Stephen Lyon

Dr. Stephen Lyon is a cultural anthropologist who specialises in the study of politics, law, kinship, farming, and religion in Punjab, Pakistan. He has lived and worked in Pakistan off and on since 1982 in urban and rural locations. He was Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, Associate Professor, Professor of Anthropology, and Head of Department at Durham University between 2002 and 2018. From 2018-2022, he was Professor of Anthropology and Head of Educational Programmes at the Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations at the Aga Khan University (International) in the UK. In 2022 Stephen became the Inaugural Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Aga Khan University’s Karachi campus.

Books (3) 

Political kinship in Pakistan: Descent, marriage and government stability (Stephen M. Lyon) (2019)


An Anthropological Analysis of Local Politics and Patronage in a Pakistani Village (Stephen Lyon) (2004)


Power and patronage in Pakistan (Stephen M. Lyon) (2002)

Edited Books (3)


Pakistan Left Review: Then and Now (2022)


Pakistan and Its Diaspora: Multidisciplinary Approaches (2011)

 

Shaping a Nation: An Examination of Education in Pakistan (2010)


Journal Articles (16)

Peer-reviewed research articles


Kinship, Factions and Survival in Pakistani Politics (Stephen M. Lyon and Sohaila Ashraf Hassan) Soziale Systeme (2022)


Challenging the landed elite in contemporary Pakistani politics (Stephen M. Lyon) Journal of Legal Anthropology (2019)


Categories and cultural models of nature in Northern Punjab, Pakistan (Stephen M. Lyon and Muhammad Aurang Zeb Mughal) World Cultures (2017)


Ties that bind: Marital networks and politics in Punjab, Pakistan (Stephen Lyon and Muhammad Aurang Zeb Mughal) Structure and Dynamics (2016) 


Fostering active network management through SMEs’ practises (Gareth Powells, Ellis P. Judson, Stephen M. Lyon, et al.) Energy Efficiency (2016)


Persistent cultures: Miskitu kinship terminological fluidity (Stephen M. Lyon, Mark Jamieson and Michael Fischer) Structure and Dynamics (2015)


The Co-Construction of Energy Provision and Everyday Practice: Integrating Heat Pumps in Social Housing in England (Ellis P. Judson, Sandra Bell, Harriet Bulkeley, et al.) Science & Technology Studies (2015)...


Harmonizing diversity: Tuning anthropological research to complexity (Michael Fischer, Stephen M. Lyon, Daniel Sosna, et al.) Social Science Computer Review (2012)


Networks and kinship: Formal models of alliance, descent, and inheritance in a Pakistani Punjabi village (Stephen M. Lyon) Social Science Computer Review (2012)


Varieties of openness and types of digital anthropology (David Zeitlyn and Stephen M. Lyon) Durham Anthropology Journal (2012)


Dunbar's Number: Group size and brain physiology in humans reexamined (Jan de Ruiter, Gavin Weston and Stephen M. Lyon) American Anthropologist (2011)


Kinship, computing, and anthropology (Stephen M. Lyon and Simeon S. Magliveras) Social Science Computer Review (2006)


Anthropology and displacement: Culture, communication and computers applied to a real world problem (Stephen M. Lyon and Michael Fischer) Anthropology in Action (2006)


Culture and information: An anthropological examination of communication in cultural domains in Pakistan (Stephen M. Lyon) Cybernetics and Systems (2005)


Modeling context in Punjabi conflict resolution: Social organizations as context agents (Stephen M. Lyon) Cybernetics and Systems (2004)


Local Arbitration and Conflict Deferment in Punjab, Pakistan (Stephen Lyon) Anthropologie (2002).

Book Chapters (8)

A Complex Educational Landscape: The Impossible Choices of Private, Public and Language Options in Pakistan (Stephen M. Lyon and Mirat Al Fatima Ahsan) Education in Troubled Times: A Global Pluralist Response (2022)


Potohari Punjabi of Pakistan (Stephen Lyon) Native Nations: The Survival of Indigenous Peoples (2020)


Cultural models of nature and divinity in a rain-fed farming village of Punjab, Pakistan (Stephen Lyon and Muhammad Aurang Zeb Mughal) Cultural Models of Nature: Primary Food Producers and Climate Change (2019)


Patronage and Clientelism (Stephen M. Lyon) SAGE Research Methods Foundations (2019)


Conflict and Security (Stephen Lyon) The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology (2018)


Online environments and the future of social science research (Michael Fischer, Stephen M. 


Lyon and David Zeitlyn) The SAGE Handbook of Online Research Methods (2017)


The Internet and the future of social science research (Michael Fischer, Stephen M. Lyon and David Zeitlyn) The Sage handbook of online research methods (2008)


In the Shadow of September 11: Multiculturalism and Identity Politics (Stephen M. Lyon) Muslim Britain: Communities Under Pressure (2005)

Opinions (4)

Short articles for newspapers and other popular media

Unspoken Histories and Inherited Traumas (Stephen M. Lyon) Geo News (2022)


The Politics of Shalwar Kameez (Stephen M. Lyon) Geo News (2022)


 Politics and Violence (Stephen M. Lyon) Geo News (2022)


Internally Displaced People: A social-cultural-technical challenge (Stephen M. Lyon) Geo News (2022)

Editorials (1)

Academic editorials in scholarly publications

Changing of the guard (Stephen M. Lyon) History and Anthropology (2014)

Obituaries (1)

Obituary: Iain Ross Edgar (1948-2021) (David Henig and Stephen M. Lyon) Anthropology Today (2021)

Commentaries (2)

Responses in scholarly publications

The choice of interdisciplinarities (Stephen Lyon) Learning and Teaching: The International Journal of Higher Education in the Social Sciences (2014)


Genealogy, kinship, and knowledge: A cautionary note about causation (Stephen M. Lyon) Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2010)

Reviews (3)

Review of Jürgen Waseem Frembgen. 2014. The Closed Valley: With Fierce Friends in the Pakistani Himalyas. OUP: Karachi. (Stephen Lyon) Anthropos (2016)


Review of Piliavsky, A. ed., 2014. Patronage as Politics in South Asia, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Stephen Lyon) Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (2016)


Scholz, Fred (trans. Hugh van Skyhawk). Nomadism and colonialism: A hundred years of Baluchistan, 1872-1972. (Stephen M. Lyon) Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (2003)

2023 SESSIONS