Dr. Ranjana Raghunathan is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the School of Liberal Arts and Design Studies at Vidyashilp University, Bangalore, India. At Vidyashilp University, Ranjana set up its Ethnography Lab to facilitate conversations on ethnographic research and writing among academics, students, and stakeholders in the wider community. She is currently a Primary Investigator on an urban ethnography project about Bangalore and a co-investigator in an interdisciplinary project on religiosity and well-being.
She is in the process of setting up a Wellness Center at VU with
Dr. Setu G. Havanur. Her other research interests are in Anthropology of Kinship & Relatedness, Phenomenology of Religion, and Everyday Life. She received her PhD in 2020 from the National University of Singapore (NUS), where she also taught undergraduate and interdisciplinary courses. She has won two student-nominated teaching awards during her stint in NUS. Ranjana has also taught graduate research courses to development practitioners in Singapore and worked in the non-profit sector for over a decade prior to her foray into academia. Her work has been published in peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes. Her doctoral thesis also won the Ground-breaking Subject Matter Accolade at the International Convention of Asia Scholars Book Prize 2021 and the Best PhD Dissertation in South Asian Studies award in NUS for 2020.

Professional Education

• PhD (National University of Singapore); Anthropology - 2020
• MA in Social Work (Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai); Women-centred social work - 2011
• Graduate Diploma (National University of Singapore), Social Work - 2008
• Bachelor of Computing (National University of Singapore), Information Technology - 2003

Teaching Courses

• Introduction to Ethnography
• Socio-cultural Perspectives on Indian Life
• Community Engagement and Service Experience
• Critical Thinking
• Gender and Society
• PhD – Research Methodology

Research Interests

• Urban Ethnography
• Phenomenology of Religion
• Gender and Women’s Studies
• Migration and Diaspora Studies
• Marriage and Kinship

Selected Publications

• "Movement in Verse: Poetry as Ethnographic Dialogue" in Decolonial Subversions 2023. Read More
• (Under Review) “Entangled intimacies: Negotiating kinship and religious embodiments amongst Tamil Hindu women in Singapore” in Religion and Society 2021.
• “Everyday intimacies and inter-ethnic relationships: Tracing entanglements of gender and race in multicultural Singapore”. Sociological Research Online 2021. Read More
• “Migrant Intimacies and Ambiguities of Law: The Case of Wife Enticement among Indians in Colonial Singapore, 1900–1940”. Gender and History (first published online on 22 March 2021) Read More

• 2022. (with Yogeswaran Doraisingham) “Tracing transformations in Hindu marriage and Funeral rituals in Singapore” In Hinduism in Singapore and the Hindu Endowments Board, edited by Lavanya Balachandran and Sylvia Koh. (Singapore: Hindu Endowments Board), pp 118-63.
• 2022. “Preface: The Untold Histories of Singapore’s Indian Women” In What we inherit: Growing Up Indian, edited by Shailey Hingorani and Varsha Sivaram. (AWARE Singapore, Ethos Books), pp 25-40
• 2019. “For better or for worse: Tamil women in marriage and society” In Sojourners to settlers: Tamils in Singapore Edited by Arun Mahizhnan and Nalina Gopal. (Singapore: Indian Heritage Centre and Institute of Policy Studies), pp 136-49
• 2014. “Street Diaries: Gender, Poverty and Homelessness in Mumbai.” In Understanding Urban Poverty in India: Experiences from Mumbai, Edited by Olivier Brito and Aditya Singh. (Jaipur: Rawat Publications), pp 55 – 78

• 2022. Transnational Divorce: Understanding Intimacies and Inequalities from Singapore, by Sharon Ee Ling Quah, 2020 published in the Asian Journal of Social Science, Vol 50, Issue 1, March 2022, pp 74-75 Read More

• 2015. Ranjana Raghunathan et.al. “People with physical disabilities in Singapore: Understanding disabling factors in caregiving, education, employment and finances.” (Singapore Management University: Lien Centre for Social Innovation)

Research Projects Undertaken

• Ethnography Lab: Urban Ethnography of Bangalore
• Religiosity and well-being: An inter-disciplinary exploration of personal and social perspectives

Research Supervisor to

• Mr. Muralidhara T R (PhD research scholar)