Reza Banakar (1959-2020)

It is with great sadness that the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies announces the death of Reza Banakar after a long illness.  Reza was a Research Fellow at the Centre from 1997 to 2002, holding the Paul Dodyk Research Fellowship.  While at Oxford he also served as a Research Fellow at Harris Manchester College. 

From CSLS he moved to a  Professorship at the University of Westminster and in 2013 he assumed the Chair in Legal Sociology at Lund University in Sweden.  His work focused on Iranian legal culture; socio-legal methodology; the sociology of law; and more recently politics, law and popularism.  He was on one of the first people to publish on socio-legal methodology and his book on the topic with Max Travers remains a classic text in the field. 

Reza was an active member of the Socio-Legal Studies Association and the Research Committee on the Sociology of Law. He will be remembered as an excellent scholar, as a devoted educator and as a warm-hearted friend who was always there for you.  His manner was one of modesty and kindness.