Faculty of Arts & Science
Anthropology

Professor Emeritus
Department of Anthropology

BIOGRAPHY

Doreen Indra holds a BA from the University of California, Berkeley (1972), an MA from California State University, Hayward (1974), and a PhD (1979) from Simon Fraser University.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

Political Anthropology: the anthropology of refugees; the anthropology of violence, nationalism, transnationalism and multiculturalism; political incorporation of minority groups into nation state systems; examining ways media and other public discourses operate in daily life in this regard; also on exchange relations, emphasizing theories and patterns of giving and receiving between persons, and between persons and states; anthropology of public policy and bureaucracy; gender, class and race in human rights discourse

Applied Anthropology: Anthropology and development, organization and distribution of aid in the social construction of ‘disasters’

Intra- and International Migration: Ethnography and social history of ethnic communities and inter-group relations in Canada, especially Southeast Asian and South Asian peoples; anthropology of environmentally forced migration and political refugees; disaster research concerning environmentally-forced migrants

Feminist Anthropology: the organization of knowledge, discourse and social action

Cultural Studies: mass-mediated and other representations of gender and ethnicity; the culture of social issues

SELECTED RECENT PUBLICATIONS

1999. Vanishing Acts: Illegal immigration in Canada as a sometime social issue (with Norman Buchignani). In David Haines and Karen Rosenblum, eds., Illegal Immigration in America: A Reference Handbook. Greenwood, pp. 415-450.

1998. Engendering Forced Migration: Theory and Practice. New York and Oxford: Oxford: Berghahn Press in conjunction with the Refugee Studies Programme, University of Oxford. 390 pp.

1998. Not a Room of One’s Own: Engendering Forced Migration Knowledge and Practice. In Engendering Forced Migration Theory and Practice. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Press, pp. 1-22.

1998. Interview with Barbara Harrell-Bond. In Engendering Forced Migration Theory and Practice. In Engendering Forced Migration Theory and Practice. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Press in conjunction with the Refugee Studies Programme, University of Oxford, pp. 40-62

1997. Rural Landlessness, Extended Entitlements and Inter-household Relations in South Asia: a Bangladesh Case. (with Norman Buchignani) Journal of Peasant Studies 23(3):25-64.

1995. Ethnic Human Rights and Feminist Theory: Gender Implications for Refugee Studies and Practice. Special Issue on Refugees. Global Justice (University of Denver Graduate School of International Studies human rights journal). Reprint of 1989 article in Journal of Refugee Studies 219(2):1-22

1996. Some Feminist Contributions to Refugee Studies. In Development and Diaspora: Gender and the Refugee Experience. Wenona Giles, Helene Moussa and Penny Van Esterik, eds. Halifax: Fernwood Press, pp. 30-43. This is a revised version of the 1994 paper of the same name.

1995. Living With the Jamuna: Representing River Eroded People in Bangladesh. In S.M. Nurul Alam, ed. Natural Disasters in Bangladesh: Views and Issues for the Social Sciences. Dhaka: University Press.