Sara Shneiderman is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology and South Asian Studies at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA. She is a socio-cultural anthropologist whose research addresses the relationships between political discourse, ritual practice, cultural performance and cross-border migration in producing contemporary ethnic identities in the Himalayan regions of Nepal, India and China (especially the Tibetan Autonomous Region). She is currently completing two book projects based on her ethnographic research with the Thangmi community, and has published several articles on the themes of Nepal’s Maoist movement and political consciousness; ethnic classification and affirmative action; ritual and religious practice; and gender, agency and identity. She is also a member of the British Academy partnership out of which this conference has grown.
