RESEARCHER + JOURNALIST + CONSULTANT
ABOUT
ALI NOBIL AHMAD
RESEARCHER + JOURNALIST + CONSULTANT
Ali Nobil Ahmad is an interdisciplinary social scientist, journalist and consultant with expertise in migration, political ecology, film and media. He has taught and published widely in each of these fields at leading universities, and worked as a practitioner for think tanks, foundations and media outlets in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the United States. He has a PhD in History from the European University Institute in Florence and is a former recipient of The Guardian’s Scott Trust bursary for journalists. Ali is currently Associate Professor at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, LUMS university, Pakistan. Previously he was Resident Fellow at the Iméra Institute of Advanced Studies Aix-Marseille Université (2024-5). ​ Head of the Heinrich Böll Foundation’s African Migration Hub (2021-4), Research Fellow at the Zentrum Moderner Orient in Berlin (2014-19) and Madeleine Haas Visiting Professor at Brandeis University.
​​Ali’s writings have appeared in policy forums, peer-reviewed, journalistic and literary publications such as The Guardian, Jacobin, The Caravan (India), The Elephant (Kenya), The National (Abu Dhabi), Third Text, The Critical Muslim and African Arguments. His monograph on human smuggling from Pakistan to Europe, ‘Masculinity, Sexuality and Illegal Migration’, was published in paperback by Routledge and Oxford University Press.
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At the Heinrich Böll Foundation, Ali’s work entailed policy analysis, advocacy, strategic planning, international project management and implementation, partnership development and cooperation in the fields of migration governance, humanitarianism and international development. He has extensive experience as a curator and arts coordinator, having collaborated with the ICA and BFI in London, the Kino Moviemento and Rosa Luxemburg Foundation in Berlin, and the Lahore Biennale Foundation on major public programmes featuring screenings and academic talks.
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Ali has made two short experimental documentary films on climate justice and migration: Waseb [Nation] and Lok Sath [People’s Tribunal] are about the 2010 floods in Pakistan and their aftermath. Both have been widely screened at festivals, galleries, and conferences across Europe, Asia and the United States, as well as on-line platforms such as Cinelogue. His current film project, Single Wicket, is an environmental documentary inspired by the cricket writings of CLR James. Shot in Lahore where cricket is played on construction sites, it explores ‘tape ball’ as a curious case of cultural translation, and life-affirming manifestation of everyday urbanity in the Global South.
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