Helal Mohammed Khan

Helal Mohammed Khan (peace studies and anthropology) earned an M.Sc. in social and cultural anthropology from the University of Leuven and another in Islamic and Middle Eastern studies from the University of Edinburgh. He is a graduate of Defence Services Command & Staff College, Bangladesh, and holds a postgraduate diploma in international relations from the University of Dhaka. Helal is a former British Chevening scholar and a Flanders Government Master Mind scholar.

Prior to pursuing doctoral studies at Notre Dame, Helal served as a Major in Infantry in the Bangladesh Army and as a staff officer at the headquarters of the Border Guards Bangladesh. As a captain, he led a special forces team of United Nations peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Outside print media, Helal’s writings have appeared in the Bangladesh Army Journal, IAPSS Politikon Journal and The Jahangirnagar Review (Social Science). He contributed a chapter to Conflict in Myanmar: War, Politics, Religion (2016), edited at Australian National University. He remains a reviewer for IAPSS Politikon and Critical Research on Religion journals.

Helal’s doctoral project, administered under a Presidential Fellowship at the University of Notre Dame, investigates the Rohingya refugees and their microcosmic experiences in the American Midwest, whom he witnesses moving beyond trauma and persecution and he explores through the themes of hope, positivity, and host-migrant interactional triviality.

Recent Publications

• Khan, Helal Mohammed (Peace Studies and Anthropology Ph.D. student). "The People’s Forest: Environmental Activism Surrounding the Sundarbans in Bangladesh." The Jahangirnagar Review, Part II: Social Science, Vol. XL, 2019, pp. 81-95