Research
Of neighbours as victims and attackers, Keeping the Peace, 2019 (also, ongoing)
Stories of courage and friendship abound during mass civilian violence. However, perpetrators of mass violence are often neighbours. Whom, then, do you consider your ‘neighbour’? In new research, I build upon field data from Ahmedabad and introduce new data from the anti-Sikh pogrom in Delhi in 1984 to emphasize the complexities underlying spatial proximity and the nature of contact with peace and violence.
A police outpost marks the separation of Hindu and Muslim houses in an Ahmedabad neighbourhood.
Photo credit: Raheel Dhattiwala
On geography and violence, Qualitative Sociology, 2016
Several neighbourhoods had remained peaceful in Gujarat despite politically sanctioned violence. An ethnographic investigation in Ahmedabad demonstrates the interplay of geographic space with individual and group decisions. Rioters exploited spatial layouts to carefully select targets and ensure escape routes were readily available should the attack go awry. Attackers rarely abandoned reason even amid heightened emotion.
Muslims campaigning for the BJP in Ahmedabad’s Juhapura Photo credit: Yogesh Chawda/Times of India
On the BJP’s Muslim supporters, The Hindu Centre, 2015
A puzzling political phenomenon was seen in the aftermath of the anti-Muslim pogrom of 2002: the public and electoral support of Sunni Muslims of Gujarat for the BJP. Interview and polling booth data across four elections demonstrated a discrepancy between public support for the party and electoral voting patterns. Cognitive dissonance in the absence of dissent explains the contradictory behaviour.
On the political incentives of violence, Politics & Society, 2012
At least a thousand Muslims were killed in Gujarat in 2002. An original dataset of killings in 216 towns and rural areas of Gujarat in 2002 is statistically analyzed to investigate variation. Killings were most likely in places where the ruling BJP faced the greatest political competition. Police chiefs in districts where violence was severe were more likely to be promoted.
Teaching
University of Oxford (UK), ‘Sociological Theory’, 2022
- ‘Ethnicity, race, and nationalism’
- ‘Governmentality and totalitarianism’
- ‘Organized crime and violence’
International Institute of Information Technology (India), postgraduate, 2020
- ‘Explaining social phenomena through sociological puzzles’
University of Amsterdam (Netherlands), postgraduate supervision, 2017
- Collective violence
- Urban Studies
- Sexuality
