism, anti Islamophobia, and teacher training (including Arts specialist teaching).

At Central, I hold an academic role at a member of the Principal’s Office and Associate Director of the Centre for Inclusive Pedagogy and Practice. My role includes oversight of Learning Skills (which offers informal learning development to Central’s full student body) and supporting the Director of the Centre for Inclusive Pedagogy and Practice in embedding equity across all strands of Central’s pedagogic provision. Alongside this, I also teach modules on research practice and decolonising research for the London Arts & Humanities Partnership (LAHP) and am the founding member of the Global Majority Staff Network and Ummah (Central’s Muslim staff and student collective), as well as UNISON representative.

Outside of Central I am an inclusion and anti-racist training consultant and have worked with a wide range of from HE, Arts organisations, and the charity and third sectors. Alongside this, I hold an associate staff position at the Centre for Race, Education, and Decoloniality, Leeds Beckett University and an associate consultant role at Dr Muna Abdi’s, MA Education Consultancy CIC. This strand to my work is also articulated in steering group membership of the International Network for Anti-Racist Educators. 

Outside of academia, I am an engaged activist and artist who uses improvisation and multimodal platforms including spoken word, folk punk, and photography-based art to conceptualise issues of identity and diaspora.

Areas of Expertise

  • Sociology of Education and Society
  • Media and Film Studies
  • English Further Education (practice and contexts)
  • Britishness in postcolonial contexts
  • Social Performance (Shah, 2018)
  • Person-centred approaches to research 
  • Socio-cultural and critical theories
  • Social Stratification (including race, class, and Muslimness)
  • Cultural Hegemony
  • Anti-Racist/Decolonial Practice
  • Learning Development
  • Sufism and Movement

PhD Supervision

I am able to offer supervision on projects centred on educational policy, arts education, media education, race, coloniality, Muslimness, decoloniality, social performance, race and class, navigating marginalised identity, and Postcolonial Britishness. I can also support qualitative projects using sociological, poststructuralist, or socio-culturalist/critical theories

Key Publications

2023. ‘Blame the BAME’, in Covid-19 and racism: Counter-stories of colliding pandemics. ed. Lander, V., Kay, K. and Holloman, T.R, Bristol, UK: University of Bristol Press, pp 10 – 13.

2022. Shah, J., Imposed identities and British Further Education. 1st ed. New York: Living Places Publishing.

2021. ‘An Ecological Exploration of Whiteness: Using Imperial Hegemony and Racial Socialisation to Examine Lived Experiences and Social Performativity of Melanated Communities’, in Routledge Handbook of Critical Studies in Whiteness, ed. Shona Hunter and Christi van der Westhuizen, (London: Routledge), pp 280 – 293.

2019. ‘My relationship with the word P**i’ in A biography of the word P**i , ed. Karamat Iqbal, (UK: Amazon), pp 199 – 242.

2018. ‘Decolonising the Creative Arts Curriculum in White Spaces’, in Progress in Education Volume 56, ed. Roberta V. Nata, (New York:  Nova Publishers), pp 185 – 220.

2017. ‘Informal Learning in a Digital Landscape: A Higher Education Drama Conservatoire Case Study’, in Informal Learning: Perspectives, Challenges, and Opportunities, ed. Stephen Rutherford, (New York:  Nova Publishers), pp 135 – 185.

External Practice

2021. Principal Investigator, film, My Name is Documentary

2020. Presenter, Podcast, OffScript!, Social Performance Network

2019. Artist, Exhibition, ‘Am I the “IT” in BrITish?’, Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London (UAL)

2019. Contributor, Conference, Disorienting Race

2018. Organiser/Curator, Academic Conference, Performing Race, The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama

2018. Principal Investigator, social awareness raising research project, #MyNameIs

2015. Blogger, Academician Blog

Register of Interest

  • Director, Social Performance Network LTD