Dr Nivi Manchanda, BA (SOAS), MPhil (Cambridge), PhD (Cambridge)

Profile

I joined the School of Politics and International Relations in 2017. I previously worked at the LSE and the University of Leiden in the Netherlands after completing a PhD in 2014 at the University of Cambridge.

My book: Imagining Afghanistan: the History and Politics of Imperial Knowledge was published in 2020 and looks at the ways  in which Afghanistan has been represented and repeatedly intervened in from the 19^th century until 2001. I am interested in exploring the connection between knowledge production and the ‘episteme’ on one hand, and the material ramifications of this knowledge on the ground evinced in processes of invasion, war, and societal restructuring. My work is historically oriented and my next big project is an intellectual history of four mid-twentieth century thinkers who engage with the question of the border in creative and sometimes contradictory ways.

My teaching reflects my research interests and vice versa. I am currently convening a new module (with Adam Eliot-Cooper) entitled ‘Racism and Anti-Racism in World Politics’.

She blogs at the www.thedisorderofthings.com and is the Co-Convener of the BISA Colonial Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group.

See Nivi Manchanda's profile on Academia.edu

Teaching

POL251

PO377

POL390

Research

Research Interests:

I am especially interested in the ways in which knowledge is produced and the raced, classed and gendered nature of both ‘expertise’ and ‘common-sense’.

Although I don’t have regional focus per se, I am interested in the histories of colonial intervention in South Asia and the Middle East. I am also increasingly interested in role of capitalism in perpetuating racial hierarchies globally.

Examples of research funding:

I received funding for my PhD from the Cambridge Commonwealth Trusts. I have also been the recipient of numerous other grants including Santander Research Grants and the Cambridge Political Economy Trust. Between February and May of 2022, I was the recipient of a Katekisama Fellowship based at the University of Basel. 

Publications

Monographs:

Imagining Afghanistan: The History and Politics of Imperial Knowledge Cambridge University Press, 2020

Edited Volumes

Book co-editor, Thinking World Politics Otherwise, Oxford University Press (with Laura Shepherd, Stefanie Fischel and Cai Wilkinson) forthcoming, 2022

Editor, Special Issue, ‘Critical Encounters: Militarism, Race, and Postcolonial Studies’ forthcoming in Security Dialogue (with Katharine Millar and Chris Rossdale)

Book co-editor, Race and Racism in International Relations: Confronting the Global Colour Line, Routledge Interventions Series (with Alex Anievas and Robbie Shilliam), 2014.

Editor, Special Issue, ‘Confronting the Global Colour Line: Space, Race and Imperial Hierarchy’, Cambridge Review of International Affairs (with Alex Anievas), Vol. 26, no. 1, 2013.

Books:

Imagining Afghanistan: the History and Politics of Imperial Knowledge (Cambridge University Press, 2020)

Race and Racism in International Relations: Confronting the Global Colour Line, with Alex Anievas and Robbie Shilliam (eds) (Routledge 2015)

Journal Articles:

‘Between mobile corridors and immobilizing borders: race, fixity and friction in Palestine/Israel’. [with Sharri Plonski] International Affairs, 98(1), 183-207. 2022

‘The banalization of race in international security studies: From absolution to abolition’ Security Dialogue, 52(1_suppl), 49-59, 2022

‘Resisting racial militarism: War, policing and the Black Panther Party [with Chris Rossdale] Security Dialogue 52 (6) 473-492, 2021

‘The Graveyard of Empires: Haunting, Amnesia and Afghanistan’s Construction as a Burial Site’ Middle East Critique 68 (3) 307-320, 2020

‘Empires H(a)unting Grounds: Theorising Violence and resistance in Egypt and Afghanistan’ [with Sara Salem] Current Sociology 241-261, 2020

‘The Imperial Sociology of the “Tribe” in Afghanistan, Millennium, vol. 46, no. 1 pp 165-189 2018

‘Rendering Afghanistan Legible: Practices of (dis)order and the ‘state of Afghanistan’ Politics vol. 37, no. 4, pp 386-401, 2017

‘Queering the Pashtun: Afghan Sexuality in the Homonationalist Imaginary’, Third World Quarterly, volume 36, no. 1, 2015 pp130-14

‘The Graveyard of Empires: Haunting, Amnesia and Afghanistan’s Construction as a Burial Site’ Middle East Critique, Vol 28, no. 3 pp 307-320

‘Empires H(a)unting Grounds: Theorising Violence and resistance in Egypt and Afghanistan’ with Sara Salem Current Sociology vol. 68, no. 2 (2020): 241-262

Book chapters:

‘Race and Racism’ in the Oxford Handbook of History and International Relations, Oxford University Press edited by Eddy Keene, Maja Spanu and Christian Reuss-Smit (forthcoming, 2022)

‘Borders and Queer Theory’ in The Routledge Encyclopedia of Race and Racism edited by Gargi Bhattacharya. (forthcoming 2022)

‘Racial Capitalism and American Foreign Policy Under Trump’ in The Liberal Order Strikes Back? Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and the Future of International Politics edited by Robert L. Jervis, Diane N. Labrosse, Stacie Goddard, and Joshua Rovner, Columbia University Press (forthcoming 2023)

‘The Durand Line’ in The Oxford Handbook of South Asian Borders, edited by Raja Mohan and Jasnea Sarna, Oxford University Press (forthcoming, 2023)

‘The Imperial Sociology of the ‘Tribe’ Handbook of Postcolonial Politics, edited by Robbie Shilliam and Olivia Rutazibwa, London: Routledge, 2018

‘Security and Postcolonialism’ Security Studies: An Introduction edited by Paul Williams and Matt McDonalds, London: Routledge, 2018

‘Gender, Nation and Nationalism’ (with Leah de Haan) in Race, Gender and Culture in International Relations: Postcolonial Perspectives edited by Randolph Persaud and Alina Sajed, London: Routledge, 2018

Selected Opinion Pieces and Book Reviews:

Review of Bob Vitalis’s White World Order, Black Power Politics (2016) available at: https://thedisorderofthings.com/2016/06/08/an-african-american-social-science-international-relations/

Review of Megan Daigle’s From Cuba with Love (2015) available at: https://thedisorderofthings.com/2015/08/07/the-affectual-jockeys-of-havana/

‘Out of Nowhere: Taliban and Malala’ OpenDemocracy (November 2012) available at: https://www.opendemocracy.net/opensecurity/nivi-manchanda/out-of-nowhere-taliban-and-malala

Supervision

Currently co-supervising: Alex Stoffel, Meera Masood, Mirko Palastrino, Akram Salhab, Lucy Kneebone, Manuela De Rosa Jorge

I’d be keen to supervise students working on race, gender, the question of borders, and histories and presents of (settler) colonialism

Public Engagement

I have written for the Conversation, Open Democracy, and appeared on news outlets including the BBC and CNN.