Nimisha Thakur » People

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Photo of Nimisha Thakur

Nimisha Thakur

PhD, Anthropology

Biography

Thakur is a PhD student in the Department of Anthropology, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. She is currently specializing in Cultural Anthropology and previously earned a Masters in Archaeology and a B.A. in History from Pune and Delhi University, India respectively. As a child experiencing life on the river island of Majuli in Assam, India her maternal grandmother’s home, Thakur observed the dominance of the River Brahmaputra on the lives of the inhabitants of the region as it flooded every year during the monsoons. This formed the foundation for her Masters dissertation in Archaeology which focused on the concept of space and shifting boundaries for the inhabitants of the islands of the River Brahmaputra by migratory communities. Thakur’s current PhD work aspires to trace the geopolitics of water that shapes the lives of the indigenous migratory communities in the region as well as more specific questions of gender, sexuality and religion juxtaposed against state discourses of indigeneity in India. In the future, she also hope to aid the formulation of policies of poverty alleviation and resource management of fluvial regions in Assam, India.