After studying at Chambéry high school with an emphasis in the humanities, Michel Boivin became an expert on the Modern history of the Muslim world.
Michel Boivin is specialized in the study of the contemporary history and historical anthropology of Muslim communities in India and Pakistan during the colonial period, and since independence was obtained.
To start out, Michel Boivin retraced the migratory paths of Sindhi Hindus, then researched their Sufi rituals in order to evaluate the extent to which they had to change to adapt to their new environment.
He is particularly interested in the production of a new culture in the Sindh province as a result of interaction between British colonial rule, the emergence of new elites and the objectification of Sufism.
Michel Boivin teaches Historical Anthropology of South Asia at EHESS, Paris, with a focus on the Sindhicate area.
In 2011, Michel Boivin was nominated as member of the National Committee of CNRS, section 38 Ethnology, Anthropology and Sociology of Religions.
In 2017, Michel Boivin was elected Director of the Centre for South Asian Studies (CNRS-EHESS), with three co-directors, and his tenure was from January 1, 2019 to December 31, 2022.
The first part was made in the Roshan Khayal Dawoodi Bohra community of Malegaon, in Maharashtra, and the second one was devoted to two main sites of the Nizari Ismaili community in Mumbai itself, namely the Darkhana Jama'at Khana in Dongri, and Hasan Ali Shah's dargah in Mazagaon.The latter CNRS field was also linked to a project he was starting with Karen Ruffle (University of Toronto) on Muslim devotion to the ahl-e bait.
Michel Boivin retired in may 2023, and he became Emeritus Research Director at CNRS, Centre for the Study of South Asia and the Himalayas (CESAH).
2024 | “The Material Culture of Sufism: A Preliminary Catalogue of data collected in Sehwan Sharif (Sindh, Pakistan)”, in Roberto Tottoli (ed.
2023 | “Khwaja Khizr in Iconographic Translation: The Changing Visual Idiom of a Complex Figure from South Asia,” in Michel Boivin and Manoël Pénicaud (Eds), Inter-religious Practices and Saint Veneration in the Muslim World.
Material Culture and the Performance of Devotion in South Asia”, in Giovani di Zorzi and Thomas Dahnhardt (eds), Journey among the Dervishes between Past and Present, Milano, Mimesis International, pp.
2023 | « ginan », « Jhulelal », « Latif, Shah Abd al- », « marsiya », « mirasi », « Sami », Dictionnaire Encyclopédique de l’Inde, Paris, Editions Garnier.
Commemoration of Three Sites in Sindh” Handbook of Waterfront Cities and Urbanism, Edited By Mohammed Rahman, New York, Routledge, pp.