Dr Assa Doron
BA (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), MA (prelim.), PhD (La Trobe)
Senior Fellow, Anthropology, ARC Future Fellow 2012-2016, School of Culture, History & Language
ANU College of Asia and the Pacific
Areas of expertise
- Studies Of Asian Society 169903
- Social And Cultural Anthropology 160104
- Anthropology Of Development 160101
- Communications Technologies 1005
Research interests
The anthropology of contemporary India, and South Asia; development studies and contemporary health practices; urbanization; modernity, and identity politics; religion; ethnographic practice, new media, waste and recycling.
Biography
Assa Doron joined ANU in August 2007. He obtained his BA in History from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and PhD in social anthropology from La Trobe University, Melbourne. He recently completed a co-authored book with Robin Jeffrey on mobile phones in India, titled, The Great Indian Phone Book (Harvard UP/C. Hurst, 2013), and published in India under the title Cellphone Nation: how the mass mobile changes business, politics and daily life.
Career highlights
2008 - Awarded Australian Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship
2012 - Awarded Australian Research Council Future Fellowship
2013 – Awarded Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (ASAA) Early Career Research Prize
Publications
- Doron, A & Jeffrey R. (2013) The Great Indian Phone Book: how the cheap mobile changes business, politics and daily life (Harvard, Cambridge, MA; Hurst: London; Hachette: New Delhi)
- Doron, A. (2013) Life of the Ganga: boatmen and the ritual economy of Banaras (Cambridge University Press: New Delhi).* NB. This is a new edition for SA of 'Caste, Occupation and Politics on the Ganges'
- Doron, A. & Barz, R. & Nelson, B (2015, eds) The Ganga Anthology: Modern Writings on the River Ganges (Oxford University Press: London & New Delhi)
- Doron, A & Broom, A (2014, eds) Gender and Masculinities: Histories, Texts and Practices in India and Sri Lanka (Routledge: London)
- Doron, A. & Broom, A. (2011, eds) Health, culture and religion in South Asia: Critical perspectives (Routledge:, London, New Delhi)
- 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) 'The mobile phone in India and Nepal: Political economy, politics and society', Pacific Affairs, vol. 85, no. 3, pp. 469-481.
- 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.
- Jeffrey, R. & Doron, A. (2012) 'Mobile-izing: Democracy, organization and India's first 'Mass mobile phone' elections', The Journal of Asian Studies (71), 1: 63-80.
- 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.
- Doron, A & Neslon B. (2012) 'Ideas from India' East Asia Forum Quarterly, vol.4 no.1
- 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 (2011), 'The intoxicated poor: alcohol, morality and power among the boatmen of Banaras', in Assa Doron and Alex Broom (ed.), Health, Culture and Religion in South Asia; Critical Perspectives, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, New Delhi, pp. 135-161.
- Doron, A 2010, 'Caste Away? Subaltern Engagement with the Modern Indian State', Modern Asian Studies, vol. 44, no. 4, pp. 753-783.
- 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 (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.
- 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.
- 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 (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.
