Anthropologist | DEFCon Fellow | Researcher
I completed my MA in Anthropology at California State University, Fullerton, and I have previous degrees in Archaeology (MPhil) from the University of Cambridge and History (BA Hons) from Ashoka University. My research interests include globalization, transnationalism, immigrant identity, food studies, dairy, vegetarianism, Indian diaspora, multimedia, and alternative ethnographies. My master's thesis is an ethnographic project on the identity negotiation and construction process among vegetarian Indian immigrants in California. Most, if not all, of my research and projects take inspiration from questions I have about my own life and family history.
I was born in the Bay Area (California) to Indian immigrant parents. At the young age of six, my whole family moved to Hyderabad in Southern India. That began my global trajectory and eventually landed me back in California to study transnationalism. In Hyderabad, I grew up under the Waldorf education system and a series of alternative pedagogy-based schools. I resisted the "mainstream" educational setting until I had to take my high school exams. My interest in the Humanities then catapulted me into doing an undergraduate program in North India, close to New Delhi. I brushed up on my Hindi and had the opportunity to immerse myself in Ancient and Medieval historical Indian sites.
Next, desperate to test my social adaptation skills further, I followed up on this cross-country move with an international move to Cambridge, England. I got the opportunity to do an MPhil in Archaeology at Cambridge University. After successfully completing my first archaeological field experience at Holy Island, I plunged myself into the job world. I worked in London for a year as a Teaching Assistant at a Private School, where I caught glimpses of wealthy Londoners' lives.
After interacting with people of different ethnicities, age groups, family backgrounds, economic standings, and beliefs, I felt the itch to understand the mechanism of globalization better. That led me back to finish another degree, this time in cultural anthropology. I am now back full circle to the state I was born in, California. In the future, I will go wherever the opportunities take me, but I will continue to engage in questions that help me make sense of my own travel history and identity.
This E-Portfolio is a living and growing platform where I can not only share my academic experiences with you but also my extracurricular activities. The aim is to move in a direction where I slowly dissolve the line between academic and non-academic engagements.