Shikha Nehra

Shikha Nehra is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Anthropology at Stanford University. Her research focuses on concerns of political belonging, citizenship, state and sovereignty, identity-formation, and ethno-nationalism. Before coming to Stanford, she earned her second M.A. in Anthropology from Brandeis University. She has conducted research on the digitalization of bureaucratic processes and its impact on the implementation of welfare provisions, people’s experience of citizenship, and documentation practices of the state in Jharkhand, India.

Her doctoral dissertation research focuses on the interplay of linguistic and religious ethno-nationalism in Assam, India. She examines how language—as an object of state policy, basis of ethnic and religious identity, and mode of communication—mediates politics by determining who belongs to the nation-state.

She also holds a B.A. in Journalism from University of Delhi, and an M.A. in Development Studies from Ambedkar University, Delhi. Between 2014-2017, she worked as a public policy researcher studying various state welfare provisions for food security and health in India.