New Books Network

About Sneha Annavarapu

Sneha Annavarapu is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Chicago.

NBN Episodes hosted by Sneha:

Sociology May 11, 2021

Capable Women, Incapable States

Negotiating Violence and Rights in India

Poulami Roychowdhury

Hosted by Sneha Annavarapu
How do women claim rights against violence in India and with what consequences? By observing how survivors navigate the Indian criminal justice system, Roychowdhury provides a unique lens on rights …
Anthropology April 13, 2021

Waiting Town

Life in Transit and Mumbai's Other World-Class Histories

Lisa Björkman

Hosted by Sneha Annavarapu
Drawing on a decade of ethnographic research in the Indian city of Mumbai, Waiting Town: Life in Transit and Mumbai's Other World-Class Histories (Association for Asian Studies, 2020) is an …
Ethnographic Marginalia April 8, 2021

New Ethnographies of the Global South

In Conversation with Victoria Reyes and Marco Garrido

Victoria Reyes and Marco Garrido

Hosted by Sneha Annavarapu
How can Sociology be nudged away from its traditional parochialism to embrace empirical work that focuses on the global south? Marco Garrido (assistant professor of sociology at the University of …
Anthropology April 6, 2021

Cartographies of Youth Resistance

Hip-Hop, Punk, and Urban Autonomy in Mexico

Maurice Rafael Magaña

Hosted by Sneha Annavarapu
In Cartographies of Youth Resistance: Hip-Hop, Punk, and Urban Autonomy in Mexico (U California Press, 2020), based on a decade of ethnographic fieldwork, Maurice Magaña considers how urban and migrant …
South Asian Studies March 15, 2021

A Social Theory of Corruption

Notes from the Indian Subcontinent

Sudhir Chella Rajan

Hosted by Sneha Annavarapu
In contemporary policy discourse, the notion of corruption is highly constricted, understood just as the pursuit of private gain while fulfilling a public duty. Its paradigmatic manifestations are bribery and …
Ethnographic Marginalia February 26, 2021

Political Life in the Wake of the Plantation

Sovereignty, Witnessing, Repair

Deborah A. Thomas

Hosted by Sneha Annavarapu
How can ethnographers use multimedia presentations of their work to reach new audiences, build different relationships with their participants, and promote new practices of witnessing and representation? On today’s episode …
Ethnographic Marginalia February 1, 2021

Fútbol in the Park

Immigrants, Soccer, and the Creation of Social Ties

David Trouille

Hosted by Sneha Annavarapu
What meaning does a daily soccer game in a public Los Angeles park have for a group of Latino men and the ethnographer who studied them? In today’s episode, we …
Anthropology January 27, 2021

The Occupied Clinic

Militarism and Care in Kashmir

Saiba Varma

Hosted by Sneha Annavarapu
In The Occupied Clinic: Militarism and Care in Kashmir (Duke UP, 2020), Saiba Varma explores the psychological, ontological, and political entanglements between medicine and violence in Indian-controlled Kashmir—the world's most …
Ethnographic Marginalia January 18, 2021

Studying LBGT Organizing in China

A Conversation with Caterina Fugazzola

Caterina Fugazzola

Hosted by Sneha Annavarapu
In today’s episode of Ethnographic Marginalia, Sneha Annavarapu talks with Dr. Caterina Fugazzola, Earl S Johnson Instructor in Sociology at the University of Chicago, about her research on the contemporary …
Ethnographic Marginalia December 7, 2020

Introduction to 'Ethnographic Marginalia'

A Discussion with Alex Diamond and Sneha Annavarapu

Alex Diamond and Sneha Annavarapu

Hosted by Sneha Annavarapu
Far too often, the most evocative and interesting experiences that come out of ethnographic fieldwork are pushed to the margins. In the first episode of Ethnographic Marginalia, series hosts 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 …
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 …
Anthropology 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 …
Sociology 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 …
South Asian Studies April 13, 2020

The Archive of Loss

Lively Ruination in Mill Land Mumbai

Maura Finkelstein

Hosted by Sneha Annavarapu
Mumbai's textile industry is commonly but incorrectly understood to be an extinct relic of the past. In The Archive of Loss: Lively Ruination in Mill Land Mumbai (Duke University Press …
Southeast Asian Studies April 2, 2020

Class, Space and Politics in Metro Manila

Marco Z. Garrido

Hosted by Sneha Annavarapu
In contemporary Manila, slums and squatter settlements are peppered throughout the city, often pushing right up against the walled enclaves of the privileged, creating the complex geopolitical pattern of what …