Mukulika Banerjee

Dr Banerjee was educated at the universities of Delhi and Oxford. She was a Junior Research fellow at Oxford and Lecturer/Reader at UCL from 1996-2009. She joined LSE in 2009 as Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology and was the inaugural Director of the LSE South Asia Centre from 2015-2020.

She is the author of five books: Cultivating Democracy (2021), Why India Votes (2014), Muslim Portraits (ed) 2008, The Sari (co-author 2003) and The Pathan Unarmed (2001).

Dr Banerjee has been invited to speak at the Universities of Ahmedabad, Berne, Berkeley, Bonn, Bristol, Cambridge, Chicago, Columbia, Delhi, Duke, Edinburgh, Geneva, Georgetown (Doha), Gottingen, Heidelberg, Hull, Illinois, Indiana, Istanbul, Johannesburg, JNU, Kolkata, Kyoto, North Carolina, Lahore, London, Madison, Manchester, Melbourne, Munich, New York, Oxford, Oslo, Pavia, Paris, Pennsylvania, Sussex, Vienna, Yale, and Zurich. In addition to her speaking engagements, Dr Banerjee's chairing skills have also drawn particular praise from audiences worldwide.

Her lectures and media include: 

• Published articles in Financial Times, Sunday Times, The Guardian, The Hindu, The Hindustan Times, Indian Express, The Telegraph, Wire, Scroll, Print

• Regular appearances at public talks and discussions held at Chatham House, Foreign Office, Asia House, London; South Bank, British Museum, British Library, Jaipur Literature Festival (London and Jaipur), High Commission of India, Bagri Foundation.

• Regular commentator on Indian elections and politics on BBC World, BBC Radio, Channel 4 and several European media bodies

• Created and presented a 40 min documentary entitled ‘Sacred Election’ on the 2009 National Elections in India for BBC Radio 4, produced by Culture Wise.

• Member of leading cast in feature film Life Goes On (2009) Dir. Sangeeta Datta SD Films.

• Interviewed as expert for BBC2 series ‘Who do you think you are?’ December 2004

• Interviews on ‘Woman’s Hour’, ‘Thinking Allowed’ (Radio4), ‘Everywoman’, ‘Outlook’ (World Service) and BBC Asian Network

• Invited to be expert ‘talking head’ anthropologist for TV series on National Geographic Channel on 13 episode series on ‘Taboo’.

• Interviewed on BBC, Channel 4, CBS, France 24, New Statesman, and Indian TV channels NDTV, Star and Doordarshan