Bio
Aanmona Priyadarshini is a sociocultural anthropologist. Her research explores contemporary existential crises, focusing on how uneven development structures the physical landscapes of cities and shapes the everyday experiences of vulnerability and uncertainty among the communities that inhabit them. Her first ethnographic research examined the 2012 destruction and subsequent reconstruction of eighteen Buddhist religious sites in Bangladesh. It explored how the transformation of these sacred spaces into tourist attractions—disregarding traditional designs, materials, and local participation—reshaped religious practices, ethical sensibilities, and social relations, while reconfiguring urban space by producing new centers and margins. This work culminated in her book project, Shattered Sacred, Broken Lives: City and Its Margins, which addresses how socio-economic conditions, lived experiences, and social relations are shaped by—and inscribed into—urban architecture and spatial landscapes.
Her current research examines the complexity and precarity of neighborhood infrastructure —small-scale, distributed systems that underpin everyday urban livelihoods, well-being, mobility, and resilience in the United States. Using interdisciplinary methods such as transect walks, in-depth interviews, participatory community mapping, and GIS-based spatial analysis (e.g., ArcGIS Survey123), the project investigates how neighborhood infrastructure shapes residents' everyday well-being, decision-making processes, and survival strategies.
Priyadarshini's research projects have been supported by grants and fellowships from the Fulbright Program, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Wenner-Gren Foundation, Dedman College Interdisciplinary Institute at 快活林性息, and the Asian Studies Center at the University of Pittsburgh.
Research Interests
Infrastructure • Comparative Urban Studies • Social and Spatial Inequality • Urban Sustainability and Resilience • Natural and Cultural Heritage
Courses Taught
Introduction to Cultural Anthropology • Humanity and Global Environmental Change • People and Cultures of Southeast Asia • Introduction to Ethnographic Methods • Culture and Diversity in American Life • Good Eats, Forbidden Flesh • City and Inequality • Gender, Sex, and Sexuality: Global Perspectives • Gender, Violence, and Health • Social Organization - Kinship and Family • History of Anthropology, Part Two • Advanced Seminar in Ethnology: Space and Place • Feminist Theory
