Dr Chandana Mathur
Biography
Dr. Chandana Mathur was educated at the University of Delhi and the New School for Social Research, New York, and has been teaching at the Maynooth University Department of Anthropology since 2003. She is a former Chair of the World Council of Anthropological Associations (2016-18) and now a permanent member of its Advisory Board. More recently, she was the Vice-President of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (2021-23). She has been honoured with a Distinguished Service Award from the International Union for Anthropological and
Ethnological Sciences, and a Presidential Award from the American Anthropological Association. She has been a Visiting Professor at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Centre Norbert Elias, Marseille (2018-19) and at the University of Vienna (2021-22), as well as a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics (2019-21).
Drawing on the perspectives of anthropological political economy and political ecology, her research focuses principally on the contemporary United States, South Asia and the South Asian diaspora. With the historian Deana Heath, she is the co-editor of the volume Communalism and Globalization in South Asia and Its Diaspora (2011: Routledge). Her published work has appeared in such journals as American Anthropologist, Critique of Anthropology, Dialectical Anthropology, Solar Energy, Wiley Interdisciplinary Review Essays – Water (WIREs Water), among others. She is a member of the editorial committee of the journal Dialectical Anthropology, and an Editorial Advisory Board member for Feminist Anthropology, Social Anthropology/ Anthropologie Sociale, and for sapiens.org, an editorially independent magazine of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. For a fuller picture, see her interview in the June 2017 issue of American Anthropologist, where she reflects on her trajectory [IR Link].
She has participated in two transdisciplinary EU Horizon 2020 funded projects, WATERSPOUTT (2016-2020) and PANI_Water (2019-2024), contributing anthropological perspectives (as part of a Maynooth-based social science team) to research led by STEM scientists working on the solar disinfection of water. She has served as a review panel member for the Wenner Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research (2010-12) and currently does so for the European Research Council.
She has supervised/co-supervised 8 PhDs to completion, and was awarded a Research Ally Prize in 2021 by the Irish Research Council for her work as a mentor. Five of her former and current doctoral students have been awarded postgraduate scholarships by the Irish Research Council, and one of them also received the Council's Eda Sagarra Medal of Excellence.
Edited Journal Issue
| Year | Publication | |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Mathur, C. (2023) 'Class within class: his interlocutors and Jonathan Parry', Special forum in Dialectical Anthropology, Vol 47, Issue 2. [Edited Journal Issue] | |
| 2022 | Kingsolver, A., Mathur, C. and Onto, G. (2022) Thematic Section: 'Economic Nationalisms in a World on Fire' in the journal Anuac: Rivista dell'Associazione Nazionale Universitaria Antropologi Culturali, 11 (2). [Edited Journal Issue] [DOI] [Full-Text] | |
| 2018 | C Mathur and S Kasmir (2018) 'The Making of the US Working Class' Special issue of the journal Dialectical Anthropology, Vol. 42, No. 2, June 2018. Guest editors' Introduction: 'On the heterogeneity of the US working class'. [Edited Journal Issue] [Full-Text] | |
| 2015 | Mathur C. (2015) Special Forum: ‘Marx at the Margins: Four Ways’ in the journal Dialectical Anthropology, Vol. 39, No. 2, June 2015. With guest editor's Forum Statement. [Edited Journal Issue] [DOI] [Full-Text] |
Peer Reviewed Journal
| Year | Publication | |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | McGrath, P; GAcciaioli; C Mathur; etal (2022) 'The WCAA Global Survey of Anthropological Practice (2014-2018): Reported Findings'. Vibrant: Virtual Brazilian Anthropology, 19 . [DOI] | |
| 2020 | Mathur, C. (2020) 'Singing about the dark times in the US and India: notes on situated understandings in our age of essentialisms'. Anthropology Southern Africa, 43 (2):133-142. [DOI] [Full-Text] | |
| 2018 | Mathur, C; Mulwafu, W (2018) 'Colonialism and its legacies, as reflected in water, incorporating a view from Malawi'. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews-Water, 5 . [DOI] [Full-Text] | |
| 2018 | Mathur, C. (2018) 'Redefining ethnography ‘in the strict sense of the term’: Perspectives gained from non-standard, old-new fieldwork'. Anuac: Rivista dell'Associazione Nazionale Universitaria Antropologi Culturali, 7 (2). http://dx.doi.org/10.7340/anuac2239-625X-3520 [Full-Text] | |
| 2015 | Keogh, MB; Castro-Alferez, M; Polo-Lopez, MI; Calderero, IF; Al-Eryani, YA; Joseph-Titus, C; Sawant, B; Dhodapkar, R; Mathur, C; McGuigan, KG; Fernandez-Ibanez, P (2015) 'Capability of 19-L polycarbonate plastic water cooler containers for efficient solar water disinfection (SODIS): Field case studies in India, Bahrain and Spain'. Solar Energy, 116 :1-11. [DOI] [Full-Text] | |
| 2006 | C. Mathur (2006) 'The International Medical Commission on Bhopal: Rewriting the Experience of Bhopal Victims into the Professional Literature'. Irish Journal of Anthropology, 9 :19-23. [Full-Text] | |
| 2006 | C. Mathur (2006) 'A Passage to Indiana: Reflections on Fieldwork in a Reverse Direction'. INDIAN FOLKLIFE, 23 . [Full-Text] | |
| 2002 | C. Mathur and W. Morehouse (2002) 'Twice-poisoned Bhopal: Notes on the Continuing Aftermath of the World’s Worst Industrial Disaste'. 62 :69-75. [Full-Text] | |
| 1998 | C. Mathur (1998) 'Transformation as Usual?: The Meanings of a Changing Labour Process for Indiana Aluminium Workers'. Critique of Anthropology, 18 :263-277. [Full-Text] | |
| 2018 | C. Mathur and W.O. Mulwafu (2018) 'Colonialism and its legacies, as reflected in water, incorporating a view from Malawi'. WIREs Water, . https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1287 [Full-Text] |
Book Chapter
| Year | Publication | |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | Mathur, C (2022) 'A Strike to Remember: Ethnographic Reflections on the Conditions of Possibility for Labor Resistance in the US Heartland' In: The Routledge Handbook of the Anthropology of Labor. London and New York : Routledge. | |
| 2013 | Mathur C. (2013) 'The indian state, the diasporic Hindu Right and the 'Desire Named Development'' In: Enacting Globalization: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on International Integration. [DOI] | |
| 2011 | Mathur, C (2011) 'Communalism and globalization An opening gambit in a conversation between two literatures' In: COMMUNALISM AND GLOBALIZATION IN SOUTH ASIA AND ITS DIASPORA. LONDON : ROUTLEDGE. | |
| 2009 | Mathur, C. and Dix, D. (2009) 'The Irish Question in Karl Marx's and Friedrich Engels' Writings on Capitalism and Empire' In: Social Thought on Ireland in the Nineteenth Century. Dublin : UCD Press. [Full-Text] | |
| 2009 | Mathur, C. (2009) 'Noblesse Oblige?: The Fraught Relationship between Domestic Worker Organising and Middle-class Activism' In: K. Hall(Eds.). Studies in Inequality and Social Justice: Festschrift for Ved Prakash Vatuk. Meerut, India : Archana Publications. | |
| 2006 | C. Mathur (2006) 'Shades of Difference: Towards an Analysis of the Spatial Ideologies of the Orange and Saffron Orders in Northern Ireland and India' In: T. Foley and M. O’Connor(Eds.). Ireland and India: Colonies, Culture and Empire. : Irish Academic Press. | |
| 2003 | C. Mathur (2003) 'After 9/11: Perspective from the New York Arab American Family Support Center' In: A. Clarkin and A. Zolberg(Eds.). Sharing Integration Experiences: Innovative Community Practices on Two Continents. New York : International Center for Migration, Ethnicity, and Citizenship. |
Article
| Year | Publication | |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | Nešković, V.V.; Mathur, C.; McGrath, P.; Acciaioli, G.; Millard, A.; Metzner, E. (2022) A Brief History of the First Global Survey of Anthropological Practice and Some Lessons Learned. [Article] [Link] [DOI] | |
| 2021 | Mathur, C (2021) Challenging cow dung COVID therapies and bullshit state policies in India in 2021. In Dialectical Anthropology, Vol 45, Issue 4. DORDRECHT: [Article] [DOI] | |
| 2020 | Mathur, C. (2020) COVID-19 and India's Trail of Tears. In Dialectical Anthropology, Vol. 44, Issue 3. [Article] [DOI] | |
| 2019 | C Mathur (2019) Precarious Employment and Political Peril in Anthropology on a World Scale. In Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale, Vol. 27, Issue S2. [Article] [DOI] [Full-Text] | |
| 2017 | Mathur, C. (2017) The Ethnographic Past. In Anthropology News. Vol 58, Issue 1, January/February 2017, p. 26. [Article] [Full-Text] |
Discussion
| Year | Publication | |
|---|---|---|
| 2017 | Ferreira, VK; Mathur, C; Patnaik, S (2017) Two Interviews by Vinicius Kaue Ferreira: Chandana Mathur (National University of Ireland, Maynooth) and Soumendra Patnaik (University of Delhi). In American Anthropologist, Vol. 119, Issue 2, June 2017. HOBOKEN: [Discussion] [DOI] [Full-Text] | |
| 2015 | Mathur, C (2015) Anthropology and the Irish Encounter. In American Anthropologist, Vol. 117, Issue 1, March 2015, pp 145-146. [Discussion] [DOI] [Full-Text] | |
| 2009 | Mathur, C. (2009) Response to Eamonn Slater and Eoin Flaherty, Marx on Primitive Communism: The Irish Rundale Agrarian Commune, its Internal Dynamics and the Metabolic Rift. [Discussion] [Full-Text] |
Published Report
| Year | Publication | |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Mathur, C., K. Vijayalakshmi, N. Agarwal, U. Sethia, G.H. Fagan, C. Valatheeswaran (2021) Report synthesizing secondary data on sources of conflict over water in India. PANI Water Research Project, . | |
| 2020 | Bates, S., G.H. Fagan, C.Mathur et al (2020) A Qualitative Report On Negotiating Water Lives In Ethiopia, Malawi, Uganda, and South Africa. The Water Sustainable Point of Use Treatment Technologies (WaterSPOUTT) Programme, . | |
| 2017 | Mathur, C. and WATERSPOUTT team members (2017) Report on the influence of conflict, gender and class on the availability of water in the household. WATERSPOUTT Research Project, . [Full-Text] |
Book Review
| Year | Publication | |
|---|---|---|
| 2015 | Dr Chandana Mathur (2015) Review of 'The Darjeeling Distinction: Labor and Justice on Fair-Trade Tea Plantations in India' by Sarah Besky. Berkeley: University of California Press. [Book Review] [Full-Text] |