Bio

I'm a PhD student at Stanford Anthropology, with a particular interest in psychological anthropology and interdisciplinary inquiry. My ethnographic fieldwork is based in Delhi (India) and focused on the grey area of learning disability amongst children aged 10-12.

Prior to Stanford, I received a starred first class BA in Human, Social, and Political Sciences (Social Anthropology track) at the University of Cambridge, achieving the top mark in my class. I then spent 2 years working in technology consulting for higher education institutions at Deloitte UK.

My summer research for 2026 was supported by the Society for Psychological Anthropology / Robert Lemelson Foundation Fellowship. In Autumn Quarter 2026, I undertook an Ivy+ Exchange quarter at the UChicago Comparative Human Development department.

Contact

  • Academic
    inikam@stanford.edu
    University - Student Department: Anthropology Position: Graduate
    University - Student Department: Anthropology Position: Graduate

Links

Current Research and Scholarly Interests

I research the grey areas of learning disability in Delhi government schools, amongst children aged 10-12.

I approach diagnostic categories through ‘negative ethnography’ i.e. through focusing on children who are noticeably struggling yet are not assigned a special needs label. I reflect on the assumptions underpinning diagnosis, how diagnosis acquires a social life, and the possibilities of care that are opened or foreclosed by diagnosis.

I bring to this work another analytic: child-generated culture that sits distinct from adult’s worlds. I hypothesize that children and adults think about classroom differences in distinctive ways and hope to articulate how these tensions play out in schools.

I am drawn to ethnography that is person-centred, that is situated in sites of social transformation, and that takes interpersonal care seriously without romanticising it. Delhi is an exciting field-site to me because it is immersed in global narratives on neurodiversity yet contains locally unique patterns of aspiration, identity, and education.