About me

Shankar Gugoloth, a doctoral scholar in the Department of Liberal Arts, is working with Professor Haripriya Narasimhan and Professor Sangeeta Kamat at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst as a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Fellow from September 2024 to June 2025. Hailing from a city of the Kakatiya Dynasty, Shankar's academic interests lie in the Anthropology of Education and Aspirations, youth studies, and School ethnography. His primary research focus is on the intersection of education, aspirations, and societal structures.

 Shankar's doctoral research is centred on the aspirations of marginalized communities, specifically tribal and Dalit students in Telangana's social welfare and tribal welfare schools. He investigates how social welfare education influences their aspirations in the face of the aspirational dilemmas presented by the contemporary Development state. Through his research, Shankar seeks to illuminate the role of education in understanding development and global transitions in the post-colonial period.

 Outside of his academic pursuits, Shankar takes pleasure in blogging, watching movies, and engaging with Indian and global politics and history. Reflective writing also serves as a source of comfort and a hobby for him.