Dr Simran Kalra

My research lies in the field of law and religion, family law, and migration studies. I am particularly interested in legal consciousness and mobilisation studies among religious minority and diaspora communities.

My PhD, awarded by King’s College London, examined religious marital unions (specifically the Islamic Nikahs) in England. Using qualitative research methods and socio-legal theories, I explained how marriage related rights and obligations are reconfigured within plural legal contexts.

In the past, I have tutored for Family Law courses at SOAS and UCL. I have also tutored on Legal Systems of Asia and Africa, a comparative legal studies course at SOAS. As a lecturer at Jindal Global University, Delhi NCR I have led and taught courses on Access to Justice and Law and Governance.

Research areas

• Legal consciousness
• Legal mobilization 
• Legal hegemony 
• Legal pluralism 
• Law and religion 
• Family Law
• Comparative and transnational law

I am currently working to convert my thesis on nikah-unions in England into a monograph. In this I demonstrate how intimacies within religious minority communities cannot be easily translated into legal statuses of marriage and cohabitation.

My work pursues pressing questions within socio-legal studies: why do individuals make different choices within similar legal dilemmas? What enables individuals to claim alternative understandings of the law? How can we study the role of law in society in the context of legal pluralism? How does migration influence individuals’ legal perceptions and legal behaviour?

Double vision in the inter-legal: situated legal consciousness of British Muslim women in England, Journal of Law and Society (Special Issue) (Upcoming) (2024)

Book Chapter, “Religious knowledge, and legal rights: a study of nikah and secular marriage among South Asian Muslim Women in England”, Relationships Rights and Legal Pluralism: The Inadequacy of Marriage Laws in Europe (eds.) M. Stepian and A. Juzaszek, (2024)

Family Law Reform Now, Comment on Russell Sandberg’s “Adult Intimate Relations Bill”, eds. C.Bendal and R.Parveen, Hart Publications, (upcoming)

• Socio-legal studies
• Comparative law
• Transnational law
• Family law
• Feminist legal studies
• Law and religion
• Legal pluralism
• Alternative dispute resolution

Undergraduate

• Family law
• Law and Society
• Law and religion

• Islam in the West
• Adult unions
• Family and the law

Oxford Centre for Socio-legal Studies Annual Early Career Workshop, Paper titled, “Legal Consciousness and relationality in the context of the Muslim community in England”, 19 June 2023.

Cardiff Law School Annual Workshop on Socio-Legal Studies, “New Directions in Legal Consciousness Studies”, Paper titled, “Pluri-legal consciousness: understanding legal consciousness in the context of legal pluralism”, 23 May, 2023. 

Socio Legal Scholars Association Annual Conference, University of Derry, “Law as it is seen, lived and done at the borderlands”, Legal Borderland, 5 April 2023.

Law and Society Association Early Careers Workshop, Lisbon “Ishq in Islam, Love in Legality: marital unions in the context of legal pluralism” 15 July 2022.

Family Law Reform Now Birmingham University, Comment on Rajnaara Akhtar and Rebecca Probert’s Proposal on Breach of Promise to Marry, 14 September 2021.