My interest in South Asian Muslim societies and cultures is the outcome of several interconnected life experiences. I first became interested in the study of Indian cultures while reading selections from the Rig Veda and Mahabharata in a high school English class.  While studying philosophy as an undergraduate, my early interest in the ancient cultures of South Asia shifted to more contemporary concerns, especially focusing on the ways that academic writing applied social theory to Indian social contexts.  Through coursework, I was exposed to thinking about Muslim societies in comparative contexts—in places like Indonesia, Malaysia, and India—and I decided to pursue this work further in graduate school.

During the 2007-2008 year I conducted fieldwork for my dissertation in Mumbai (Bombay), India. My dissertation focuses on Mumbai’s Ismaili Khoja community, a largely prosperous community of merchants who follow the Ismaili branch of Shi‘a Islam.  The Khojas are uniquely positioned in Mumbai, because on the one hand, as Muslims they are the subjects of discourses that demonize all Muslims as anti-national.  On the other hand, as members of an Ismaili minority within the already minority Muslim population in India, they are subject to “reformist” discourses that question their commitment to Islam.  I examine how Khojas negotiate these discourses by encouraging social practices that “represent the self” in ways that obscure controversial information or reveal facets of their social life that demonstrates their commitment to Islamic principles and to the values of the nation-state. 

I am also interested in the variety of ways that people represent the past.  This involves evaluating how anthropologists and historians write histories as well as the variety of ways that the people we study represent the past.  My work on this subject has led me to analyze a series of 19th century court cases involving the Aga Khan and the Khoja community, where competing parties sought to define the religion of the Khojas through the use of differing historical representations. 

Courses

• MESA 210 Muslims in a “Hindu World:” Islam in India
• SAST 211 Introduction to South Asian Civilizations and Cultures
• ANTH TBA The Anthropology of Secrecy and Power (Spring 2009)