School of Social and Political Science

Dr Moyukh Chatterjee

Job Title

Lecturer in Social Anthropology

Photo
smiling man standing

Room number

5.13

Building (Address)

Chrystal Macmillan Building

Street (Address)

15a George Square

City (Address)

Edinburgh

Country (Address)

United Kingdowm

Post code (Address)

EH8 9LD

Research interests

Research interests

Political and legal anthropology; Political violence; Far-right politics and movements; Crowds, publics, and spectacles; Political and Literary Theory; India and South Asia. 

Background

I am a political and legal anthropologist and my work explores the relationship between law, violence and justice in the context of far-right politics. 

My book Composing Violence: The Limits of Exposure and the Making of Minorities (Duke University Press, 2023) examines how political violence against minorities acts as a catalyst for radical changes in law, public culture, and statecraft. More broadly, my work explores the limits of the politics of exposure to understand majoritarian politics and anti-minority violence in India and beyond. 

Over the last decade, I have been trying to understand the relationship between crowds and power, impunity and state formation, and the law and supremacist regimes as part of a broader effort to grasp the role of violence within liberal democracies. 

My current research examines the everyday life of far-right supremacist regimes, including the life stories of men who join far-right organisations, the dead-ends and limits of far-right politics, the creation of muscular, religious publics, and the relationship between authoritarian rule and public religiosity.

PhD Applicants

At this time I am not taking any new PhD supervisions.

Works within

Publications by user content

Publication Research Explorer link
Chatterjee M. Archives as infrastructure of anti-Muslim violence in India. Contributions to Indian Sociology . 2024 Jul 25;57(3):251-275. Epub 2024 Jul 25. doi: 10.1177/00699659231208696
Chatterjee M. "What kind of Hindu are you?" Muscular Hinduism and the making of majorities and minorities. In Ibrahim F, editor, Studies in Religion and the Everyday. Oxford University Press. 2024. p. 89-108. (Oxford Studies In Contemporary Indian Society). doi: 10.1093/oso/9780198902782.003.0004
Chatterjee M. Composing Violence: The Limits of Exposure and the Making of Minorities . Duke University Press, 2023. 184 p. (Theory in Forms).
Chatterjee M. Against the witness: Hindu nationalism and the law in India. Law, Culture and the Humanities. 2019 Feb 1;15(1):172-189. Epub 2016 Apr 8. doi: 10.1177/1743872116643693
Chatterjee M. Beyond the Politics of Exposure: Reflections on Violence and Democracy from the South. The British Academy, 2019.
Chatterjee M. The ordinary life of Hindu supremacy: In conversation with a Bajrang Dal activist. Economic and Political Weekly. 2018 Jan 27;53(4).
Roy A, Dey N, Chatterjee M, Pande S. Unpacking Participatory Democracy: From Theory to Practice and from Practice to Theory. McGill University. 2018.
Chatterjee M. Meter reading. 2017.
Chatterjee M. The impunity effect: Majoritarian rule, everyday legality, and state formation in India. American Ethnologist. 2017 Feb 1;44(1):118-130. Epub 2017 Jan 24. doi: 10.1111/amet.12430
Chatterjee M. Bandh politics: Crowds, spectacular violence, and sovereignty in India. Distinktion. 2016 Dec 8;17(3):294-307. doi: 10.1080/1600910X.2016.1258586
Chatterjee M. Engaged anthropology in the time of late liberalism: Activists, anthropologists, and the state in India. Focaal. 2016 Dec 1;2016(76):117-122. doi: 10.3167/fcl.2016.760108
Chatterjee M. After the Law. Economic and Political Weekly. 2014 Feb 16;49(16).
Chatterjee M. Modes of Encountering the Survivor of Violence: Reflections from AAA 2013. 2013.
Moyukh Chatterjee's Research Explorer profile