Mohammed Alsudairi is currently a Lecturer of Politics and International Relations of the Arabic Speaking World at the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies, Australian National University. He  was previously a postdoctoral research fellow at the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences in Hong Kong University, working on a project (BRINFAITH) examining the intersections between religion and infrastructure in China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Since 2015, he oversaw the development of the Asian Studies Program at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In 2022, he was awarded a research fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation to work on his upcoming book manuscript.

Informed by a multidisciplinary and multilingual approach, Alsudairi’s research focuses on the historical and contemporary connections between the Middle East and East Asia, the histories of transnational revolutionary and counter-revolutionary networks in the Arab world, ideological security bureaucracies and state-led cultural engineering practices across Asia, and Muslim religiosities and sectarian identities in the Middle East and China.

Qualifications:

PhD Hong Kong University, MA London School of Economics, MA Peking University, BSFS Georgetown University

Research Interests:

• Politics, Religion and Culture of the modern Arabian Peninsula
• Geopolitics, Security, and Great Power Rivalry in the Middle East
• Politics, Culture and Religion of modern China
• Sectarianism and Sectarianization
• Global Intellectual History
• Ideological/Cultural Engineering in Asia
• Revolutionary/Counter-revolutionary Movements in Asia
• Technology and Religion

Professional Experiance: 

• Lecturer of Politics and International Relations of the Arabic Speaking World, Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies, Australian National University [2024-]
• Post-doctoral Fellow, Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Hong Kong. Involved in “The Infrastructures of Faith: Religious Mobilities on the Belt and Road” as Team Leader on Religious Strategies on BRI under Project Coordinator (David Palmer) [2020-2022]
• Non-Resident Senior Researcher and Asian Studies Program Head, King Faisal Centre for Research and Islamic Studies [2015-2023]
• Researcher, Gulf Research Center [2012-2015]

Selected Grants/Honours/Fellowships:

• Humboldt Research Fellowship for Postdocs (24 months) at Gottingen University [2023-2025]
• Resona Foundation for Asia and Oceania Grant – For “Islam in China: Sects and Sectarianism” (¥2,000,000) [2022]
• Fellowship at the University of Gottingen – For “Worldmaking: A Dialogue with China” Project funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research [2021]
• Harvard University Center for Middle Eastern Studies Grant – For “Inter-Asian Cold War Linkages” Conference (USD$15,000) [2020]
• Visitorship at the Institute for International and Strategic Studies, Peking University [2018]
• General Research Fund Award (770,680 HK$)- For “Fighting the Gunpowder-less War: A Comparative Study of the Conceptualization and Practice of Cultural Security in China and Saudi Arabia” [2017-2018]
• University of Hong Kong Postgraduate Scholarship [2015-2019]

Organized Workshops/Conferences:

• “Middle East and Central Asia Futurescapes Academic Network (MECAFAN)” launch at the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies, Australian National University [4-5 September 2024]
• “Islam in China: Sects and Sectarianism (Part II)” co-organized with Aaron   Glasserman and Noriko Unno-Yamazaki at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia [4-6 December 2013]
• “Islam in China: Sects and Sectarianism (Part I)” co-organized with Aaron Glasserman and Noriko Unno-Yamazaki at Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan [21-22 January 2023]
• “Islamic Pasts and Futures in East Asia’s Worldmaking” co-organized with Janice Hyeju Jeong at Gottingen University in Gottingen, Germany [23-24 September 2022]

Languages:

• Arabic (native speaker)
• Chinese (advanced writing, speaking, and listening)
• English (proficient speaker)

Academic Associations:

• Middle East Studies Association (member)
• Association of Asian Studies (member)

Primary Ph.D. Supervisor:

1. Guan Qibei: The Muslims of Shenzhen

Member of the Supervisory Panel: 

1. Kuebra Dilekoglu: Consultants in the Gulf (St. Andrews)
2. Jiang Xiaokun: Salafism in China (Utrecht University)