Jan Nederveen Pieterse is Suzanne and Duncan Mellichamp Chair and Distinguished Professor of Global Studies and Sociology at University of California Santa Barbara. Research interests include connectivity (Connectivity and global studies, 2021), Covid-19 (Covid-19 and Governance, co-edited 2021) and multicentric globalization (Multipolar globalization, 2018). A project underway is comparative study of capitalisms and varieties of market economies with a focus on inequality. He is the author or editor of 30 books.
Early work concerns anthropology, cultural studies, Eurocentrism, ethnicity and multiculturalism (Globalization and Culture, 2019; Ethnicities and global multiculture, 2007; The Decolonization of Imagination, 1995), race (White on Black, 1992), imperialism (Empire and Emancipation, 1989; Globalization or Empire? 2004), religion (Christianity and Hegemony, 1992), social movements and social theory (Globalization and social movements, 2001; Emancipations, modern and postmodern, 1992). A further cycle concerns development studies (Development Theory, 2010), emerging economies (Globalization and Emerging Societies, 2009), sociology of United States (Beyond the American Bubble, 2008), East Asia (Capitalisms in Asia, 2018; Globalization and development in East Asia, 2012), comparative study of Southeast and Northeast Asia (Changing constellations of Southeast Asia, 2017), China (China’s contingencies and globalization, 2017), the Emirates (Perspectives from the Gulf, 2010), Brazil (Brazil Emerging, 2013), humanitarian intervention (World Orders in the Making, 1998) and futures studies (Global Futures, 2000). Books have been translated in Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Danish, Japanese, Korean and Chinese.
He was previously at Maastricht University; University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Institute of Social Studies, The Hague; University of Cape Coast, Ghana and University of Amsterdam. He did fieldwork in Tunisia, Ghana, Liberia, Suriname, South Africa, Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, USA, Pakistan, India, Thailand, Malaysia. He held visiting professorships at National University of Malaysia (endowed research chair), Freiburg University; Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta; JNU, New Delhi; National College of Arts, Lahore; Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok; Shanghai University, Tokyo; fellowships at EHESS, Paris, Stockholm University, Indiana University, the India Social Science Research Council. He did lecture tours in India, Pakistan, West Bank and Gaza, Thailand, and Brazil, and gave lectures in several countries (Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Chechia, China, Cuba, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Macau, Mexico, Nepal, Norway, Peru, Poland, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Taiwan, Tunisia, Turkey, UAE, UK, Ukraine). He is organizer of lecture series and conferences (including global studies conferences in Chicago, Dubai, Busan, Rio de Janeiro, Moscow, New Delhi, Shanghai), edits book series with Routledge and Palgrave Macmillan and advises universities on international programming.
