Purnima Mankekar

Purnima Mankekar is a Professor in the Department of Gender Studies and Asian American Studies Department at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where her interdisciplinary work bridges cultural anthropology, media studies, and gender theory with critical focus on South Asia and diasporic communities. Trained as a cultural anthropologist, she examines television, digital media, and public cultures through the lens of affect politics and identity formation.

Her educational background:

• Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Washington (1993)

Mankekar's research manifests in interconnected domains:

• Digital media, Big Data, and algorithmic social life
• Virtual anthropology and affect theory frameworks
• Film/television studies intersecting with nationalism
• Feminist and queer of color critique methodologies
• Postcolonial and South Asian American studies

Current projects analyze affective labor in Bengaluru's BPO industry and sociopolitical dimensions of AI in India, reflecting her commitment to contemporary technocultural shifts.

Her publications demonstrate sustained engagement with media-affect-transnationalism intersections, exploring television's role in nation-building, erotic dimensions of transnational media, and affective structures of caste/identity across South Asia and diaspora contexts.

Major recognitions include:

• Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship at Duke University (1997-1998)
• Bunting Fellowship at Harvard's Radcliffe Institute (2000-2001)
• Stanford Humanities Center fellowship (2005-2006)
• Asia Research Institute fellowship, National University of Singapore (2013)
• Fullbright Senior Faculty Research Award for Bangalore call center research (2008-2009)
• Stanford Asian American Studies Distinguished Faculty Award (2002)

Professor Mankekar mentors graduate students in Gender and Asian American Studies while securing significant research funding including Fullbright and institutional fellowships that enable her ethnographic work on media, affect, and technology in India.