Mona Bhan

• 2023 Spring
  • ANT/SAS/WGS 324 Modern South Asian Cultures
  • ANT 400/600 Selected Topics - Dehumanizing War
• 2022 Fall
  • ANT 185 Global Encounters:Comparing World Views & Values Cross-Culturally
  • ANT 600 Selected Topics - Anthropology and Environment
• 2022 Spring
  • ANT 711 Current Anthropological Theory
  • ANT/SAS 324 Modern South Asian Cultures

Mona Bhan is a professor of Anthropology and the Ford-Maxwell Professor of South Asian Studies at Syracuse University. She is a political and environmental anthropologist whose work on Indian-occupied Kashmir explores the role of economic and infrastructural development in counterinsurgency operations and people's resistance movements to protracted wars and settler occupation. Her areas of specialization include wars, militarism, and counterinsurgency; indigeneity and settler colonialism; race, gender and religion; ecocide and climate change; and military occupation and infrastructural policies.

Her book, "Counterinsurgency, Development, and the Politics of Identity: From Warfare to Welfare?" (Routledge, 2014), examines the relationship between everyday forms of militarization and social life in Kashmir, with a focus on how state-based economic development and environmental interventions normalize everyday forms of violence through resistance of care, compassion, and humanitarianism.

In 2018, she co-authored "Climate without Nature: A Critical Anthropology of the Anthropocene" (Cambridge University Press), with an environmental archaeologist to challenge the modernist binaries between nature and humanity and offer a situated and place-based assessment on how human and nonhuman entanglements produce climatic assemblages across space and time.

With her colleagues from the Critical Kashmir Studies Collective that she helped co-found in 2013, she has co-edited "Resisting Occupation in Kashmir" (University of Pennsylvania Press 2018), "The Routledge Handbook of Critical Kashmir Studies" (Routledge 2022), and the "Palgrave Handbook of New Directions in Kashmir Studies" (Palgrave 2023). She has also co-edited special issues of the Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law (2017) and Critique of Anthropology (2020).

Since 2022, as part of her Lender Fellowship for social justice (2022-2024), Mona has been working with a team of undergraduate and graduate students to examine how Artificial Intelligence is reconfiguring the city of Syracuse, with a special attention on the ways in which AI has shaped surveillance and policing technologies, discourses of securitization, STEM education in city schools, and claims and counterclaims to citizenship. The project is based on her larger collaborative project with Haley Duschinski entitled Dehumanizing War: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Human.

Before coming to Syracuse, Mona taught at DePauw University for twelve years where she was the Otto L. Sonder Jr. Chair of Anthropology. In 2013 she received DePauw's United Methodist Exemplary Teaching Award.

Mona was the co-editor of the HIMALAYA, the flagship journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies (2018-2021) and serves on the editorial board of Cultural Anthropology, Critical Disaster Studies, and AGITATE. Her writings and interviews have appeared in several media and print outlets such as the BBC, Al Jazeera, TRT, Kindle, Open Democracy and Outlook.

Border wars and counterinsurgency; militarism and humanitarianism; race, gender, and religion; environmentalism and climate change; occupation and human rights; space and place; water and infrastructure

Cultural anthropology; politics of development; infrastructure and materiality; wars, militarization and human rights; environmentalism; climate change; counterinsurgency; culture and power; local-global dynamics; gender; feminist theory; social theory; political and legal anthropology; transnationalism; ethnicity and nationalism; conflict and violence; research methodologies including feminist methodologies; South Asia

"Rethinking Citizenship in an Era of Mass Statelessness", Sponsored by CUSE Grants - Interdisciplinary Seminar Grant.

"(De)Humanizing War: Artificial Intelligence Weapons and the Future of the Human", Sponsored by Syracuse Office of Undergraduate Research & Creative Engagement (SOURCE) Research Assistant Grant.

• Books
  • Duschinski, H., Bhan, M. and Robinson, C., The Palgrave Handbook of New Directions in Kashmir Studies. Palgrave, 2023.
  • The Routledge Handbook of Critical Kashmir Studies.. Bhan, M., Duschinski, H. and Misri,, D. (eds.) Routledge, 2022.
  • Bhan, M., Bauer, A., Climate without Nature: A Critical Anthropology of the the Anthropocene.. Cambridge University Press, 2018.
  • Resisting Occupation in Kashmir. Bhan, M., Duschinski, H., Ather, Z. and Mahmood, C. (eds.) University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018.
  • Bhan, M., Counterinsurgency, Democracy, and The Politics of Identity in India: From Warfare to Welfare?. Routledge, 2015.
• Journal Articles
  • Bhan, M., Samina, R. and Parvaiz, A., "Planning for food (in)equity in places of crisis: Insights from Srinagar, Kashmir." THE JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN PLANNING ASSOCIATION, 2022.
  • Bhan, M., Bose, P., "Hindu Exceptionalism." AGAINST THE CURRENT, 2021.
  • Bhan, M., Ather, Z. and Duschinski, H., "A Year of Siege: Politics of Annexation and Settler Colonialism in Kashmir." APLA’s Speaking Justice to Power Series, 2020.
  • Bhan, M., Bose, P., "Canine Counterinsurgency in Indian-occupied Kashmir." CRITIQUE OF ANTHROPOLOGY , 2020.
  • Bhan, M., Duschinski, H., "Kashmiri goats, Imaginaries of Freedom, and the Planetary Pandemic." APLA's Speaking Justice to Power Series, 2020.
  • "Occupations in Context: The Cultural Logics of Occupation, Settler Violence, and Resistance." Bhan, M., Duschinski, H. (eds.) CRITIQUE OF ANTHROPOLOGY.
  • Bhan, M., Duschinski, H., "Occupations in Context: The Cultural Logics of Occupation, Settler Violence, and Resistance." CRITIQUE OF ANTHROPOLOGY , 2020.
  • Bhan, M., Deepti, M. and Ather, Z., "Relating Otherwise: Forging Critical Solidarities across the Kashmiri Pandit-Muslim Divide." BIOGRAPHY, 2020.
  • "Relating Otherwise: Forging Critical Solidarities across the Kashmiri Pandit-Muslim Divide. BIOGRAPHY." Bhan, M., Deepti, M. and Ather, Z. (eds.) BIOGRAPHY.
  • Bhan, M., bose, P., "Authoritarianism and Lockdown Time." AGAINST THE CURRENT, 2020.
  • Bhan, M., Nosheen, A., Ghosh, S., Kanjwal, H., Komal, Z., Misri, D., Mukherjee, S., Upadhyay, N., Varma, S. and Zia, A., "Geographies of Occupation in South Asia." FEMINIST STUDIES, 2019.
• Book Chapters
  • Bhan, M., Duschinski, H., "From Incorporation to Elimination: Interlocution as an apparatus of Occupation." In The Palgrave Handbook of New Directions in Kashmir Studies. Duschinkski, H., Bhan, M. and Robinson, C. (eds.) Palgrave, 2023.
  • "Critical Kashmir Studies: Settler Occupations and the Persistence of Resistance." In The Handbook of Critical Kashmir Studies. Bhan, M., Duschinski, H. and Misri, D. (eds.) Routledge.
  • Bhan, M., "Development: India’s Foundational Myth." In Saffron Republic: Hindu Nationalism and State Power in India. Hansen , T. B., Roy, S. (eds.) Cambridge University Press, 2022.
  • Bhan, M., Duschinski, H., "Third World Imperialism and Kashmir's Sovereignty Trap." In Handbook of Critical Kashmir Studies. Bhan, M., Duschinski, H. and Misri, D. (eds.) Routledge.
  • Bhan, M., "Infrastructures of Occupation: Mobility, Immobility, and the Politics of Occupation in Kashmir." In Kashmir and the Future of South Asia. Bose, S., Jalal, A. (eds.) Routledge, 2020.
  • Bhan, M., "Jinn, Floods, and Resistant Ecological Imaginaries in Indian Occupied- Kashmir." In Can You Hear Kashmiri Women Speak? . Kaul, N., Zia, A. (eds.) Women Unlimited, 2020.
  • Bhan, M. (Translator), "Of Rooms and Resistance: Prisons, Protests and Politics in Kashmir." In A Desolation called Peace: An Anthology of Writings on Kashmir. Zia , A., Iqbal, J. (eds.) Malupu Books, 2020.
  • Bhan, M., "Of Rooms and Resistance: Prisons, Protests and Politics in Kashmir." In A Desolation called Peace: An Anthology of Writings on Kashmir. Zia, A., Iqbal, J. (eds.) Harper Collins, 2019.
• Conference Proceeding
  • Bhan, M., "Military Masculinities." In Recent Research on Ladakh, Papers from the 12th Colloquium of the International Association for Ladakh Studies. , 2009.
• Essays
  • "A Year of Siege: Politics of Annexation and Settler Colonialism in Kashmir." Bhan, M., Ather, Z. and Duschinski, H. (eds.) Justice to Power Series Online.
  • Bhan, M., Bukhari, P., "Inside Kashmir: A Heroic Fight for Justice." SAPIENS WENNER- GREN FOUNDATION, 2017.
• Journal Reviews
  • Bhan, M., Amrute, S., "Year in Review: In the Time of Public Anthropologies." AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, 2019.
  • "A Review of Newsrooms in Conflict: Journalism and Democratization of Mexico by Sallie Hughes.." Bhan, M. (ed.) The Latin Americanist, 2008.
  • "A Review of Role and Image of Law in India: The Tribal Experience by Vasudha Dhagamvar." Bhan, M. (ed.) PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review, 2008.
• Magazine/Trade Publication
  • Bhan, M., "Divide and Rule." KINDLE MAGAZINE, 2016.
• Manuscripts
  • Duschinski, H., Bhan, M. and Osuri, G., "Critical Interventions: Human Rights and International Justice in Kashmir." In The Palgrave Handbook of New Directions in Kashmir Studies. Duschinski, H., Bhan, M. and Robinson, C. (eds.) Palgrave.
  • Bhan, M., Bose, P., "Humanitarian Hindu, Exceptional Citizen." In Journal of Muslim Philanthropy and Civil Society. , 2023.
  • Bhan, M., Govindrajan, R., "More-than-human supremacy: Himalayan lessons on cosmopolitics." In American Anthropologist. , 2023.
  • Bhan, M., "Weathering the Occupation." In Special Issue for English Language Notes. , 2023.
• Newspaper Articles
  • Bhan, M., Deepti, M., "Kashmiri Pandits must reimagine the idea of home." Al Jazeera, 2019.
  • Bhan, M., Duschinski, H. and Osuri, G., "The International Community must Intervene on Kashmir." Open Democracy, 2019.
  • Bhan, M., "A Pandit Across the Lidder." Outlook, 2018.
  • Bhan, M., "A Pakistani Pandit?." Raiot, 2016.
  • Bhan, M., Nishita, T., "Fluid Landscapes: The Politics of Conservation and Dislocation." GREATER KASHMIR, 2009.
  • Bhan, M., "Booked for pleasure for good." INDIAN EXPRESS, 1997.
  • Bhan, M., Sharma, D., "Growing chasm." INDIAN EXPRESS, 1997.
• Pamphlets
  • Bhan, M., Pandit Rughonath Vaishnavi Annual Lecture. , 2018.
  • Bhan, M., Pandit Rughonath Vaishnavi Annual Lecture. , 2016.

The Barnes Center DEAI Symposium, Syracuse University, "Dehumanizing War" (2024)

"Beyond the Tea Room Analysis" (2023)

Kashmir Week, University of Pennsylvania, "Climate and Militarism in Kashmir" (2023)

Bhan, M., Govindrajan, R., The Next Monsoon, Cornell U, "Climate Imaginaries of the Hindu Right" (2023)

Annual Conference South Asia, "Colonizing Kashmir" (2023)

Bhan, M., Duschinski, H., Misri, D., Law and Society Conference, "Critical Kashmir Studies Handbook" (2023)

Bhan, M., Misri, D., NWSA, "Dissident Editorship" (2023)

Indian Science Congress Association (2023)

International Initiative for Promoting Political Economy, "Shamlat and Land Dispossessions in Gurez" (2023)

American Anthropological Association, "Constitutional Morality in Contemporary India" (November 9, 2022)

American Anthropological Association, "Ethical Field in Settler Landscapes" (November 9, 2022)

Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies, "Weathering the Occupation in Kashmir: Meteorological Wars and Climate contestations in Kashmir" (October 13, 2022)

NYCAS, Syracuse University, "More than Human Fascism: Cows, Rivers, and Hindu Supremacy" (October 8, 2022)

CUSE and Moynihan Funded Workshop, "Workshop on Effects of Extraction on Citizenship" (September 8, 2022 - September 11, 2022)

Doing Research as a Native: A Guide for Fieldwork in Illiberal and Non-Democratic States., "Suspicion, Surveillance, and Survival in Kashmir" (September 2, 2022)

WORLD KASHMIR AWARENESS FORUM, "An Unending Reign of Indian Terror" (August 8, 2022)

Law and Society Conference, "Terror(izing) Law: Strategies of Resistance and Existence in Post-Abrogation Kashmir" (July 16, 2022)

INTERNATIONAL STUDIES SUMMER INSTITUTE, "Inequalities, Identities, and Justice" (June 28, 2022)

INDIAN AMERICAN MUSLIM FORUM (April 25, 2022)

South Asia Institute, "Weathering the Occupation in Kashmir: Meteorological Wars and Climate contestations in Kashmir" (March 21, 2022)

INDIA JUSTICE PROJECT, "Kashmiri Women's Resistance Day" (February 23, 2022)

Vidhi Center for Legal Policy, "Researching South Asia: Kashmir" (January 18, 2022)

Free Khurram Campaign , ASIAN FEDERATION AGAINST INVOLUNTARY DISAPPEARANCES, "Power to the People: Shrinking Spaces for Civil Society Action" (January 15, 2022)

Free Khurram Campaign and Asian Federation against Involuntary Disappearances, "Power to the People: Shrinking Spaces for Civil Society Action" (January 15, 2022)

Closed CONGRESSIONAL BRIEFING, Human Rights Officer Malenie Sandoval and Support to Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers (December 8, 2021)

Vidhi Center for Legal Policy, "The Abrogation of 35A: The Afterlife of the Permanent Residents’ Law in Kashmir" (November 30, 2021)

American Anthropological Association, "Public Anthropology, Engaged Pedagogies" (November 18, 2021)

Muslim Philanthropy and Civil Society Annual Symposium, "Humanitarian Hindu, Exceptional Citizen" (November 11, 2021)

Annual Conference on South Asia, MUSLIM STUDENT ASSOCIATION, "Muslims and Resistance in South Asia: History, Culture, Politics, South Asian" (October 21, 2021)

Annual Conference on South Asia, "Emptiness, Forever Assets and the Production of National Time" (October 19, 2021)

INDIA AUSTRALIA MUSLIM FORUM, "Infrastructures of Occupation" (September 10, 2021)

World Kashmir Awareness Forum, "An Unending Reign of Indian Terror" (August 8, 2021)

THE COMMON GOOD FOUNDATION, "Militarization and Climate Change in Kashmir." (August 1, 2021)

CONFLICT STABILIZATION OFFICE (CSO) (June 26, 2021)

OSLO SCHOOL OF ENVIRONMENTAL HUMANITIES, "Seismographies of the Anthropocene. New Environmental Archaeologies. Anthropocene Agendas for Archeology" (April 1, 2021)

PE’ND ONLINE, "Applying for PhDs in the US" (March 5, 2021)

South Asia Program, "Infrastructures of Occupation: Dams, Development, and the Politics of Integration in Kashmir" (March 1, 2021)

16 BEAVERS ASSEMBLY TALK, "Thinking Ecologically in Kashmir" (February 28, 2021)

Faculty Discussant for the Infrastructure Cluster, SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL InterAsia Program, (February 15, 2021 - February 18, 2021)

"Discussant, Book panel for Kashmir: In the Aftermath of Partition" (February 12, 2021)

Kashmiri Student Union, "Climate Change and Land Dispossessions in Kashmir" (February 11, 2021)

School of Geography and the Environment, "Book panel for Resisting Disappearances in Kashmir" (November 27, 2020)

DECOLONIZING OUR BOOKSHELVES (DOB), , "Decolonizing Curricula and Educational Spaces" (November 19, 2020)

with Americans for Kashmir, and others from KSCAN and the Kashmir Law & Justice Project, "Conversation with Arsalan Suleman" (November 1, 2020)

KASHMIR SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT and STAND WITH KASHMIR, "Food and Ecological Systems under occupation" (October 29, 2020)

Fall 2020 Visiting Lecture Program, Department of Anthropology, "Jinn and Climate Change in Kashmir" (October 14, 2020)

Oxford School of Global and Area Studies and School of Geography and the Environment, "South Asia from Afar" (September 22, 2020)

Global Dialogue for Systemic Change and Global Tapestry of Alternatives, "International Webinar on Kashmir" (August 23, 2020)

GLOBAL DIALOUGE FOR SYSTEMIC CHANGE AND GLOBAL TAPESTRY OF ALTERNATIVES, , "International Webinar on Kashmir" (August 23, 2020)

"Biden Campaign Discussion with Kashmiri Americans" (August 11, 2020)

POLIS project, "A Year of Siege" (August 8, 2020)

POLIS project, "A Year of Siege" (August 8, 2020)

EARTH DAY TO TAX DAY COALITION, "Military Carbon Bootprint: Refugee Struggle and Waste of War" (July 11, 2020)

Critical Kashmir Studies Roundtable, "Law and Power in a time of Transformation,"" (May 28, 2020)

Masterclass and Symposium for Graduate Students, "Occupations and Settler Colonialism" (May 7, 2020 - May 15, 2020)

"Agitate: Unsettling Knowledges Workshop" (May 3, 2020)

"Kashmir Hydropower and India's Settler Colonial Politics" (April 1, 2020)

"Unsettling Majoritarian Politics:. Trolls and the Publicness of Anthropology." (April 1, 2020)

Royal Veterinary College, "Food Systems in the Changing Legal Landscape of Land Rights and Access in Kashmir" (March 27, 2020 - March 29, 2020)

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY Gallatin School, "Speaking for the Nation: Ethnonationalism, Sectarianism, and the Politics of the Diaspora." (March 26, 2020)

Five College Inter-Asia Faculty Seminar, "Infrastructures of Occupation" (February 27, 2020)

Workshop organized by Five College Inter-Asia Faculty Seminar (February 26, 2020)

Panel on CAA/NRC, South Asian Society, "Kashmir and the Citizenship question" (February 15, 2020)

Syracuse University, Maxwell School and Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs, "Infrastructures of Occupation: Dams and Development in Kashmir" (February 10, 2020)

Stand with Kashmir Advocacy Summit, "Kashmir 101,"History and Politics of Kashmir" (February 1, 2020 - February 2, 2020)

Association for Asian Studies, "Kashmir Today: Military Siege, Settler Colonialism, or Mythic Past Revived?" (2020)

Association for Asian Studie, "Renewability and Ruination: Hydropower and Hindu Nationalism in Kashmir" (2020)

"Centering Kashmiri Voices: Resisting Occupation in Kashmir" (December 9, 2019)

"Infrastructures of Occupation: Dams, Development, and the Politics of integration in Kashmir." (December 9, 2019)

"Infrastructures of Occupation: Dams, Development, and the Politics of integration in Kashmir" (November 25, 2019)

American Anthropological Association Meetings, "A Valley of Dust and Water:" (November 23, 2019)

"Dust and Futurity in Kashmir" (November 18, 2019)

National Women's Studies Association, Presidential Panel, National Women's Studies Association, "Decolonizing Solidarities, Critical Kashmir Studies Panel" (November 15, 2019)

"Teach-In on Kashmir" (November 1, 2019)

"Teach-In on Kashmir" (October 28, 2019)

Annual Conference on South Asia, "Emergency Session on Kashmir" (October 18, 2019)

Annual Conference on South Asia, "No Work, No Pay: Curfewed Days and the (Un)making of National Time in Kashmir" (October 13, 2019)

Annual Conference on South Asia, "Policing and surveillance beyond the state in contemporary South Asia" (October 13, 2019)

"Kashmir Today: 370 and beyond" (September 27, 2019)

"Kashmir: Past, Present, Future" (September 1, 2019)

Borders and Borderlands Conference, "Walls, Towers, Weapons, Wires: Materializing Mobilities and Immobilities" (June 5, 2019)

Lender Faculty Fellowship, The Lender Center for Social Justice, Syracuse University (2022 - 2024)

Dean’s Office Summer Project Assistantship Award (2022)

Collaboration for Unprecedented Success and Excellence (CUSE) Grant, Syracuse University (2020 - 2022)

Otto L. Sonder Jr. Endowed Chair of Anthropology, DePauw University (2018 - 2022)

Joan Westman Faculty Fellowship: Book project, DePauw University (2017 - 2020)