Dr Prarthana Saikia | Tata Institute of Social Sciences

Dr Prarthana Saikia

Assistant Professor
Mumbai Campus, Centre for Electoral Management Studies, School of Development Studies

Qualification

B.A. (Cotton College, Gauhati University)

M.Sc (Miranda House , University of Delhi)

M. Phil (Department of Anthropology, University of Delhi)

PhD (Department of HSS, IIT Guwahati)

Contact

prarthana.saikia[at]tiss[dot]ac[dot]in

prarthana.saikia@tiss.edu

prarthana.saikia@tiss.ac.in

Trained as an anthropologist, Prarthana Saikia has earned her PhD from IIT Guwahati, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences; the Title of the thesis is ‘Nationality, Citizenship and Assam: A Political History Since 1947’. Her research interest lies in the broader area of ‘identity’. She intends to see how the question of identity sprouts from the very understanding of ‘self’ and further unfolds into ‘other’. Examining various ‘others’ in everyday life, in different social and cultural contexts, in the new nation-state, Saikia continues to engage further with the question of ‘identity’, bringing into the plane questions like nationality, citizenship, ethnicity, etc.

Apart from her academics, Prarthana Saikia writes fiction. She has four publications (one short story collection and three novels) to her credit. One of her novels, “Jatadhari” (Assamese), won Sahitya Akademi Yuva Purashkar in 2016.

Citizenship Studies, Nationality, Identity Politics, Agrarian Studies, Village Studies, Historical Anthropology, Economic Anthropology, Anthropology of Election, Ethnography and Literature, Ethnography and Archive, Northeast India Studies

Academic Publications

Articles

Saikia Prarthana, 2023, “Citizenship, Nationality, Discord, Accord and Assam: A Political History”, 10 June 2023, Vol. 58 Issue No. 23, Economic and Political Weekly.
Saikia, Prarthana, 2023, “Assam, a Site of Extraction and the (In)dispensible Others”, May 2023, The Seminar.
Saikia, Prarthana, 2024, “Self-determination and Integration: A Site of Negotiation and a Village Named Panbari” Sociological Bulletin. Upcoming.
Manisha Nair; Mythili Hazarika; M Thomas Kishore; Neel Harit Kaushik; Prarthana Saikia; Hayley Macgregor, Mary Wickenden; Nabarun Sengupta; Ganesh Sheregar, Maureen Kelley; Sasha Shepperd, “A Community Development Conceptual Model for Reducing Long-Term Health Problems in Children with Intellectual Disability in India”, PLOS Global Public Health, April 2023. https://journals.plos.org/globalpublichealth/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgph.0000833
Saikia, Prarthana, “Axom Andolan: Patabhumi, Sthaniya Prekkhapat aru Anupasthit Anshidar”, Ninth Column, March 2019; (Translated into Bengali, original: Assamese), ISSN 2229-6778, pp. 143-155.
Barman Prasun & Saikia, Prarthana (Transcription by Prarthana Saikia), “Wholetimerer Moto Kaaj Kore Gelam” Interview with Abdul Hai Nagori, (Former President of A.A.M.S.U. and M.L.A, Assam Legislative Assembly), Ninth Column (Translated into Bengali, March 2019). ISSN 2229-6778, pp. 179-197.
Barman Prasun & Saikia, Prarthana (Transcription by Prarthana Saikia), “AAMSUr Pratisthapok Shobhapati Abdul Hai Nagerir Soite Kathupakathon” (Interview with Abdul Hai Nagori, (Former President of All Assam Minority Students Union), (Assamese) Aalap, June 2019. pp. 324-330.
Saikia, Prarthana, Book Review: Tangsas- The Children Of Masui Singrapum, H.K.Morang, ed. Dibyalata Datta, Indian Anthropologist, July 2012, pp.-99-100. ISSN 0970- 0927.

Book Chapters

Saikia, Prarthana, “Parallel Perspectives in Ethnography and Literature: Reflections from Assamese Literature” in ‘In Between Fiction and Non-Fiction: Reflections on Poetics of Ethnography in Literature and Film’ Ed. Michelangelo Paganopoulos; 2018; Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle UK. ISBN (10): 1-5275-0833-1; ISBN (13) 978-1-5275-0833-0, 2018, pp. 73-82.
Saikia, Prarthana, “Mobility, Migration, Displacement and Identity: The Char Dwellers of Assam.” Upcoming in an edited Book, Routledge.

Literary Publications

Saikia Prarthana, Upcoming (2024, in Press), Kajitora Aru Anyanyo, BARNA: Guwahati.
Saikia Prarthana, Pharaoh, 2022, Banalata: Dibrugarh. (Second imprint) (a work of fiction spread across three parallel monologues. Pharaoh is an intense interaction between human and non-human entities that addresses crucial processes like writing history, its making, unmaking, writing, rewriting, etc. Pharaoh raises questions about what and whom history accommodates and alienates and lets these questions lead to a new understanding of the human experience of living in time and space). ISBN: 978-93-93805-50-8
Saikia, Prarthana, 2011, Zantadhari, Banalata: Dibrugarh. (December, sixth imprint) (a novel that draws from Hindu mythology. Here, Anthropological fieldwork data finds expression in a literary genre. Zantadhari has won Sahitya Academi Yuva Puraskar 2016, a national award conferred by Sahitya Akademi, India’s National Academy of Letters). ISBN NO-93 80454 72 6. (Translated into Bengali, Bhattacharjee, Nandita, 2021, Jatadhari, Kolkata: Natun Shatak.)
Saikia, Prarthana, 2009, Platformot Etiya Kono Nai, Banalata: Dibrugarh (2009, fourth imprint) (a critique of the popular protest against (illegal) Foreigners during the 1980s, narrating its impact on a generation of youths in the subsequent periods). ISBN N0-93 80454 047.
Saikia, Prarthana, 2008, Jatra Enekoye, Aank-Baak: Guwahati. (a short story collection in Assamese) (February 2008). (Two of the short stories got translated into Bengali) ISBN NO- 978-81-90630863.
Many other short stories have been published in Assamese in prominent literary magazines like Gariyoshi, Satsori, Prakash, Amar Samoy (published by Times of India Group). Many stories are translated into English and Bengali. https://museindia.com/Home/ViewContentData?arttype=feature&issid=86&menuid=8407
Poems written under the pen name of Benu Gopal were published in the leading literary journal Muse India. January 2016. https://museindia.com/Home/ViewContentData?arttype=poems&issid=65&menuid=6360

Other Publications

Saikia, Prarthana, ‘Living Literature’, The Assam Tribune (Mosaic), Guwahati, 8 August 2012. p.2.
Saikia, Prarthana, ‘Mrityu: Chetonar Pora Bastoboloi’, Satsori, Guwahati, 16-31 July 2007. pp. 52-53.
Saikia, Prarthana, ‘Hinduism: A Way of Life or the Only Way of Life, LiveWire, 15 March, 2022; https://livewire.thewire.in/personal/hinduism-a-way-of-life-or-the-only-way-of-life/
Saikia, Prarthana, Anubad, Jati Aru Jatiyatabad, Amar Asom, 20 March 2022.
Saikia Prarthana, Katha-Nagarik, Fortnightly Newspapers column, Dainik Asom, (November 2023)

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Sociology of Economic Life
Social Movements and Social Change
Diversity and Development: Making of Northeast India
Ethnography of Elections
Electoral Archive