Matthew Day-Lopes

Undergraduate Associate

lopesma3[at]my.yorku.ca

Research Keywords:

Religion; religious violence; ideology; geopolitics; separatism

I am a fourth year undergraduate student majoring in Political Science with undergraduate coursework in Economics, Mathematics and Computer Science. I seek to apply computational tools to study problems in the Social Sciences and Humanities; particularly those involving Complex Networks.

In the field of Asian Studies, I am currently researching the intersection between religious violence and nationalism from the lens of geopolitical and economic strife. In particular, I aim to understand the economic, political and social motivations for growing anti-Muslim violence perpetrated by Hindu and Buddhist nationalists in India and Sri Lanka respectively and their connection to geopolitical conflict between Pakistan, China and the nations of the Indian subcontinent at large.

In doing so, I aim to study the policy implications of such conflict to legislators, arbitrators, stakeholders and watchdogs within the systems of International Law and the actions that stakeholders in the Government of Canada, such as Global Affairs, can take to better understand and manage the risks that such conflicts present.

Within the field of Asian Studies, I also have open/collaborative research projects on GOC policy options regarding Khalistan Movement Separatism, and the ideological collapse of Marxism/Communism in India and its connection to anti-Muslim violence. I am actively seeking collaborators and grants for long- and short-term research funding.

In joining YCAR, I hope to collaborate with a community of brilliant and motivated researchers that further expand my knowledge of the vast and dynamic cultures, politics and histories of Asia.

Outside of the area of Asian Studies, I have research interests in multilateralism and institutional reform, International Relations and International Security.