Shikha Nehra

Bio

Shikha Nehra is a PhD Candidate in Anthropology at Stanford University. She is conducting dissertation research on the emerging idioms and forms of political belonging in India's north-eastern state of Assam. Her ethnographic and archival research in Assam explores questions of political membership through its sociocultural terrain, tracing the contribution of different ethnic and literary associations in claiming recognition as indigenous communities through complex registers of language, identity and belonging. Her broader fields of interest include nationalism, populism, state and sovereignty, bureaucracy, citizenship, subjectivity, and identity-formation.

Honors & Awards

• Cultural Anthropology Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant, National Science Foundation (2023)
• Dissertation Fieldwork Grant, Wenner-Gren Foundation (2023)
• Ric Weiland Graduate Fellowship in the Humanities & Sciences, Stanford University (2022-2024)
• Graduate Student Research Fellowship, Center for South Asia, Stanford University (2022)
• The Anthropology Prize, Department of Anthropology, Stanford University (2021)
• Brandeis-India Fellowship, Brandeis University (2018)
• Digital Identities Research Initiative Fellowship, Indian School of Business (2018)
• Brandeis Graduate Schools of Arts and Science Fellowship, Brandeis University (2017-2018)
• Semester Merit Scholarship (thrice), Ambedkar University, Delhi (2012-2014)

Professional Affiliations and Activities

• Visiting Research Scholar, Tata Institute of Social Science, Guwahati (2022 - 2023)

Education & Certifications

• M.A., Brandeis University, Anthropology (2019)
• M.A., Ambedkar University, Delhi, Development Studies (2014)
• B.A. (Hons.), University of Delhi, Journalism (2012)