Ali Khan is Professor of Anthropology at the Mushtaq Ahmad Gurmani School of Humanities and Social Sciences at LUMS. He is also the Dean of the School. His research interests vary from labour issues to popular culture in Pakistan focusing particularly on cinema and sports. Ali Khan's book Representing Children: Power, Policy and the Discourse on Child Labour in the Football Manufacturing Industry of Pakistan was published in 2007 by Oxford University Press. He was also the General Editor for a series of seven books on Sociology and Anthropology in Pakistan. Two major pieces of research resulted in co-authored and edited books on cricket - Cricket Cauldron (I.B.Tauris, 2013) – and Pakistani cinema – Cinema and Society (Oxford University Press, 2016). A second edited collection on cinema – Film and Cinephilia - came out in 2020. His latest monograph, Cricket in Pakistan: Nation, Identity and Politics was published by Oxford University Press in 2022. Ali Khan has an MPhil and a PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge in England.

Journal Publications

Khan, A. (2015). Pakistani Film Poster Art. BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies, 5 (2), 183-190.

Khan, A. (2017). Transregional Cinemas: The Case of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. IIC Quarterly, 44 (1), 44-66.

Khan, A. (2017). The Mercurials: The Nature of Pakistani Cricket. IIC Quarterly, 44 (3-4), 17-30.

Khan, A. (2001). Perceptions, Views and Images - Tracing the Creation and Perpetuation of Dominant Stereotypes. Oriental Anthropologist, 1 (2).

Khan, A. (2010). Peshgi Without Bondage: Reconstructing the Links between Debt and Bonded Labour. Cultural Dynamics, 22 (3), 247-266.

Khan, A. (2010). From Zinda Laash to Zibahkhana: Violence and Horror in Pakistani Cinema. Third Text, 24 (1),149-161.

Khan, A. (2019). Cricket, society and religion: a study of increasing religiosity in the national cricket team of Pakistan. Sport in Society.

Khan, Ali (2023). Muslims and Cricket in Rashid, Hussein and Petersen, Kristian (2023). The Bloomsbury Handbook of Muslims and Popular Culture, Bloomsbury Academic.

Khan, A. (2002). Light at the End of the Tunnel - Pakistans Crackdown on Fundamentalism. Cambridge Journal of Anthropology, 22 (3), 77-85.

Khan, A. (2010). Discourses on Childhood: Policy-Making with Regard to Child Labour in the Context of Competing Cultural and Economic Perceptions. History and Anthropology, Taylor and Francis, 21 (2), 101-119.

Bushra, Laila and Khan, Ali. (2021). Gods vigilantes: Islamist paramilitarism in modern Pakistan in Hristov, J., Sprague, J., & Tauss, A. (Eds.). Paramilitary Groups and the State under Globalization: Political Violence, Elites, and Security (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429279430

Khan A. Seventy-five Years of Partition: Rupture and Connectivity: India-Pakistan Cricketing Relations. Critical Pakistan Studies. Published online 2025:1-21. doi:10.1017/cps.2025.10002

Book Chapter

Khan, A. (2016). Pakistani Cinema 1947-1997 - Mushtaq Guzdar. In Ali Khan and Ali Nobil Ahmad (Eds.), Cinema and Society (pp. 27-57). Oxford University Press. Bonded labour 2 chapters

Khan, A. (2016). Film Posters: Reflection of Change in the Pakistani Film Industry. In Ali Khan and Ali Nobil Ahmad (Eds.), Cinema and Society (pp. 209-262).Oxford University Press.

Khan, A. (2016). Violence and Horror in Pakistani Cinema. In Ali Khan and Ali Nobil Ahmad (Eds.), Cinema and Society (pp. 115-136). Oxford University Press.

Khan, A. (2009). Bonded Labour in Pakistan: Recruitment and Wage Systems in Selected Sectors. In Beate Andrees and Patrick Belser (Eds.), Forced Labour: Coercion and Exploitation in the Private Economy. Lynn Rienner.

Khan, A. (2013). Skill vs. Scale - The Transformation of Traditional Occupations in the Androon Shehr. In Dr. Khalid W. Bajwa and Dr. Ali Khan (Eds.), Urban Pakistan: Frames for Reading and Imagining Urbanism. Oxford University Press.

Khan, A. (2014). Power and Authority in the Field. In Sarit K. Chaudhri and Sucheta Sen Chaudhri (Eds.), Fieldwork in South Asia: Memories, Moments and Experiences (pp. 31-69). New Delhi: Sage Publications.

Khan, A. (2012). Child Labour in Pakistan. In Ayesha Jalal (Ed.), The Oxford Companion to Pakistani History (pp. 86-88). Oxford University Press.

Ali Khan, Ali Ahmad Nobil, Sport in Pakistan: Highs and Lows amidst Structural Decline. In Ranjan, A., & Talbot, I. (Eds.). (2025). Challenge, Continuity, and Change in Pakistan (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003603764

Monograph

Khan, A. (2007). Representing Children: Power, Policy and the Discourse on Child Labour in the Football Manufacturing Industry of Sialkot Oxford University Press.

Khan A. (2022). Cricket in Pakistan: Nation, Identity and Politics, Oxford University Press.

Khan, A., & Khan, S. M. (2013). Cricket Cauldron. London: IB Tauris.

Other

2002: Khan, A., The Opium Trade in Pakistan, South Asia Vice Presidents Office.

2003: Khan, A., Concept Note on incorporation of forced and child labour concerns in the World Banks Social Development Strategy for South Asia.

2002: Khan, A., Bonded Labour in Selected Sectors of Pakistan. Working paper for the International Labour Organization, Geneva.

Cricket at 75 -- Pakistan and India - LSE Blog https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/southasia/2023/07/17/cricket-at-75-pakistan-and-india/

1994: Khan, A., Child Labour in Cotton Picking Districts of Pakistan. UNICEF

2003: Khan, A., & Crawford, R., Sialkot Case B - Child Stitchers in Sialkots Football Industry.