I am a cultural anthropologist, writer and audio producer, and am currently a Lecturer in Anthropology at Princeton University. I am interested in gender, atmospheres, emotions, urban life, everyday poetics, conviviality, and experiences of wonder.
Drawing on my experience as a journalist and radio producer, my scholarly work implements multi-media story-telling methods such as audio documentary, film and photography. My writing has been published in The New York Times, Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, among other venues. In audio, my audio documentaries have been featured by The Kitchen Sisters, NPR Berlin, BBC Radio 4, and Resonance FM. I have also published an academic book about collective memory in post-communist East Germany called The Memory Laboratories. My research is grounded in longstanding collaborations with the communities I have studied, who have graciously let me into their lives: you can find the results of these partnerships here.
Listen to my recent audio portrait of Galax, a small town in rural Virginia with strong musical roots. The piece looks at how the town navigated political divisions during the pandemic.
My book project, A Sense of Raunaq: Gender and Public Life in Delhi’s Muslim Communities, is based on 24 months of ethnographic research conducted in working-class, Muslim areas of India’s capital city. The book examines the aspirations of a new generation of young Muslim women at a time of intense volatility for Muslim communities in India today. I document how Muslim women from poor backgrounds seek moments of radiance (in Urdu: raunaq), ghumna (roaming around) and play.
My research has been supported by the Fulbright-Hays Program, the Charlotte Newcombe Foundation, the Global Religion Research Institute, Princeton’s Center for the Study of Religion and the Center for Human Values at Princeton. I hold a BA in South Asian Studies from the University of Chicago, an MA in Social Anthropology from the School of Oriental and African Studies, and a PhD in Anthropology from Princeton University.
Contact me at: thaliag86(AT)gmail.com
Rooftops in Okhla, Delhi