Anita M. Weiss

Anita M. Weiss received her doctorate in sociology from UC Berkeley and is Professor of International and Global Studies at the University of Oregon. She has published extensively on social development, gender issues, and political Islam in Pakistan. She has published eight books including Development Challenges Confronting Pakistan (co-edited with Saba Gul Khattak, 2013), Pathways to Power: The Domestic Politics of South Asia (co-edited with Arjun Guneratne, 2014), and Interpreting Islam, Modernity and Women’s Rights in Pakistan (2014). She was in Pakistan extensively conducting interviews between 2016–19 for her recent book, Countering Violent Extremism in Pakistan: Local Actions, Local Voices (Oxford University Press 2020), which identifies the various ways in which local people are responding, taking stands, recapturing their culture, and saying ‘stop’ to the violent extremism that has manifested in Pakistan. The book, highlighted on a panel at this year’s KLF, hence focuses on finding the ‘sparks of hope’ to counter extremism and how they are creating alternative narratives about culture and identity, and their vision of a future without violence. Professor Weiss recently stepped down after seven years as Head of the Department of International Studies, is a member of the editorial board of Globalizations as well as a number of journals from Pakistan, has been a member of the Research Advisory Board of the Pakistan National Commission on the Status of Women, and is on the Executive Committee of the Religion and International Relations as well as the Interdisciplinary Studies (IDSS) sections of the International Studies Association.