Dr Shubranshu Mishra

I am a Lecturer in Politics and International Relations. I am particularly interested in three fields: first, the project of decolonising knowledge to bring to light the colonial and postcolonial aspects of global affairs; second, the biopolitical turn in social sciences to understand and elucidate the ways in which governments become adjudicators of the question about life and death of citizens through various regulatory apparatuses that monitor, modify, and control life processes; and third, to understand the empirical implications of such decolonising and biopolitical projects in the global South, primarily around South Asia. These aspects are at the core of my research and teaching in order to analyse the different technologies of power and gain a better understanding of the methods of control, coercion, war, and conflict in different regions.

I received a PhD from the University of Kent for my dissertation titled Bearing Witness: Truth, Violence and Biopolitics of Everyday Lives in Kashmir, which explored the heterogeneities of bearing witness to bring to light the continuum of impunity and the structures of militarisation and acquiescence in Kashmir. My PhD thesis was supervised by Tugba Basaran and examined by Mustapha Pasha and Iain MacKenzie. Select chapters from my PhD thesis have been published as part of a journal special issue and edited volume – my paper titled 'The (local) medical worker: Understanding the act of bearing witness through a reorientation of testis, superstes' has been published by Social Cartographies, while the chapter on the gravedigger of unmarked mass graves in Kashmir is included in an edited volume, The Body of the Governed: Race and Gender in the Era of Biopolitical Governance published by Rowman & Littlefield International in their series on Global Political Economies of Gender and Sexuality.

I am also on the advisory board for Political Anthropological Research on International Social Sciences (PARISS) journal. Previously, I have worked with Amnesty International in India and hold postgraduate degrees from Jawaharlal Nehru University and Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. At University of Exeter, I am also the EDI officer at HaSS, Penryn. From September 2022, I am one of the co-directors of the Exeter South Asia Centre.

My academic background as a Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, my role as the EDI officer at the department, and my personal experience of growing up in one of the most militarised regions of the world, Jammu and Kashmir, during a period of peak militant and police action, have shaped my postcolonial and decolonial research and teaching agenda.

Research supervision:

I supervise students (and welcome applications) in the area of postcolonial-decolonial thought, biopolitics, violence, human rights and social justice issues, especially in the context of South Asia, India and Kashmir in particular.

Doctoral Supervision

Anil Kaan Yildirim (2023) 'On the Walls of Polis: Examining 'Administration of Life and Death' in Afghanistan from the perspectives of Foucault, Agamben and Mbembe'

Mehment S Tatli (2024) 'Transformation of India's Strategic Culture: Expanding Global Influence and the Consequences for the Kashmir Dispute'

PhD External Examiner

Aditi Athreya (2023) 'Missionaries in Postcolonial India: Jesuit Education in Jharkhand After 1947’ (Faculty of Arts, Faculteit Letteren, KU Leuven, Belgium)

Masters External Supervision

Yasmin Takhar (2022) 'To what extent have Liberalisation, Privatisation and Globalisation (LPG) reforms contributed to improving human development levels within Dalit communities in India?' (M.Sc Development Studies, Department of Development Studies, SOAS University of London)