My research, publications, and advisory work have focused on the histories and political dynamics of Muslim movements in Southeast Asia, particularly Malaya/Malaysia and its broader inter-Asian contexts. This work has extended to published analyses of how Australia approaches its own diversity in its Asian contexts.

I hold affiliations in the Humanities Research Centre at The Australian National University, the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at Flinders University, and the Indo-Pacific Research Centre at Murdoch University.

I am on the International Editorial Board of the journal Ethnic and Racial Studies.

As a historian, my methodology has relied primarily on textual sources and interviews, largely in Malay and English.

My primary research interests have centred on how Muslim movements create constructions of a Muslim ummah and a Muslim world, including around a Caliphate, decolonisation, or some other political focal point. This work has also examined how these movements locate themselves in space and territory, especially in areas that are marginal to structures of state control.

One of my major projects has focused on a 1920s anti-colonial uprising in what we now call Malaysia. This uprising, which took place in the Terengganu hinterland, saw an armed movement develop around Islamic narratives aimed against British colonial practices of territorial control. Rebels occupied a police station and raised the red flag of the Ottoman Caliphate — the Bendera Stambul — as their emblem.

My work on this project has been supported by a Social Science Research Council Fellowship for Transregional Research in InterAsian Contexts and Connections, supported by funds from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. This project began its life as my PhD thesis, which was awarded the J.G. Crawford Prize by the Australian National University in 2010.

I have written and spoken on Malaysian politics and the wider Indo-Pacific Muslim world in Inside Story, New Mandala, The Conversation, and Fulcrum, among others, and served as a regular expert commentator for CNN International, Al Jazeera, Bloomberg, BBC World Service, and Time.