Paras Arora

Paras Arora is an anthropologist, artist, and writer currently based in Delhi, India. As a Ph.D. Candidate at Stanford Anthropology, Paras is conducting ethnographic research that explores how the ageing of neurodivergent individuals into adulthood realigns kinship imaginaries and care practices over the life course in India. For this project, they are particularly attending to the forms of advocacy and rehabilitation, from assisted living infrastructure to peer-support networks, that emanate from a distinctly familial expertise which is mutually honed by caregivers and neurodivergent individuals. They are also a Visiting Doctoral Fellow at the Centre de Sciences Humaines, Delhi for the duration of their ethnographic fieldwork.

To pursue their doctoral research, Paras was one of the first scholars from India to be awarded with the Dissertation Innovation Fellowship Award by the American Council for Learned Societies and Mellon Foundation. Other organizations that have funded Paras’ research include the Wenner-Gren Foundation, Institute for Research in the Social Sciences, King Center on Global Development, Society for Psychological Anthropology, Robert Lemelson Foundation, Hans Wilsdorf Foundation, & Fondation pour l’étude des relations internationales en Suisse.

For their tremendous service and dedication in providing excellent classroom instruction to undergraduate students, they were awarded with the Centennial Teaching Award by the Stanford School of Humanities & Sciences in 2023. In 2024, Paras was also awarded with the Robert Bayard Textor Award for Outstanding Creativity in Anthropology. In the past, Paras was the graduate co-chair for the South Asia Working Group at the Stanford Center for South Asia, the Linda Randall Meier Research Workshop in the Medical Humanities at the Stanford Humanities Center, and the Anthropology Lunch Talk Series at the Stanford Department of Anthropology.

Paras holds an M.A. degree in Anthropology from Stanford University, M.A. degree in Anthropology and Sociology from the Graduate Institute of International & Development Studies, Geneva, and a B.A. degree with Honours in Political Science from Hindu College, University of Delhi.