Livia Holden (PhD – School of Oriental and African Studies – University of London) is Director of Research at the CNRS (Institut des Sciences Juridiques et Philosophiques de la Sorbonne Paris 1). She has led EURO-EXPERT (ERC funded project 2016 -2023). She is currently leading K-Peritia (COST Action 2023 – 2027), CULTEXP Proof of Concept (ERC funded) and Cultural Expertise in South Asia and in Europe (funded by the Independent Social Research Foundation UK).
Prior to Sorbonne she was Senior Research Fellow at the University of Oxford Member of the Senior Common Room and academic advisor at St Antony’s College; Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and Professor of Anthropology at the Karakoram International University; Professor of Anthropology at LUMS; Visiting Professor International Human Rights and Research Fellow at the Center for Socio-Legal Studies at Griffith University; Research Fellow at the Freie University; and Visiting Professor at the Humboldt University and at the INALCO in Paris.
Livia Holden’s research began in Central India and expanded to include Pakistan and the countries with South Asian diasporas, eventually returning to Europe. Her research included state and non-state conflict resolution, gender rights and the judicial systems in Pakistan and South Asian diaspora communities, and legal pluralism and governance in European and North American societies. Livia Holden’s innovative definition of cultural expertise contribute to the global debates about the role of social scientists in social problem solving. Moving forward, the researcher’s future projects focus on the critical development and dissemination of new rights, including the incorporation of digital tools to facilitate the access to substantial justice, while fostering an understanding of local contexts and respecting the rights of minority groups and Indigenous peoples.
Livia Holden received several awards:
- Honorary Membership at the CASCA (Canadian Anthropology Society),
- Fellow at the Institut des Hautes Études in Nantes in 2015/2016,
- Social Sciences Awardee by the Pakistan Inter-University Consortium for the Promotion of Social Sciences in 2016, and
- Outstanding Woman Academic and Scientist par la Swiss National Science Foundation in 2021.
