Purnima Mankekar
Biography
Trained as a cultural anthropologist, Purnima Mankekar has conducted interdisciplinary research on television, film, and digital media, and on publics/public cultures with a focus on the politics of affect. Her last book was on affective labor and the production of futurities in the Business Process Outsourcing industry in Bengaluru, India titled The Future of Futurity: Affective Capitalism and Potentiality in a Global City (co-authored with Akhil Gupta). Her new ethnographic research is on the sociopolitical implications of Artificial Intelligence in India with a focus on algorithmic care work with children and elders in India and Indian American communities.
Her teaching interests include digital and “virtual” anthropology; theories of affect; feminist anthropology and ethnography; postcolonial and women of color feminism; anthropological approaches to sexuality, queer theory, and queer of color critique; and Asian American and South Asian Studies.
Research Interests
Digital media studies, Big Data, IT, algorithms in social life; “Virtual” Anthropology; Theories of Affect; Film and Television Studies; Feminist Anthropology and Ethnography; Postcolonial and Women of Color feminism; Queer of Color Critique. South Asian America, South Asia
Publications
Book: The Future of Futurity: Affective Capitalism and Potentiality in a Global City, Duke University Press (co-authored with Akhil Gupta)
https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-future-of-futurity
Recent publications:
“Genealogies of Knowledge Production: Information, Data, and Algorithmic World-Making,” Critical AI (2025) 3 (1), https://doi.org/10.1215/2834703X-11700264
“Algorithmic archaeologies and genealogies of hate: hidden histories and the scrambled temporalities of political affect,” Postcolonial Studies 27(3):355-371. https://doi.org/10.1080/13688790.2024.2431946
“”Love Jihad,’ digital affect, and feminist critique,” Feminist Media Studies, https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2021.1925728
“The missed period: Disjunctive temporalities and the work of capital in an Indian BPO,” American Ethnologist, https://doi.org/10.1111/amet.12837.
“Capital on the Move: Quantico, Im/Mobile Laboring Bodies and the Hypermediation of Racial Difference,” Media in Asia, https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003130628-25/capital-move-purnima-mankekar
“Mobile love: moral panics, erotics and affect” The Routledge Companion to Romantic Love, https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003022343-7/mobile-love-moral-panics-erotics-affect-purnima-mankekar
“Over-the-Top: Online Media and the Transnational Travels of Caste,” (with Sucharita Kanjilal), The Routledge Companion to Caste and Cinema in India, https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.4324/9781003343578/routledge-companion-caste-cinema-india-judith-misrahi-barak-joshil-abraham?refId=bfe1b6c3-a5ce-4e6b-a375-8fd52608b276&context=ubx
“Objectless Television,” The Routledge Companion to Global Television, https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315192468-5/objectless-television-1-purnima-mankekar
Awards & Grants
Fullbright Senior Faculty Research Award for research on call centers in Bangalore, India, 2008-2009
Distinguished Faculty Award, Asian American Studies, Stanford University, 2002
Bunting Fellowship, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, 2000-2001
