Who are We?

Ethnographic Marginalia is founded and managed by Sneha Annavarapu and Alex Diamond.

Sneha is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Chicago, where she also received a PhD in Sociology in August 2020. An urban ethnographer by training, Sneha’s wide-ranging research interests center around urbanization, governance, class relations, and gender in contemporary India. In her research, she has examined state-citizen relations through the lens of road safety; the politics of women’s safety in taxicabs in Hyderabad; the historical evolution of middle-class attitudes towards public kissing in Mumbai; how ideologies of good citizenship are embodied in gendered consumption practices at wellness centers in Chennai. Sneha has published articles in academic journals such as Social Problems, Journal of Historical Sociology, and Journal of Consumer Culture and teaches in the areas of feminist geography, transnational urbanisms, sociological theory, and qualitative sociology.

Alex is a doctoral candidate in Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin. His ethnographic research follows the implementation of Colombia’s landmark peace deal, analyzing how the rural village of Briceño has experienced a broader regional transition driven by related processes of state formation, the development of mining and energy megaprojects, and a coca substitution program. Alex has published academic articles in Qualitative Sociology and Contexts, as well as a number of publicly available pieces in the North American Congress on Latin America, Jacobin, El Espectador, and Colombia Reports. He also seeks to incorporate audiovisual work into his research in the form of photography and an in-production documentary film titled “An Uncomfortable Peace”.

Affiliations and Advisory Board

Ethnographic Marginalia is affiliated with the Urban Ethnography Lab at the University of Texas-Austin and the Ethnography Incubator at the University of Chicago.

We are also being guided and mentored by an advisory board of inspiring ethnographers:

1. Dr. Javier Auyero, University of Texas at Austin
2. Dr. Marco Garrido, University of Chicago
3. Dr. Mathangi Krishnamurthy, Indian Institute of Technology Madras
4. Dr. Tahseen Shams, University of Toronto
5. Dr. Claudio Benzecry, Northwestern University
6. Dr. Rebecca Hanson, University of Florida
7. Dr. Caterina Fugazzola, University of Chicago
8. Dr. Cayce Hughes, Colorado College
9. Dr. Alexandra Brewer, Wake Forest University