Professor Alpa Shah

Alpa Shah’s research is grounded in long term ethnographic fieldwork among indigenous forest dwellers in India. Her writings span many broad themes. These include revolutionary insurgency, state and citizenship; terrorism, democracy and human rights; global capitalism, inequality and poverty; agrarian change, labour, migration and care; indigenous politics, conservation and environmental justice; race, caste, class and gender relations. In addition to numerous academic articles, Shah is the author of four books, two of which crossed the academic-trade divide: The Incarcerations: BK-16 and the Search for Democracy in India; Nightmarch: Among India’s Revolutionary Guerrillas; In the Shadows of the State: Indigenous Politics, Environmentalism and Insurgency in Jharkhand, India and co-author of Ground Down by Growth: Tribe, Caste and Class in 21st Century, India . Her books have received major recognition including the the Association of Political and Legal Anthropology Book Prize and the Times of India AutHER Award. She has also twice been a finalist for the Orwell Prize for Political Writing. Beyond academia, Shah has also written for various magazines such as the New Statesman, New York Review of Books and the Literary Review, and appeared on BBC Radio 4 programmes, including presenting a documentary for Crossing Continents and reporting for From Our Own Correspondent.