
Sophie Lemière is a political anthropologist, a social entrepreneur, and a political consultant. Her current affiliations include Le Collège de France (France), Florida International University (Florida, United States), and the University of Witwatersrand, (Johannesburg, South Africa). She is a former non-residential fellow for the Democracy in Hard Places Initiative at the Ash Center for Democracy at the Harvard Kennedy School (May 2018–May 2020). Sophie has also been a visiting fellow at the Stanford Humanities Center (2020), National Endowment for Democracy (2020 and 2022), Southeast Asia Center at the University of Kyoto (2019), and Weatherhead Center at Harvard (2018). In 2014, she received her PhD from Sciences Po in Paris. Her thesis was the first study on the political role of gangs through umbrella nongovernmental organizations in Malaysia. In 2007, her master’s research on the apostasy controversies and Islamic civil society was awarded the second prize for international young scholar from the International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World, Leiden. She has held research positions at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in 2011 and then at the Asia Research Institute in 2012 and has been a visiting fellow at the University of Sydney; Cornell University; University of California, Berkeley; and Columbia University. She was awarded the postdoctoral fellowship at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs in 2017–2018 and subsequently the NUS-Stanford Lee Kong Chian Distinguished Fellowship in Contemporary Southeast Asia in 2018–2019 and a visiting senior fellowship at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at Kyoto University. Sophie’s current work explores the intangible elements of politics, including the conjunction of political imaginary and legitimacy, charisma and personality politics, the evolution of political imaginary, the constructions of political and national narratives, the role of emotions in politics, etc. Her work touches on questions rarely touched on in the field of Malaysian studies and contributes to larger debates in social sciences (sociology, political sciences and anthropology, philosophy, and cognitive sciences, etc.).
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Spotlight - Malaysia: October 26, 2023
Blog Post by Sophie Lemière — October 26, 2023
Malaysia on the Edge of Democracy: Will Anwar’s Government Step Forward?
Commentary by Sophie Lemière — September 27, 2023
Spotlight - Malaysia: August 16, 2023
Blog Post by Sophie Lemière — August 16, 2023
Spotlight - Malaysia: July 19, 2023
Blog Post by Sophie Lemière — July 19, 2023
Spotlight - Malaysia: July 3, 2023
Blog Post by Sophie Lemière — July 3, 2023
Spotlight - Malaysia: May 30, 2023
Blog Post by Sophie Lemière — May 30, 2023
Malaysia’s Backwaters: Women and Children’s Rights
Commentary by Sophie Lemière — April 28, 2023
Spotlight - Malaysia: April 24, 2023
Blog Post by Sophie Lemière — April 24, 2023
Spotlight - Malaysia: March 24, 2023
Blog Post by Sophie Lemière — March 24, 2023
Spotlight - Malaysia: February 16, 2023
Blog Post by Sophie Lemière — February 16, 2023