Ujala Dhaka-Kintgen

Ujala Dhaka-Kintgen received a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Harvard University with a dissertation on the relationship between governance and marginality in Muslim working-class neighborhoods of Mumbai. In 2013-14, she is a Postdoctoral Fellow for the Sawyer Seminar on the Comparative Study of Cultures, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, at the Ohio State University. She was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology at George Washington University in 2012-13. Her research interests include anthropology of the state, governmentality, citizenship, politics of faith, caste, and Muslim communities in South Asia. Her project examines the politics of belonging among Muslims in Mumbai who are primarily engaged in the informal sector and reside in parts of the city labeled as Muslim ghettos. She investigates the intersections of region, caste, language, and religion in minority politics, and how citizenship and locality are constituted through these engagements.