Professor Nayanika Mookherjee

Professor

FRSA (Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts)

ORCID profile

Affiliations
Affiliation
Professor in the Department of Anthropology
Co-Director (Social Sciences and Health) in the Institute of Advanced Study

Biography

I am a Professor of Political Anthropology, Co-Director of the Institute of Advanced Study and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA). The overarching theme that connects my work concerns an ethnographic exploration of public memories of violent pasts and aesthetic practices of reparative futures. Located within the debates of political anthropology my ethnographically-informed, interdisciplinary, research specialisation, teaching and publications are on the state, violence, memory, aesthetics, memorialisation, visual practices, ethics, irreconciliation, adoption and South Asia. My ethnographic research engages with (i) public memories of wartime sexual violence; (ii) the role of graphic ethnography in translating difficult stories; (iii) war crimes tribunals and irreconciliation; (iv) memorialisation of past violence and the history of the enslaved; (v) digital surveillance (vi) transnational adoption and genetic citizenship and (vii) ethics. I have published extensively on anthropology of violence, ethics and aesthetics.

Notable publications include:

1) Funded by the Wenner Gren Foundation I published Spectral Wound: Sexual Violence, Public Memory and the Bangladesh War of 1971 [Duke University Press, (2015); with a foreword by Prof. Veena Das, endorsements by Profs. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Dina Siddiqi, Michael Lambek and others] was shortlisted for awards generating interviews on Radio 4’s Thinking Allowed along with various academic and media reviews and honours.

2) Based on Spectral Wound, and funded by ESRC Impact Acceleration Fund in 2019, I co-authored with Najmunnahar Keya guidelines, graphic novel and animation film Birangona and ethical testimonies of sexual violence during conflict, (2019) in Bangla and English which received the 2019 Praxis Award from the Washington Association of Professional Anthropologists and was highly rated as an impact case study for REF 2021. I have also published extensively and am teaching on the growing field of graphic ethnography.

3) Funded by the Leverhulme Foundation and a one-month scholarly residency fellowship in the Rockefeller Foundation in Bellagio, I have published extensively on memorialisation of violent pasts. I engage with debates on aesthetics in four edited volumes with Christopher Pinney (Aesthetics of Nations, 2011), Tariq Jazeel (Aesthetics, Politics, Conflict drawing on Jacques Ranciere, 2015) and Self in South Asia (2013). Publication of the volume ‘On Irreconciliation’ (JRAI book series 2022) led to the invitation to deliver the keynote lectures: 2023 Raymond Firth lecture at the Association of Social Anthropology annual conference; 2023 King’s Keynote lecture for Annual South Asia conference; 2023 Jashodhara Bagchi Inaugural Memorial Lecture, Kolkata, India. Drawing from this volume, my book: ‘Arts of Irreconciliation and the Bangladesh War of 1971’ is under preparation.

4) Following my publications on memorialisation of wars and supported by Institute of Advanced Study and Durham University’s EDI fund, I am exploring the ‘Absence Presence of Durham’s Black History’ with Dr Liam Liburd (History), Dr Sol Gamsu (Sociology) and various academic and non-academic collaborators.

5) A British Academy and Institute of Advanced Studies Christopherson Knott fellowship has supported my ongoing research on Children Born of Wartime Sexual Violence, Adoption and Returnee Adoptees in Bangladesh, Europe and North America.

6) I am continuing to research and co-author on digital surveillance and Rohingya communities with Dr Mark Lacy and Dr Sadaf Noor Islam (Funded by British Academy).

Other commitments and activities include:

2023. Irreconciliation and its Divergences. 2023 Raymond Firth Keynote Lecture. Association of Social Anthropology Annual Conference, School of Oriental and African Studies, London.
2023. Nayanika’s research on the war baby of the Bangladesh War was quoted in the Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/aug/11/ill-never-know-where-im-from-plight-of-the-adopted-children-of-bangladeshs-birangona-women
2023. Speaker ‘On what does the Future Hold’ on a panel (with Dr Michael Crawley, Dr Felix Ringel chaired by Professor Simone Abram) on New Writing North as part of Durham Book Festival 2023. Saturday 14 October, 4-5 pm. Following a specially commissioned podcast series.
2023. Reconciliation and Irreconciliation: Debates from South Asia. Keynote lecture for King’s College South Asia Conference, London (May 2023); Inaugural Jasodhara Bagchi Memorial Lecture, Kolkata, India (August 2023); Drik, Dhaka, (October 2023).
2023.Shortlisted for the PhD Supervisor of the Year award at the UK 2023 Postgrad Awards. https://staffblog.webspace.durham.ac.uk/tag/phd-supervisor-of-the-year/; In conversation with Nayanika Mookherjee, Professor of Political Anthropology (durham.ac.uk)
May 2022. Cited on Durham University website as: Impactful research in ethically recording testimonies of sexual violence - Durham University
2021. Nominated for Excellence in Teaching and Learning Award (Violence and Memory module).
2021. Appointed as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA).
2020. (National exhibition) The ‘Everyday’ of Sexual Violence in Conflict: Rethinking the Economic Contexts of Shame and Stigma is exhibited at Illustrating Anthropology, Launched at Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool, @BeingHumanFest. Part of Royal Anthropological Institute and Public Anthropology Exhibition. https://illustratinganthropology.com/nayanika-mookherjee/
2019. Praxis Award (Washington Association of Professional Anthropologists) for graphic novel and film: ‘Birangona: Towards Ethical Testimonies of Sexual Violence During Conflict’. (Money from royalties and awards given to the survivors) https://wapadc.org/2019-Praxis-Award The 2019 Praxis award, juror said: "This is a really excellent example of how academic research can be useful for non-academics. A graphic novel is a brilliant idea and the applicant’s engagement with institutions and media is impressive."
2019. Invited to international conference. Prevent Sexual Violence Initiative (PSVI), FCO.
2019. Invited as a woman leader, 8^th March, Buckingham Palace by FCO Gender Equality team.

Professor Mookherjee has successfully co-supervised the following PhD students:

Past Phd Students

Swati Parashar: Militant Women in Kashmir and Sri Lanka (defended with no corrections, Professor in IR, Gothenburg University, Sweden)

Leon Moosavi: White Muslim Converts in UK (ESRC 1+3; Senior Lecturer, Liverpool University)

Elisabeth Grindel: Partners of Overseas Students and Internationalisation of Higher Education in UK (defended successfully, Academic Director, Nottingham Trent International College)

Mirza Taslima: Experiences of Childlessness Among Middle Class Women in Dhaka (University Studentship); Head of Department, Department of Anthropology, Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh; Fulbright Scholar and IAS fellow (23-24).

Zobaida Nasreen: Forced Displacement of Indigenous Women in Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh (Commonwealth Scholarship - defended with minor corrections); Professor, Department of Anthropology, Dhaka University, Bangladesh); Fulbright Scholar.

Pina Sadar. 2017 Faith, Fashion, Feminism: the Veil in UK (Co-supervised with Yulia Egorova) (successfully defended with minor corrections); Media and Cultural Public Policy, Ministry of Culture, UK government.

Jacco Visser: The Impact of the Bangladesh War Crimes Tribunal (Co-supervised with Sarah Dybris McQuaid) (Funded by the Danish Research Council, Aarhus University, Denmark).

Benjamin Hildred (Co-supervised with Bob Simpson) (ESRC DTC funded Phd) Cricket and Reconciliation in Sri Lanka; ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow.

Alessandro Corso. Ethical Lives in Lampedusa. (Co-supervised with Michael Carrithers, Claudia Merli and Kate Hampshire) (ESRC DTC funded Phd). ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow, Oxford University.

Amelia Mulcahey 2020. (M.Res, Co-supervised with Tom Yarrow), Commemoration of the 1620 Mayflower Voyage, AHRC Funded Phd student, Kent University.

Current Phd students:

Aethiqah Abdul-Halim: The Veil in Indonesia (Co-supervised with Yulia Egarova) (funded by the Indonesian government).

Anita Datta (Co-supervised with Tom Yarrow) (ESRC DTC funded Phd) Political and Academic activism of LGBT organisations in India.

Arthur Eirich (Co-supervised with Elisabeth Kirtsoglou) (ESRC DTC funded Phd) Militant Kurdish women.

Halima Akhtar (Co-supervised with Gillian Bentley and Nasima Akhtar). (Commonwealth Scholarship) Childlessness in Bangladesh.

Tahura Enam Neville (Co-supervised with Elisabeth Kirtsoglou) (Bongobondhu Scholarship to start from 1^st August 2021) Statelessness, Law and Politics of Protection: Rohingyas in Bangladesh. EMKP Awardee, British Museum, 23-24.

Hana Cutts-Smith: Breaking up the Whānau : Child Removal and Cultural Genocide in Aotaeroa (Funded by ESRC DTC) (Co-supervised with Dr Gabriella Treglia)

Murad Geybulla, On Apologies. Co-Supervised with Stephanie Kappler (SGIA)

Akshita Mathur, Partition Museums; Co-supervised with Yulia; funded by Wolfson fellowship.

Dilshaad Hossain, Citizenship Amendment Act, Art and Muslim Women’s protest, Co-supervised with Yulia; funded by Wolfson fellowship.

Avarna Ojha, Corruption during the Partition of India (c.1947-1960). Co-supervised with Jonathan Saha and Radha Khurana Kapuria (both in history).

Fiona Mc Gregor, Rape without borders, Co-supervised with Catherine Rourke (Law) and Roger McGinty (SGIA), Peace and Trust Award.

Meghmala Bhattacharya, Spaces of Anti-colonial resistance for Women in Colonial Bengal 1860-1942, Co-supervised with Edward Anderson, Katherine Baxter (History, Northumberland); Jonathan Saha (History Durham), Northern Bridge Studentship.

Fahmid Al Zaid, Fence, Fines and Care of the Forest: Conservation Politics in the Sundarbans of Bangladesh. Co-supervised with Simone Abram and Ben Campbell; Nine DTP Studentship.

Research Projects:

1. Public Memories of Gendered/Sexual Violence during wars/conflict situations Funded by the Wenner Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research (New York), my book is: The Spectral Wound: Sexual Violence and Public Memories and the Bangladesh War of 1971) is published in 2015 with Duke University Press (Foreword by Prof. Veena Das; endorsements by Profs. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Dina Siddiqi, Michael Lambek and others). It was shortlisted for awards, generating interviews on Radio 4’s Thinking Allowed along with various academic and media reviews and honours. See the Somatosphere Book Forum: http://somatosphere.net/2017/02/book-forum-nayanika-mookherjee-the-spectral-wound.html Here are a few chosen reviews of the book:

Acutely aware of the methodological and ethical quandaries of attempts to recover or give voice to survivors, Mookherjee offers instead ethnographic accounts of her birangona interlocutors’ everyday worlds as she encountered them. She juxtaposes these to a reading of testimonial cultures that have developed around the figure of the birangona; critical analysis of visual and literary representations; and conversations with a range of activists, including those responsible for “rehabilitating” so-called war-affected women and girls. This is multi-sited ethnography at its best. – Dina Siddiqi, International Feminist Journal of Politics.
"[Mookherjee] asks, ‘What would it mean for the politics of identifying wartime rape if we were to highlight how the raped woman folds the experience of sexual violence into her daily socialities, rather than identifying her as a horrific wound?’ That is the central question of this powerful and perceptive book." — Michael Lambek, Journal of Royal Anthropological Institute
"The Spectral Wound is an exceptional book. It has thoroughly explored its subject from every conceivable angle in such a way as to give it a real intellectual richness." — Nardina Kaur, Economic & Political Weekly
"It is a pleasure to review books that offer an innovative reading of important areas of recent scholarship. Nayanika Mookherjee’s book throws an epistemic challenge to previous authors and interpretations on the subject." — Rachana Chakraborty, Social History
"Mookerjee's exemplary and closely argued The Spectral Wound highlights the central conundrum of making wartime rapes public: heroism, implied and acknowledged by the designation birangona, can only be acquired by making your shame public....[An] uncommonly complex and delicately observed study..." — Ritu Menon, Women's Review of Books

2) Based on Spectral Wound, and funded by ESRC Impact Acceleration Fund in 2019, I co-authored with Najmunnahar Keya guidelines, graphic novel and animation film Birangona and ethical testimonies of sexual violence during conflict, (2019) which received the 2019 Praxis Award from the Washington Association of Professional Anthropologists and was highly rated as an impact case study for REF 2021. I have also published extensively and am teaching on the growing field of graphic ethnography.

3) Arts of Irreconciliation: Funded by the Leverhulme Foundation and a one-month scholarly residency fellowship in the Rockefeller Foundation in Bellagio, I have published on memorialisation of violent pasts and irreconciliation. This project seeks to explore the configuration of the nation-state and the relation between art and politics through the evocation of senses by various affective apparatus (like museums, memorials etc.) in the context of the setting up of the Bangladesh war crimes tribunal and the role of irreconciliation. Linked to this I co-organised an International Inter-disciplinary Conference 'Melancholic States'. I engage with debates on aesthetics in four edited volumes with Christopher Pinney (Aesthetics of Nations, 2011), Tariq Jazeel (Aesthetics, Politics, Conflict drawing on Jacques Ranciere, 2015) and Self in South Asia (2013). Publication of the volume ‘On Irreconciliation’ (JRAI book series 2022) led to the invitation to deliver the keynote lectures: 2023 Raymond Firth lecture at the Association of Social Anthropology annual conference; 2023 King’s Keynote lecture for Annual South Asia conference; 2023 Jashodhara Bagchi Inaugural Memorial Lecture, Kolkata, India. Drawing from this volume, my book: ‘Arts of Irreconciliation and the Bangladesh War of 1971’ is under preparation.

5) A British Academy and Institute of Advanced Studies Christopherson Knotts fellowship has supported my ongoing research on Children Born of Wartime Sexual Violence, Adoption and Returnee Adoptees in Bangladesh, Europe and North America. Through this project I explore the contested relationship between genetics, and the nation-state through the prism of children born of war and returnee adoptees. Through this, ideas of belonging and citizenship are theorised in the context of Transnational Adoption.

6) I am continuing to research and co-author on digital surveillance and Rohingya communities with Dr Mark Lacy and Dr Sadaf Noor Islam (Funded by British Academy).

7) My focus on ethics emerges from my own research as well as being an Ethics officer of the ASA (Association of Social Anthropology) from 2007-2012 when I updated the ASA ethics code in consultation with the members and being a part of the ethics committee of the World Council of Anthropological Associations. Co-awarded, 'ESRC Research Training Programme: Ethics and Ethical Practice in Social Science, 2006-2009' and developed a website on research ethics.