Kamala Visweswaran

Kamala Visweswaran is a Professor of Anthropology at Rice University. She is affiliated with the Center for Women, Gender, and Sexuality (CWGS) and the Medical Humanities Program at Rice. Her academic work spans algorithmic cultures, genomic governance, surveillance studies, science and technology studies, feminist theory, ethnography, transnational and diaspora studies, ethnic and conflict studies, human rights, colonial law, and comparative South Asia and Middle East studies. She has conducted fieldwork in Tamil Nadu and Gujarat, India, and taught in Nepal and Sri Lanka.

• Research areas include algorithmic cultures, genomic governance, and surveillance studies
• Editorial experience: Past editor of Feminist Studies (2013-17), North American editor of Cultural Dynamics (1998-2005)
• Key publications: Fictions of Feminist Ethnography (1994), Un/common Cultures: Racism and the Rearticulation of Cultural Difference (2010), Perspectives on Modern South Asia (2011), Everyday Occupations (2013)

Her current book project, A Thousand Genocides Now: Gujarat in the Modern Imaginary of Violence, examines violence through anthropological and feminist lenses. She has received prestigious fellowships and awards supporting her research in South Asia and the Middle East.