Smith College Department of Anthropology

Ravina Aggarwal graduated from St. Xavier's College in Bombay and received her Ph.D. from Indiana University , Bloomington , in 1994. Her research interests include postcolonial studies, border cultures, anthropology of media, performance studies, narrative ethnography, gender, politics of travel, and community organization. Her scholarship is based on extensive field research in the trans-Himalayan region of Ladakh. In her recent book, Beyond Lines of Control: Performance and Politics on the Disputed Borders of Ladakh, India (Duke University Press 2004), she examines how cultural performances, such as state festivals, popular films, and rites of passage ceremonies, become sites for shaping political identity and border subjectivity in Ladakh. Her work illustrates the complexity and importance of including decentralized frameworks in Indo-Pakistani boundary negotiations over the status of Jammu and Kashmir , where Ladakh is located.

Among Ms. Aggarwal's publications are articles on feminist theory and practice. Through archival and ethnographic research, she studied the changing role of women in the expanding marketplace of Leh, Ladakh's capital, and documented oral histories of laborers, refugees, politicians, and storytellers in the region. She is one of the founding editors of the journal, Meridians: Race, Feminism, and Transnationalism .

Ms. Aggarwal has also edited and translated an anthology of stories entitled Forsaking Paradise (2001) by the Ladakhi historian and writer, Abdul Ghani Sheikh. The narratives in this volume deal with situations that affect contemporary Ladakhi society such as religious discord, border tensions, tourism, and social stratification. Building on her interest in literature, she edited Into the High Ranges (2002) for Penguin India , a collection of contemporary writings by environmentalists, journalists, poets, and anthropologists on the mountainous regions in India .

Her ongoing projects include editing a book on Kargil (forthcoming, Seagull Press), articles on militarization and peace in Ladakh, and a new ethnography, My Life on AIR: Broadcasting Nation and Region in the Ladakh Himalayas , where she analyses the life and works of Morup Namgyal, Ladakhi radio's chief music composer, interviewer, and playwright, to assess how local producers and performers use the medium of radio to negotiate their relationship with the Indian state and re-inscribe national agendas to create a regional identity based on local struggles around language, religion, and political economy.

At Smith College , the courses that Ms. Aggarwal teaches are Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Culture and Conflict in the Himalayas, Borderlands, Gender, Media and Culture in India, Performing Culture, Writing Lives, Representing Culture, and Travel, Tourism and Anthropology.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

Beyond Lines of Control: Performance and Politics on the Disputed Borders of Ladakh , India . Durham : Duke University Press, 2004.

Into the High Ranges: The Penguin Anthology of Mountain Writing. Edited by Ravina Aggarwal. New Delhi , London : Penguin Books, 2002.

Forsaking Paradise : Stories from Ladakh by Abdul Ghani Sheikh. Translated and edited by Ravina Aggarwal. New Delhi : Katha Press, 2001.

“The Turquoise Headdress of Ladakh.” In Arts and Material Culture of Ladakh , edited by Monisha Ahmed and Claire Harris. Bombay : Marg Publications, 2005. Forthcoming.

“Trails of Turquoise: Feminist Enquiry and Counterdevelopment” in Post-development Feminist Thought , edited by Kriemild Saunders, pages 69-85. London : Zed Press, 2002.

“Learning From Mountains” in Into the High Ranges: The Penguin Anthology of Mountain Writing, edited by Ravina Aggarwal, pages 175-186. Penguin Books, 2002.

“At the Margins of Death: Ritual Space and the Politics of Location in an Indo-Himalayan Border Village .” American Ethnologist . August, 2001. 27(3): 549-573.

“Point of Departure: Feminist Locations and the Politics of Travel in India .” Feminist Studies . Fall, 2000. 26(3): 535-562.

“Traversing ‘Lines of Control': Feminist Anthropology Today.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (2000) 571, September: 14-29.

Review of Omar Khalidi's Khaki and the Ethnic Violence in India . Journal of Asian Studies , 2004, 63(4): 1172-1173.