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Anastasia Piliavsky

Dr Anastasia Piliavsky

Reader in Social Anthropology and Politics

Research interests

  • International development
  • Politics

Biography

Dr Anastasia Piliavsky is a Reader in Social Anthropology and Politics in the King's India Institute. She is a social anthropologist, who works on India’s democracy and the role of vernacular values, especially the hierarchical, in India’s social and political life.

She is author of Nobody's People: Hierarchy as hope in a society of thieves (Stanford 2020), editor of Patronage as politics in South Asia and Principal Investigator of a European Council-funded project on 'India's politics in its vernaculars'. 

Research

Anastasia works on India’s vernacular norms of personhood and relatedness, and the ways in which these orient India’s democratic process. She is especially interested in how hierarchical values – idioms of kingship, patronage and divinity – shape Indian conceptions of political representation and responsibility, and the bigger demotic visions of social and political good. She is working on showing the implications of this work for comparative democratic theory.

  • Political language & concepts
  • Democratic theory
  • Hierarchy & egalitarianism
  • Democratic representation
  • Political responsibility
  • Values & sociality
  • Personhood & relatedness
  • 'Criminal tribes'
  • Kingship
  • Political anthropology
  • History of anthropology

Teaching

Postgraduate

  • Contemporary India
  • Research Methods
  • Violence & Non-Violence in South Asia
  • Dissertation

PhD supervision

Anastasia welcomes applicants who wish to work ethnographically on all aspects of India’s politics, especially those interested in analysing conceptions of representation and responsibility in India's democratic process.

See Anastasia's research students

Further details

See Anastasia's research profile

    News

    Nehru believed democracy is protected by more democracy – not by more laws

    Professor Madhavan K Palat spoke on India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru’s thoughts on democracy at the 2023 Nehru Memorial Lecture hosted by the...

    Prof Madhavan K Palat delivering the Nehru Memorial lecture 2023

    Events

    07MarGandhi statue

    India’s Big Man vs. Everyman political histories – A debate

    This debate will juxtapose the ‘big man’ style of historiography, with histories whose chief protagonist is everyman: subaltern, vernacular, ethnographic...

    Please note: this event has passed.

    29Aprnihsa india goa

    Fugitive Words: Dale Luis Menezes - Speaking in (M)other Tongues: Goan Politics after Decolonization

    This event looks closely at the rhetoric around official language and mother tongue, which after the first Legislative Assembly of Goa, Daman, and Diu was...

    Please note: this event has passed.

    28JanFacebook on iPhone next to Macbook

    The Facebook Chaupal and Political Satire

    In this event, we will explore how satire on social media fits into the political landscape.

    Please note: this event has passed.

    11MarDalit India

    Matériel cultures: The semantics of democratic transition

    Michael Collins, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, discusses how a new generation of radical Dalit activists steered their...

    Please note: this event has passed.

    14JanGandhi statue

    Revisiting non-willing freedom: How Gandhi matters today

    Ajay Skaria, Professor of history at the University of Minnesota, discusses how Gandhi questioned will-centred politics and what that means today.

    Please note: this event has passed.

    25FebRelief services mumbai

    Gendered utterances: Women and elections in India

    Lipika Kamra (O P Jindal Global University) presents her research on women and elections in India, as part of the Fugitive Words series.

    Please note: this event has passed.

    08OctNetaji picture

    Chiefs, councilors, clans, and commoners: democracy and customs in highland Northeast India

    This talk invites its listeners to the ‘tribal’ highlands of Northeast India to observe how voters flock to polling booths in large numbers

    Please note: this event has passed.

    07JunIndia Institute election roundtable

    The Future of the New Indian Government

    A roundtable discussion on the recent Indian elections hosted by the King's India Institute.

    Please note: this event has passed.

      News

      Nehru believed democracy is protected by more democracy – not by more laws

      Professor Madhavan K Palat spoke on India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru’s thoughts on democracy at the 2023 Nehru Memorial Lecture hosted by the...

      Prof Madhavan K Palat delivering the Nehru Memorial lecture 2023

      Events

      07MarGandhi statue

      India’s Big Man vs. Everyman political histories – A debate

      This debate will juxtapose the ‘big man’ style of historiography, with histories whose chief protagonist is everyman: subaltern, vernacular, ethnographic...

      Please note: this event has passed.

      29Aprnihsa india goa

      Fugitive Words: Dale Luis Menezes - Speaking in (M)other Tongues: Goan Politics after Decolonization

      This event looks closely at the rhetoric around official language and mother tongue, which after the first Legislative Assembly of Goa, Daman, and Diu was...

      Please note: this event has passed.

      28JanFacebook on iPhone next to Macbook

      The Facebook Chaupal and Political Satire

      In this event, we will explore how satire on social media fits into the political landscape.

      Please note: this event has passed.

      11MarDalit India

      Matériel cultures: The semantics of democratic transition

      Michael Collins, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, discusses how a new generation of radical Dalit activists steered their...

      Please note: this event has passed.

      14JanGandhi statue

      Revisiting non-willing freedom: How Gandhi matters today

      Ajay Skaria, Professor of history at the University of Minnesota, discusses how Gandhi questioned will-centred politics and what that means today.

      Please note: this event has passed.

      25FebRelief services mumbai

      Gendered utterances: Women and elections in India

      Lipika Kamra (O P Jindal Global University) presents her research on women and elections in India, as part of the Fugitive Words series.

      Please note: this event has passed.

      08OctNetaji picture

      Chiefs, councilors, clans, and commoners: democracy and customs in highland Northeast India

      This talk invites its listeners to the ‘tribal’ highlands of Northeast India to observe how voters flock to polling booths in large numbers

      Please note: this event has passed.

      07JunIndia Institute election roundtable

      The Future of the New Indian Government

      A roundtable discussion on the recent Indian elections hosted by the King's India Institute.

      Please note: this event has passed.