Surya Ghildiyal is a Phd. candidate under the SNF-funded project Pathways to Injury: Naming, Proving, Interpreting. Her doctoral research attends to various manifestations of consensus for a majoritarian state in the ordinary. In this project, she seeks to theorise forms of banal, yet pervasive violence in the ordinary that constitute consensus as a precondition for an authoritarian regime in India. Her work is at the intersection of citizenship, law, ordinary violence, and power.
She holds a Masters in Anthropology and Sociology from the Graduate Institute of International & Development Studies, Geneva and a Masters in Peace and Conflict Studies from Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. Her previous research has been supported by Hans Wilsdorf Foundation and Fondation pour l’étude des relations internationales en Suisse.
She also runs her independent documentation project violence per square-feet, which uses community sourced data to document instances of violence and discrimination against religious and caste minorities in India. She has earlier worked with OHCHR in Geneva, the European Commission in Malawi and for various non-governmental organisations in India.
Her research interests are everyday life, violence, political anthropology, law, citizenship and power.
