Dr Uwe Skoda

Lecturer
CURRENT POSITION:
Assistant Professor, South Asian Studies (since 05/2008)
Chairman of the Board, Contemporary India Study Centre Aarhus (CISCA)
Section of Asian Studies
Department of History and Area Studies, Aarhus University
Ndr. Ringgade, Building 1328, DK-8000 Århus C
Tel: +45 8942 6489, Fax: +45 8942 2047, skoda@gmx.com
ACADEMIC CAREER
09/2006 – 04/2008
Post-doc Research Fellow at the Graduate School “Cultural Encounters
and the Discourses of Scholarship”, University Rostock, Germany
(funded by the German Research Council)
12/2004 – 04/2008
Lecturer in Anthropology at the Institute for Ethnology, Free University
of Berlin (since 09/2006 on long-term leave)
VISITING FELLOWSHIPS
January 2008
Department of Sociology at the Delhi School of Economics, Delhi
University, India
February 2006 - April 2006
Department of Anthropology, Sambalpur University, India (funded by
the German Academic Exchange Service / DAAD)
CURRENT RESEARCH AND FIELDS OF INTEREST
since 08/2003 (continuing)
on transformations of kingship, state and society in Central-Eastern
India focussing on the former princely state of Bonai as a ‘little’
kingdom in Orissa (India) in anthropological perspective
with general interest in: political anthropology, electoral politics and
political system, Hindu-nationalism
since 11/2007 (continuing)
on visual traditions and regional imaginaries focussing on
photographies and the social use of photographs and images in
Central-Eastern India with general interest in: visual anthropology
02/2000 – 07/2003 (completed)
on peasantry, social organisation and transitions between caste and
tribal society focussing on the Aghria community in Orissa / India
(published as The Aghria – a peasant caste on a tribal frontier)
with general interest in: caste system, kinship studies, tribal society
FIELD-RESEARCH
Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand / India 2003-2009:
24 months on current research projects (including 20
months field research and 4 months archival research)
Orissa / India 2000-2002:
18 months as doctoral research project on the Aghria community
Gujarat / India Sept 1995- Jan 1996 and Sept 1997- Jan 1998
as part of a research project on marriage / kinship
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
forthcoming ”Rituals and the State in South Asia”, edited together with Hermann Kulke, Wiesbaden:
Harrossowitz
2008 ”Power Plays. Politics, Rituals, Performances in South Asia”, edited together with Lidia Guzy,
Berlin: Weißensee Verlag
2007 “The kinship system of the Aghria. A case study of peasants in Middle India”, Journal of the
Royal Anthropological Institute, vol.13, no.3, pp.679-701.
2007 “Children - Sold and Thrown away. Temporary Identifications in a Converging Tribal and Caste
Society” in: Malinar, A. (ed.) “Identities in Time. Concepts and Practices”, Delhi: Manohar.
2005 “The Aghria: A Peasant Caste on a Tribal Frontier”, Delhi: Manohar