New Books Network

About Sneha Annavarapu

NBN Episodes hosted by Sneha:

South Asian Studies November 30, 2020

The Truth Machines

Policing, Violence, and Scientific Interrogations in India

Jinee Lokaneeta

Hosted by Sneha Annavarapu
Using case studies and the results of extensive fieldwork, this book considers the nature of state power and legal violence in liberal democracies by focusing on the interaction between law, science, and policing in India. The postcolonial Indian police have often been accused of using torture in both routine and exceptional criminal cases, but they, and forensic psychologists, have claimed that lie detectors, brain scans, and narcoanalysis (the use of …
Anthropology November 24, 2020

Enduring Cancer

Life, Death, and Diagnosis in Delhi

Dwaipayan Banerjee

Hosted by Sneha Annavarapu
In Enduring Cancer: Life, Death, and Diagnosis in Delhi (Duke UP, 2020), Dwaipayan Banerjee explores the efforts of Delhi's urban poor to create a livable life with cancer as patients …
South Asian Studies November 20, 2020

Jugaad Time

Ecologies of Everyday Hacking in India

Amit S. Rai

Hosted by Sneha Annavarapu
In India, the practice of jugaad—finding workarounds or hacks to solve problems—emerged out of subaltern strategies of negotiating poverty, discrimination, and violence but is now celebrated in management literature as …
Food November 9, 2020

Sacred Cows and Chicken Manchurian

The Everyday Politics of Eating Meat in India

James Staples

Hosted by Sneha Annavarapu
Bovine politics exposes fault lines within contemporary Indian society, where eating beef is simultaneously a violation of sacred taboos, an expression of marginalized identities, and a route to cosmopolitan sophistication …
South Asian Studies October 23, 2020

Brewing Resistance

Indian Coffee House and the Emergency in Postcolonial India

Kristin Plys

Hosted by Sneha Annavarapu
In 1947, decolonization promised a better life for India's peasants, workers, students, Dalits, and religious minorities. By the 1970s, however, this promise had not yet been realized. Various groups fought …
Performing Arts August 24, 2020

Ishtyle

Accenting Gay Indian Nightlife

Kareem Khubchandani

Hosted by Sneha Annavarapu
Ishtyle: Accenting Gay Indian Nightlife (University of Michigan Press, 2020) follows queer South Asian men across borders into gay neighborhoods, nightclubs, bars, and house parties in Bangalore and Chicago. Bringing …
South Asian Studies August 10, 2020

1-800-Worlds

The Making of the Indian Call Center Economy

Mathangi Krishnamurthy

Hosted by Sneha Annavarapu
1-800-Worlds: The Making of the Indian Call Center Economy (Oxford University Press, 2018) chronicles the labour practices, life-worlds, and media atmospheres of Indian call centre workers, and locates them within …
South Asian Studies July 3, 2020

Classes of Labor

Work and Life in an Indian Steel Town

Jonathan Parry

Hosted by Sneha Annavarapu
Classes of Labour: Work and Life in a Central Indian Steel Town (Routledge, 2020) is a classic in the social sciences. The rigour and richness of the ethnographic data of …
Anthropology June 22, 2020

Harassed

Gender, Bodies, and Ethnographic Research

Rebecca Hanson and Patricia Richards

Hosted by Sneha Annavarapu
Researchers frequently experience sexualized interactions, sexual objectification, and harassment as they conduct fieldwork. These experiences are often left out of ethnographers’ “tales from the field” and remain unaddressed within qualitative …
South Asian Studies May 27, 2020

Installing Automobility

Emerging Politics of Mobility and Streets in Indian Cities

Govind Gopakumar

Hosted by Sneha Annavarapu
Automobiles and their associated infrastructures, deeply embedded in Western cities, have become a rapidly growing presence in the mega-cities of the Global South. Streets, once crowded with pedestrians, pushcarts, vendors …
South Asian Studies May 5, 2020

Faith, Gender, and Activism in the Punjab Conflict

The Wheat Fields Still Whisper

Mallika Kaur

Hosted by Sneha Annavarapu
Punjab was the arena of one of the first major armed conflicts of post-colonial India. During its deadliest decade, as many as 250,000 people were killed. This book makes an …
South Asian Studies May 1, 2020

Sexual States

Governance and the Struggle over the Antisodomy Law in India

Jyoti Puri

Hosted by Sneha Annavarapu
In Sexual States: Governance and the Struggle over the Antisodomy Law in India (Duke University Press, 2016), Jyoti Puri tracks the efforts to decriminalize homosexuality in India to show how …