Madawi al-Rasheed


Madawi al-Rasheed is a Saudi Arabian professor of social anthropology. Al-Rasheed has held a position at the department of Theology and Religious Studies in King's College London and as a Visiting Professor at the Middle East Centre at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She gives occasional lectures in the United States, Europe and the Middle East. She is the granddaughter of Mohammed bin Talal al-Rasheed, the last prince of Emirate of Ha'il. She has written several books and articles in academic journals on the Arabian Peninsula, Arab migration, globalisation, gender and religious transnationalism., she is a Visiting Research Professor at the Middle East Institute at the National University of Singapore. She is active on Twitter.

Background

Al-Rasheed was born in Paris, to a Saudi father and a Lebanese mother. Her father descends from the Rashidi dynasty. Shortly after her birth the family moved to Saudi Arabia, where al-Rasheed grew up.
In 1975 King Faisal of Saudi Arabia was assassinated by his nephew, Faisal bin Musaid. His mother was a sister of Al Rasheed's father, and the Saudi government accused the Rashidi family of being behind the assassination. Further investigation found this to be untrue, but in 1975 al-Rasheed's family moved to Lebanon, where al‐Rasheed finished her Baccalaureate in 1981. She then started her studies in anthropology and sociology at the American University of Beirut.
In 1982 Israel invaded Lebanon. Al-Rasheed went into exile a second time, to the UK, first to Salford University, then to Cambridge University, where she obtained her PhD with Ernest Gellner as her supervisor.
In 2005, after an appearance on Aljazeera TV criticizing the Saudi government, Salman of Saudi Arabia, at the time the governor of Riyadh province, who later became king of Saudia Arabia, telephoned her father, claiming that her Saudi citizenship was withdrawn as punishment for her television appearance.

Selected publications

Books