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Ravina Aggarwal
Ravina Aggarwal graduated from St. Xavier's College, Bombay,
and received her Ph.D. from the Department of Anthropology at
Indiana University. Her teaching and research interests include
postcolonial studies, feminism, border cultures, expressive
culture, performance, travel and tourism, and community mobilization.
Her scholarship is based on extensive field research in the
trans-Himalayan region of Ladakh in India where she has lived
with Buddhist and Muslim communities. Recently, she completed
a book that explores how cultural performances, such as state
festivals, films, and rites of passage ceremonies, become sites
for shaping political identity in the borderlands of Ladakh.
The search for local models to redress circumstances of war
and inter-religious tension has been the driving force behind
her work in the last twelve years.
Among Dr. Aggarwal's recent publications is the article,
"At the Margins of Death: Ritual Space and the Politics
of Location in an Indo-Himalayan Border Village" (American
Ethnologist, 2001). She edited and translated Forsaking Paradise,
an anthology of short stories by the Ladakhi writer, Abdul
Ghani Sheikh, published by Katha Press in 2001. She is also
one of the founding editors of the journal, Meridians: Race,
Feminism, and Transnationalism.
Feminist theory, particularly in the area of women's expressive
genres and women's participation in politics, is a major focus
in Dr. Aggarwal's research. She has written a review of feminist
anthropology, "Traversing 'Lines of Control': Feminist
Anthropology Today" (Annals of the American Academy of
Political and Social Science, 2000) and an article on gender,
travel, and ethnographic fiction, "Point of Departure:
Feminist Locations and the Politics of Travel in India"
(Feminist Studies, 2000).
The courses that Dr. Aggarwal teaches include Introduction
to Cultural Anthropology, History of Anthropological Theory,
Women and Resistance in South Asia, Anthropology of Religion,
and seminars on Writing Culture Through Fiction and Travel,
Tourism, and Culture.
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