Broadly, my research interests center around two themes. The first involves mapping the emergent contours of the ‘knowledge economy’ ethnographically.This research traces the flows of expertise, ideas, and goods that constitute the knowledge economy as a global system, and the infrastructures that enable these interconnections. The research builds on my doctoral work (abstract) in Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (USA), in which I focused on understanding the experiences of and structural conditions that shaped the transnational mobility of Indian engineers. I am currently working on a book manuscript, tentatively entitled Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam: Engineering, Nation, and Migration in Twenty-First Century India, based on this research. The book will be published in 2013 with the Global Engineering Series of Morgan and Claypool Publishers (San Rafael, CA).
My other research interest revolves around cultural and political-economic shifts in post-liberalization India, with a particular interest in emergent articulations of the Indian middle class. My most recent collaboration with Deepa S. Reddy (University of Houston-Clear Lake) focuses on the popular anti-corruption protests that took place in India in summer 2011, and the dynamics of class, consumption, and cultural production embedded therein. A second collaboration with Kim Fortun (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) mobilizes around the idea of “Civic Infrastructures” in India (description forthcoming).
I have also been involved in setting up the transnational research network, The Making of Indian Engineers.
My CV is available here.