Sara Shneiderman

(she/her)

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  • Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology and School of Public Policy & Global Affairs; Ivan Head South-North IDRC Chair, University of British Columbia

I am a sociocultural anthropologist with long-term ethnographic and policy-engaged commitments in the Himalayas and South Asia (Nepal, India, and Tibetan areas of China), and emerging research engagements in British Columbia, Canada. At UBC, I co-lead both the Himalaya Program and the Disaster Resilience Research Network (DRRN).

Broadly speaking, my research explores how social transformation is shaped by dynamics of citizenship and belonging (in relation to Indigenous, ethnic, religious and gender identities); cross-border mobility; conflict and political mobilization; territory and land use; development discourses and practices; and disaster aftermath and preparedness.

Current research projects include an ethnography of the twin processes of post-conflict state restructuring and post-disaster reconstruction in Nepal from the perspective of lived experience in the hill district of Dolakha; and mixed methods research about community-based disaster preparedness in British Columbia, Canada, conducted in collaboration with the provincial Ministry of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness (EMCR), the City of Vancouver Emergency Management Agency, and UBC's Office of Emergency Management through the Campus as a Living Labs initiative.

Recently completed collaborative research engagements include serving as Principal Investigator for "Expertise, Labour, and Mobility in Nepal's Post-Conflict, Post-Disaster Reconstruction", a SSHRC Partnership Development Grant ; Co-Investigator for "Infrastructures of Democracy", a University of Toronto-based SSHRC Insight Grant; Co-Investigator in the Durham University-based Sajag-Nepal partnership about landsliding and disaster preparedness in Nepal; and collaboration in a Yale University-based project on urbanization and land use change in the Himalayas.

As the Ivan Head South-North IDRC Chair at UBC's School of Public Policy & Global Affairs from 2025-30, I am working to convene students, scholars, and practitioners from across the Global South and North to share scholarship and best practices in the fields of disaster resilience, migration, and Indigenous futures.

Experience

  • 2017–present
    Associate professor, University of British Columbia
  • 2015–2017
    Research assistant professor, University of British Columbia
  • 2011–2014
    Research assistant professor, Yale University
  • 2009–2011
    Postdoctoral research fellow, St Catharine's College, University of Cambridge

Education

  • 2009 
    Cornell University, PhD
  • 2004 
    Cornell University, MA
  • 1997 
    Brown University, BA Honours

Publications

  • 2023
    The power of Buddhist homelands: secularism, space and sovereignty, South Asian History and Culture
  • 2023
    On the Subject of Corruption: “Community Contributions” and the Labour of Infrastructural Development in Post-Earthquake Nepal, Public Anthropologist
  • 2023
    Beyond Reconstruction: What Leads to Satisfaction in Post-Disaster Recovery?, Journal of Happiness Studies
  • 2022
    Ethnicity, Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology
  • 2022
    Action beyond intent: experiencing ir/reconciliation (Afterword 2), Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
  • 2021
    The Ethnography of Collaboration: Navigating Power Relationships in Joint Research, Collaborative Anthropologies
  • 2021
    Multi-hazard susceptibility and exposure assessment of the Hindu Kush Himalaya, Science of the Total Environment
  • 2020
    Disaster Financialization: Earthquakes, Cashflows and Shifting Household Economies in Nepal, Development and Change
  • 2020
    Forging Community through Disaster Response: Nepali Canadians and the 2015 Earthquakes, BC Studies
  • 2020
    Redundancy, Resilience, Repair: Infrastructural Effects in Borderland Spaces, Verge: Studies in Global Asias
  • 2018
    Darjeeling Reconsidered: Histories, Politics, and Environments, Oxford University Press
  • 2017
    Citizenship, Gender, and Statelessness in Nepal: Before and After the 2015 Constitution in Understanding Statelessness. Tendayi Bloom, Katherine Tonkiss and Philip Cole, eds., Routledge
  • 2016
    Nepal's Ongoing Political Transformation: A Review of Post-2006 Literature on Conflict, The State, Identities, and Environments, Modern Asian Studies
  • 2015
    Restructuring States, Restructuring Ethnicity: Looking Across Disciplinary Boundaries at Federal Futures in India and Nepal, Modern Asian Studies
  • 2015
    Rituals of Ethnicity: Thangmi Identities Between Nepal and India. , University of Pennsylvania Press
  • 2014
    Reframing Ethnicity: Academic Tropes, Recognition Beyond Politics, and Ritualized Action in Nepal and India, American Anthropologist
  • 2013
    Himalayan Border Citizens: Sovereignty and Mobility in the Nepal-Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) of China Border Zone, Political Geography
  • 2013
    The Practices, Policies and Politics of Transforming Inequality in South Asia: Ethnographies of Affirmative Action, Focaal: Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology

Grants and Contracts

  • 2020
    Planning and Preparedness for the Mountain Hazard and Risk Chain
    Role:
    Co-Investigator
    Funding Source:
    UKRI Global Challenges Research Fund
  • 2017
    Expertise, Labour and Mobility in Nepal’s Post-Conflict, Post-Disaster Transformation
    Role:
    PI
    Funding Source:
    Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
  • 2016
    NASA (Land Cover Land Use Change Program) - collaborator
    Role:
    Collaborator
    Funding Source:
    NASA
  • 2015
    Restructuring Life: Citizenship, Territory and Religiosity in Nepal’s State of Transformation
    Role:
    PI
    Funding Source:
    Wenner-Gren Foundation
  • 2014
    Infrastructures of Democracy: Post-conflict transition and state building in Nepal’s agrarian districts
    Role:
    Co-Investigator
    Funding Source:
    Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
  • 2009
    Inequality and Affirmative Action in South Asia: Current Experiences and Future Agendas in India and Nepal
    Role:
    Co-Investigator
    Funding Source:
    British Academy

Professional Memberships

  • American Anthropological Association
  • Association for Asian Studies
  • UBC Disaster Resilience Research Network
  • UBC Himalaya Program

Contact Sara for

  • General
  • Media request
  • Speaking request
  • Consulting / Advising
  • Research collaboration