Viranjini P Munasinghe

Viranjini P Munasinghe, Associate Professor at Cornell University's College of Arts and Sciences, is affiliated with the Department of Anthropology, Africana Studies and Research Center, American Studies Program, and Asian American Studies Program. Her research explores the intersections of ethnicity, nationalism, creolization, and postcolonial theory in the Caribbean (Trinidad) and the Asian Diaspora in the Americas.

• Research Focus: Politics of exclusion in nation-building projects, ideologies of mixture (creolization/multiculturalism), epistemological entanglements of theoretical concepts (race, ethnicity, nation) with lay/political discourse, and disciplinary methodologies in anthropology.

Publications highlight her work on Indo-Caribbean indentured labor, creolization in Trinidad, and comparative analyses of modernity in the Americas and Asia. Her courses include Introduction to Anthropological Theory, Asians in the Americas: A Comparative Perspective, and seminars on South Asia and the nation. Email: vpm1@cornell.edu.