Parthiban Muniandy

PhD, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Specializing in transnational migration, urban studies, and refugee and displacement studies, Muniandy’s research delves into the complexities of temporary labor migration and the lived experiences of migrant communities in Southeast Asia. He is the author of Politics of the Temporary: Ethnography of Migrant Life in Urban Malaysia (2014), which provides an in-depth analysis of the transient nature of migrant labor in Malaysia's urban centers. His subsequent book, Ghost Lives of the Pendatang: Informality and Cosmopolitan Contaminations in Urban Malaysia (2021), offers an ethnographic study of migrants, refugees, and “temporary” individuals in Malaysia, incorporating narratives, personal stories, and observations of everyday life in Kuala Lumpur and Georgetown, Penang. In addition to his solo publications, Muniandy co-authored Dispatches from Home and the Field During the COVID-19 Pandemic (2023), a multivoiced compendium of writings exploring life during the pandemic through first-person narratives. Previously, he served as faculty director for the Consortium on Forced Migration, Displacement, and Education (CFMDE) between 2018-2020, an initiative funded by the Mellon Foundation. He teaches courses on migration, urban studies, and research methods, emphasizing critical engagement with communities and institutions and the importance of ethnographic fieldwork. SLC, 2017–

Sociology

Sociology