Dr Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor

Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor’s research focuses on the lived experiences of religion or belief in modern Britain, with particular emphasis on Islam, feminism, inter-faith relations and democratic methodologies that seek to work with and for research participants. She comes to Coventry University from the University of Derby where she worked a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Society, Religion and Belief.

She completed her fully-funded PhD at the University of Gloucestershire in 2010. Her doctoral research entailed a feminist giving of voice to young Muslim women in Britain. She began her post-doctoral career at the University of Derby as Project Researcher and Qualitative Lead on a three-year AHRC & ESRC Religion & Society programme project, Religion and Belief, Discrimination and Equality in England and Wales: Theory, Policy and Practice, 2000-2010. She subsequently led her own ESRC funded project on Collaborative Partnerships between Muslim institutions and HE. In 2015, she and three other colleagues (SOAS, Durham and Lancaster) have been awarded AHRC funding for a three-year project Islam on Campus which will examine narratives and the sources of narratives around Islam on British university campuses, with regard to radicalisation, gender and inter-faith relations. She is the Web Officer for the British Association for Islamic Studies.