SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow Shares Their Research

Postdoctoral Fellow in Centre for the Study of Democracy
Dr. Hari Jnawali

Dr. Hari Har Jnawali is a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow in the Centre for the Study of Democracy (CSDD) and Diversity. Dr. Jnawali researches how and why ethnic autonomy in Asia is impeded by the state with an emphasis on international human rights. He is currently studying how South Asian countries are using population resettlements as a form of internal colonialism to reduce ethnic groups’ self-determination and cohesion in their ancestral territories. His very timely work has been published in important venues in the field including Ethnopolitics and Asian Ethnicity as well as in The Conversation (). In addition to his active research, Dr. Jnawali is a dedicated educator who has taught and mentored undergraduate and graduate students in Asian and North American Universities for the last decade.

As part of his ongoing scholarship at Queen’s, Dr. Jnawali was recently awarded a SSHRC Connection Grant with Dr. Oded Haklai (CSDD, Queen’s University) to facilitate a workshop titled “Population Resettlement in Ethnic Territories of South Asia: Objectives and Strategies” at Wilfred Laurier University in January 2025. Hosted at the Balsillie School of International Affairs (BSIA) where Dr. Jnawali completed his PhD in Global Governance, the workshop is a forum for interdisciplinary researchers to

  1. share current knowledge about population resettlement in South Asia;
  2. mobilize South Asian perspectives on theories of population settlements; 
  3. make connection with researchers who examine population transfer from different disciplinary approaches;
  4. disseminate knowledge beyond the workshop and contribute to an enriched public discourse.

The workshop is also supported by the School of Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Affair’s Postdoc Initiative Fund, the BSIA, the CSDD, and both Queen’s University and Wilfried Laurier University. The workshop promises to bring international scholars and students together from the United States, Singapore, Bangladesh, Italy, Sri Lanka, India, Nepal, and Canada. To encourage more participation in this upcoming workshop, students can request to join the January 16-18th event virtually. Interested students can reach Dr. Jnawali at hari.jnawali@queensu.ca.