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Sara Shneiderman

Associate Professor, Anthropology Department and School of Public Policy & Global Affairs, University of British Columbia

I am Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia, jointly appointed in the Department of Anthropology and the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs. I co-lead UBC's Disaster Resilience Research Network, and serve on the Steering Committee of the UBC Himalaya Program. My research as a sociocultural anthropologist explores how social transformation is shaped by dynamics of citizenship and belonging (in relation to Indigenous, ethnic, religious and gender identities); cross-border mobility; conflict and political mobilization; territory and land use; development discourses and practices; and disaster aftermath and preparedness. I have conducted research in South Asia and the Himalayas for over 25 years, and am now involved in several emerging research projects about disaster resilience and community-building in British Columbia. I recently completed work on a 5-year SSHRC Partnership Development Grant focused on Nepal's post-earthquake reconstruction, and am currently involved in three transdisciplinary research projects that explore the intersection of political and environmental transformation in relation to landsliding, infrastructural development, and urbanization. I am the author of Rituals of Ethnicity: Thangmi Identities Between Nepal and India (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015).

Experience

  • 2017–present
    Associate professor, University of British Columbia
  • 2015–2017
    Research assistant professor, University of British Columbia
  • 2011–2014
    Research assistant professor, Yale University
  • 2009–2011
    Postdoctoral research fellow, St Catharine's College, University of Cambridge

Education

  • 2009 
    Cornell University, PhD
  • 2004 
    Cornell University, MA
  • 1997 
    Brown University, BA Honours

Publications

  • 2023
    The power of Buddhist homelands: secularism, space and sovereignty, South Asian History and Culture
  • 2023
    On the Subject of Corruption: “Community Contributions” and the Labour of Infrastructural Development in Post-Earthquake Nepal, Public Anthropologist
  • 2023
    Beyond Reconstruction: What Leads to Satisfaction in Post-Disaster Recovery?, Journal of Happiness Studies
  • 2022
    Ethnicity, Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology
  • 2022
    Action beyond intent: experiencing ir/reconciliation (Afterword 2), Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
  • 2021
    The Ethnography of Collaboration: Navigating Power Relationships in Joint Research, Collaborative Anthropologies
  • 2021
    Multi-hazard susceptibility and exposure assessment of the Hindu Kush Himalaya, Science of the Total Environment
  • 2020
    Disaster Financialization: Earthquakes, Cashflows and Shifting Household Economies in Nepal, Development and Change
  • 2020
    Forging Community through Disaster Response: Nepali Canadians and the 2015 Earthquakes, BC Studies
  • 2020
    Redundancy, Resilience, Repair: Infrastructural Effects in Borderland Spaces, Verge: Studies in Global Asias
  • 2018
    Darjeeling Reconsidered: Histories, Politics, and Environments, Oxford University Press
  • 2017
    Citizenship, Gender, and Statelessness in Nepal: Before and After the 2015 Constitution in Understanding Statelessness. Tendayi Bloom, Katherine Tonkiss and Philip Cole, eds., Routledge
  • 2016
    Nepal's Ongoing Political Transformation: A Review of Post-2006 Literature on Conflict, The State, Identities, and Environments, Modern Asian Studies
  • 2015
    Restructuring States, Restructuring Ethnicity: Looking Across Disciplinary Boundaries at Federal Futures in India and Nepal, Modern Asian Studies
  • 2015
    Rituals of Ethnicity: Thangmi Identities Between Nepal and India. , University of Pennsylvania Press
  • 2014
    Reframing Ethnicity: Academic Tropes, Recognition Beyond Politics, and Ritualized Action in Nepal and India, American Anthropologist
  • 2013
    Himalayan Border Citizens: Sovereignty and Mobility in the Nepal-Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) of China Border Zone, Political Geography
  • 2013
    The Practices, Policies and Politics of Transforming Inequality in South Asia: Ethnographies of Affirmative Action, Focaal: Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology

Grants and Contracts

  • 2020
    Planning and Preparedness for the Mountain Hazard and Risk Chain
    Role:
    Co-Investigator
    Funding Source:
    UKRI Global Challenges Research Fund
  • 2017
    Expertise, Labour and Mobility in Nepal’s Post-Conflict, Post-Disaster Transformation
    Role:
    PI
    Funding Source:
    Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
  • 2016
    NASA (Land Cover Land Use Change Program) - collaborator
    Role:
    Collaborator
    Funding Source:
    NASA
  • 2015
    Restructuring Life: Citizenship, Territory and Religiosity in Nepal’s State of Transformation
    Role:
    PI
    Funding Source:
    Wenner-Gren Foundation
  • 2014
    Infrastructures of Democracy: Post-conflict transition and state building in Nepal’s agrarian districts
    Role:
    Co-Investigator
    Funding Source:
    Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
  • 2009
    Inequality and Affirmative Action in South Asia: Current Experiences and Future Agendas in India and Nepal
    Role:
    Co-Investigator
    Funding Source:
    British Academy

Professional Memberships

  • American Anthropological Association
  • Association for Asian Studies
  • UBC Disaster Resilience Research Network
  • UBC Himalaya Program