Associate Professor Assa Doron
Areas of expertise
- Studies Of Asian Society 169903
- Social And Cultural Anthropology 160104
- Anthropology Of Development 160101
- Communications Technologies 1005
- Other Medical And Health Sciences 1199
Research interests
The anthropology of contemporary India, and South Asia; development studies; technology, urbanization; public health & sanitation, identity politics; religion; ethnographic practice, new media, waste and recycling.
Biography
Assa Doron's main areas of interest include, urban anthropology, development studies, the environment, and media and technology. Much of his anthropological fieldwork was carried in Varanasi where he focused on the ritual economy of the river and questions of caste and identity politics in India. The study was published in the book, Life on the Ganga, (Cambridge, 2013). Doron's collaboration with Robin Jeffrey led to a book on the mobile phone revolution in India, titled, The Great Indian Phone Book (Harvard UP/C. Hurst, 2013), published in India under the title Cellphone Nation: how the mass mobile changes business, politics and daily life. The book received wide media coverage and favourable reviews in outlets such as, The Economist, Bloomberg, India Today, Times Higher Education, The Wall Street Journal, LA Review of Books, Economic & Political Weekly (EPW), LSE Review of Books, The Australian, and SMH as well as in various academic journals.
Doron & Jeffrey's most recent book is Waste of a Nation: Garbage and Growth in India (Harvard University Press 2018), which was equally well received, with positive reviews in Nature, New Scientist, Times of India, Public Books, LSE Rev of Books, and The Australian, amongst others.
Assa Doron was also the Founding Director of the South Asia Research Institute at ANU until 2017. (http://sari.anu.edu.au)
Career highlights
2013/4 – Awarded Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (ASAA) Early Career Research Prize
2012 - Awarded Australian Research Council Future Fellowship
2008 - Awarded Australian Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship
Media:
Doron's articles and interviews include: The New York Times (Blog), The Hindu, Scroll.in, The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, Times of India, Candian Public Radio, Inside Story, SBS radio (interviewed in Hindi) ABC radio (Late Night Live), ABC 24, Lok Sabha TV (India's parliamentary TV Channel), and Tehelka TV.
Researcher's projects
Key research areas focus on the themes of Media and Technology, Culture and Politics, and Health and Society. Research projects and grants include:
2015-16 -- RSAP, New Directions Grant
2011-15 ARC Future Fellowship. Project title: Recycling Modernity: An anthropological study of India’s mobile phone repair and recycling economies.
2015 - English Adjusted: Everyday English Keywords in India.
2011 -- Australia-India Council Research Grant. Project title: Celebrating Subaltern Studies: A symposium.
2009-10 -- AusAID Australian Development Research Award. Project title: Masculinity and violence in Indonesia and India.
2009-12 -- ARC Discovery Project [DP0985784]. Project title: Mediated Mobilities: India’s low caste revolution in the media age.
2009-12 - ARC Postdoctoral Fellowship [DP0985784]. Project title: Mediated Mobilities: India’s low caste revolution in the media age.
2008 -- Research Grant (ARC-APFRN, CAPSTARNS, RSPAS). Workshop title: Health, Culture and Religion in South Asia.
Available student projects
GRADUATE SUPERVISION
Completions (PhD)
- Kavesh Muhamed, Anthropology, ‘Human-Animal Relations in Rural Pakistan’, (Chair supervisor)
- Annie McCarthy, Anthropology, ‘Children’s Stories about Children’s Stories’, ANU 2016 (Chair supervisor)
- Sacha Cody, ‘Consumer desire and risk society in urban China’ 2016 (Supervisor)
- Le Hoang Ngoc Yen, Anthropology, ‘The Social and Cultural Construction of Leprosy in Vietnam’, ANU 2015 (Supervisor)
- Patrick McCarthy, Asian Studies, ‘Spiritual Capital, Power and Sanskrit: An ethnographic study of the Temple of Peace ashram’, ANU 2015, (Supervisor)
- Xuang Dong, Anthropology, ‘Fighting for Urban Citizenship in China’, ANU 2015 (Supervisor)
- Udeni Appuhamilage (Anthropology, Sri Lanka) ANU, 2014 (Supervisor)
- Kate Sullivan: ‘Conceptualising India as a “Great Power” since Independence’, ANU, 2012 (Advisor)
- Venkatachalam Thiruppugazh: ‘Natural Disasters and their Mitigation in South Asia 2012’, ANU, 2012 (Advisor)
- Jessica Hinchy: ‘Illicit Sex, Criminal Gender: The “deviant” subjects of the British Raj’, ANU, 2013 (Advisor)
Ongoing Supervision
- Saidalav Thodika (Anthropology, ‘Social Hierarchy amongst Muslim in Malabar', Chair Supervisor)
- Elvin Xing (Anthropology, ‘Tribal Organisations in South India’, Chair Supervisor)
- Mohit Chaturvedi (Anthropology and Development, ‘Consumption in India’)
- Jesse Buck (Cultural Studies, ‘Where Parsis, Hindus and Histories Meet’)
- Catherine Schuetze (Religious Studies, Tibetan Veterinarian Practices)
Publications
- Doron, A & Jeffrey R (2018). Waste of a Nation: Garbage and Growth in India (Harvard University Press)
- Doron, A. (2017) 'Mobile: a keyword', South Asia-Journal of South Asia Studies, vol. 40, no. 2, pp. 358-360pp..
- Ashar, M, Brown, T, Doron, A, Jeffrey, C. 2017. (eds) Special Issue on English Keywords in India. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies.
- Doron, A 2016. Unclean, Unseen: Social Media, Civic action, Urban Hygiene in India', South Asia: The Journal of South Asian Studies, vol. 39(4), pp.715-739.
- Doron, A & Avieli, N 2015, 'People Out of Place: Notes on Waste in India and Israel', in Eitan Bar-Tosef (ed.), Theory and Criticism: pp. 261-272.
- Doron, A & Raja, I 2015, 'The cultural politics of shit: class, gender and public space in India', Postcolonial Studies, vol. 18, no. 2, pp. 189-207pp.
- Doron, A. 2015, 'Hello Boat! The River Economy in Bananas', in Assa Doron, Richard Barz, Barbara Nelson (ed.), An Anthology of Writings on the Ganga: Goddess and River in History, Culture and Society, (Oxford University Press, London, New Delhi), pp. 325-240.
- Doron, A, Barz, R & Nelson, B, ads, 2015, An anthology of writings on the Ganga, (Oxford University Press, London & New Delhi).
- Doron, A & Jeffrey, R 2014, 'Open defecation in India', Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 49, no. 49, pp. 72-78.
- Doron, A & Jeffrey, R. 2014, 'Waste and the City', in (ed.), The City and South Asia, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, pp. 56-60.
- Doron, A 2014, 'The Politics of Identity and the People Left Behind: The Mallah Community of Uttar Pradesh', in Roger Jeffery, Craig Jeffery, Jens Lerche (ed.), Development failure and identity politics in Uttar Pradesh, Sage. London & New Delhi, pp. 188-210.
- Doron, A & Broom, A (2014, eds) Gender and Masculinities: Histories, Texts and Practices in India and Sri Lanka (Routledge: London)
- Doron, A 2014, 'Deciphered by Children: The City's View from Below', Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, The, vol. 15, no. 5, pp. 470-473.
- Doron, A 2013, Life on the Ganga: Boatmen and the Ritual Economy of Bananas, (Cambridge University Press India, New Delhi).
- Doron, A & Broom, A 2013, 'Traditional medicines, collective negotiation, and representations of risk in Indian cancer care', Qualitative Health Research, vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 54-65.
- Doron, A & Jeffrey, R 2013, The Great Indian Phone Book, (Harvard University Press, Massachusetts).
- Doron, A. & Broom, A. (2013) ‘Gender and Masculinities: New perspectives’, South Asian History and Culture 4(2): 67-75
- Doron, A (2012) 'Mobile Persons: Cell phones, Gender and the Self in North India', The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, 13(5): 414-433
- Jeffrey, R & Doron, A 2012, 'Mobile-izing: Democracy, organization and India's first "mass mobile phone" elections', Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 71, no. 1, pp. 63-80.
- Jeffrey, R & Doron, A (2012) 'The mobile phone in India and Nepal: Political economy, politics and society', Pacific Affairs, vol. 85, no. 3, pp. 469-481.
- Nelson, B & Doron, A 2012, 'India's churning democracy: future directions', East Asia Forum Quarterly (EAFQ), vol. 4, no. 1 (January-March 2012), pp. 4-5.
- Doron, A. (2012),'Consumption, technology and adaptation: care and repair economies of mobile phones in north India', Pacific Affairs, vol. 85, no.3. pp. 563-585.
- Broom, A & Doron, A (2012), 'The Rise of Cancer in Urban India: Cultural Understandings, Structural Inequalities and the Emergence of the Clinic', Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine 16(3):250-266.
- Nelson, B & Doron, A 2012, India's churning democracy: Future directions, East Asia Forum Quarterly (EAFQ), vol. 4, no. 1 (January-March 2012), pp. 1-4.
- Doron, A & Neslon B. (2012) 'Ideas from India' East Asia Forum Quarterly, vol.4 no.1
- Broom, A, Sibbritt, D, Nayar, K & Doron, A. 2012, 'Men's Experiences of Family, Domestic and Honour-Related Violence in Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh, India', Asian Social Science, vol. 8, no. 6, pp. 3-10.
- Doron, A. & Broom, A. (2011, eds) Health, culture and religion in South Asia: Critical perspectives (Routledge:, London, New Delhi)
- Jeffrey, R & Doron, A (2011), 'Celling India: Exploring a society's embrace of the mobile phone', South Asian History and Culture, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 397-416.
- Doron, A 2010, 'The intoxicated poor: alcohol, morality and power among the boatmen of Banaras', South Asian History and Culture, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 282-300.
- Doron, A 2010, 'Caste Away? Subaltern Engagement with the Modern Indian State', Modern Asian Studies, vol. 44, no. 4, pp. 753-783.
- Doron, A (2009), 'In praise of the ordinary man: Popular media, social hierarchy and identity in a North Indian text', Asian Studies Review, vol. 33, pp. 517-533.
- Broom, A, Doron, A & Tovey, P 2009, 'The inequalities of medical pluralism: Hierarchies of health, the politics of tradition and the economies of care in Indian oncology', Social Science and Medicine, vol. 69, pp. 698-706.
- Doron, A 2009, 'Ferrying the Gods: Myth, performance and the Question of 'Invented Traditions' in the City of Banaras', Sites, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 58-79.
- Doron, A & Rao, U, (2009), 'From the Edge of Power: The Cultural politics of Disadvantage in South Asia. Asian Studies Review, 33/4, pp. 419-428.
- Doron, A 2008, Caste, Occupation and Politics on the Ganges: Passages of resistance, Ashgate Publishing Ltd, Aldershot and Burlington.
- Doron, A & Broom, A 2008, 'Masculinities and Violence in India and Indonesia: Identifying Themes and Constructs for Research', Journal of Health and Development, vol. 4, pp. 209-228.
- Doron, A 2008, 'The forgotten people: India's most backward castes', DEMOCRACY, DEVELOPMENT AND CIVIL SOCIETY IN INDIA, ed. Salim Lakha and Pradeep Taneja, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, pp. 36-57.
- Doron, A (2006), 'The Needle and the Sword: boatmen, priests and the ritual economy of Varanasi', South Asia-Journal of South Asia Studies, vol. 29, no. 3, pp. 345-367.
- Doron, A (2005), 'Encountering the 'Other': Pilgrims, Tourists and Boatmen in the City of Varanasi', Australian Journal of Anthropology, The, vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 157-178.
