Tarini Bedi, PhD
Professor
Anthropology, Sociocultural
Contact
Building & Room:
BSB 2110C
Address:
1007 W. Harrison Street
Office Phone:
Email:
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About
I am an economic, political, and urban anthropologist who conducts research in South Asia and more recently in Southeast Asia. My research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of urban and political anthropology, anthropology of infrastructure, roads, and mobilities, cultural geography, and gender studies. My first book, The Dashing Ladies of Shiv Sena: Political Matronage in Urbanizing India (2016, SUNY Press) develops a feminist theory of brokerage politics. It is particularly interested in the expressive, masculinized, and visual forms of politics utilized by low- level women politicians in Western India.
My second book, (Auto)Biographies and (Auto) Mobilities: Roads, Labor and Kinship in Mumbai’s Taxi Trade is under contract and forthcoming with the University of Washington's Global South Asia Series. This book provides some perspective on Indian automobility and its making of lives, roads and kin relations through the 20th century and into the present.
I am currently completing my third manuscript, tentatively entitled, Globalization, Platforms, and the Affective Labor of Motoring Men looks at the connections between masculine embodiment, bodily debilitation, technology and driving in India and Singapore.
I am also beginning a new project that explores connections between religious mobilities, road transport, and pilgrimage in South Asia.
My current fieldwork and research have been generously supported by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, The National Science Foundation’s Cultural Anthropology Program, and the American Institute of Indian Studies.
I welcome inquiries from graduate students with related research interests.
Education
PhD in Anthropology from University of Illinois at Chicago
MA in Anthropology from University of Illinois at Chicago
MA in Political Science from McGill University
BA in Social Sciences and Theater from Bennington College
FYBA from St. Xaviers College, Mumbai, India