Contemporary Chinese government and politics; Chinese health and social policy, poverty and inequality; comparative politics
Elected 2016
President of the British Association for Chinese Studies (2014-17).
The documentation and morpho-syntactic description of modern Arabic dialects and Modern South Arabian languages; theoretical phonology and morphology with reference to Arabic and Modern South Arabian
International Relations and International Political Economy; historiography of; sociological theory of; global economy and international system, 1492-present; West/non-West relations in long-run perspective
Middle Eastern ethnography particularly prolonged forced migration, and forced settlement of mobile indigenous peoples as well as biodiversity conservation, sustainable development, and the politics of pastoral livelihoods
