Current Research Areas: deafness and sign language; critical disability studies; transnational discourses and movements; biopolitics, bioethics, and the state; religion; Middle East; Jordan; Singapore
Timothy Loh studies the politics of deafness and disability in Jordan and the broader Middle East and North Africa through the lens of medical anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and the social study of science. Supported by the Social Science Research Council (US), the Royal Anthropological Institute, and the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation, his dissertation examines how deaf Jordanians’ engagements with new “assistive” technologies that have emerged in Amman in the last two decades, like cochlear implants and sign language mobile apps, are shaped by the confluence of language ideologies, biomedical imaginaries, and religious beliefs. Timothy is also a 2022-24 Social Science Research Council (Singapore) Graduate Research Fellow with the Singapore University of Technology and Design and a 2023-24 SAPIENS Public Scholars Training Fellow. His research and writing have been published in Somatosphere, Medical Anthropology, and SAPIENS. Before coming to HASTS, Timothy worked in humanitarian assistance and secondary education in Jordan and Lebanon. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service (Culture & Politics) and a Master of Arts in Arab Studies from Georgetown University in Washington, DC, as well as a Master of Science in HASTS from MIT.
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