Research
Young Monks at Gyuto Monastery, Sidhbari. Image by Ishani Dasgupta. 2014
Drawing from my doctoral thesis, my manuscript Refugee Nation: Citizenship, Resistance, and the Deterritorialized Tibetan Polity centers the refugee as a critical political figure of our time—one whose actions simultaneously indict the global order of nation-states that perpetuates regimes of violence and exclusion, while also revealing the possibilities for alternative political projects.
Over thirty months of fieldwork between 2018–2022, I explored the complex dynamics of the Tibetan political project. Refugee Nation tells the story of this polity, fragmented across South Asia, Europe, and North America, that stands in defiance of the denial of territorial sovereignty. My book demonstrates how this unique polity emerges through the political practices of a stateless Tibetan citizenry, transforming refugee settlements from sites of displacement into spaces of national belonging..
Yet, the emergence of this alternative polity reflects not only resilience, but also the traumas and perils inherent in such a project. Within the pages of my manuscript, I explore how global shifts and conflicts between sovereign nation-states, from the Cold War to the War on Terror, have exacted a toll on the Tibetan community—fueling schisms, paranoia, and intracommunity conflict. I argue that it is in the processual nature of the refugee nation, which continues to build, emerge, and resist erasure, that both its radical potential and its limits thereof, lie.
Ongoing Research Projects:
In addition to Refugee Nation, I am working on two other research projects:
1. “Waiting for their War to Come: Tibetan Soldiers Guarding Indian Borderlands” explores the previously veiled faction of Tibetan refugee soldiers stationed along the India-China border in the world’s highest mountain ranges. Based on ethnographic research with retired veterans in a Tibetan old age home, this article examines how nation-states exploit refugees and migrants for military labor, while highlighting how these vulnerable groups sustain their identity and sense of belonging in the face of such challenges.
2. My second monograph project, Tidal Entanglements, is in its early stages, following site visits in the summers of 2023 and 2024. It focuses on Namashudra refugees from Bangladesh, resettled in the Sundarbans—the world’s largest tidal mangrove forest. This research investigates the interplay of caste violence, protracted displacement, state abandonment, human-animal relations, and the looming environmental crisis, offering insight into the experiences and layered struggles of this marginalized community.