Gabriel Dattatreyan
Staff details
Ethiraj Gabriel Dattatreyan's primary interest lies in how various terms deployed to qualitatively describe human migration such as diaspora, transnationality, internal displacement, refugee and so on, are inhabited in the contemporary moment. Through his ethnographic engagements he explores how these terms can be theorized in ways that reveal the growing impact of digital communications technology in reworking how people on the move negotiate and understand their relationships in the world. He works through these theoretical concerns through multiple media with the belief that experimentations in form afford an opportunity to engage broader audiences, involve research interlocutors, and more reflexively engage with ethnography as a way of knowing.
Joint Ph.D. in Anthropology and Education, 2015. University of Pennsylvania
Research Interests
Dattatreyan is currently completing a monograph that engages with urban change in Delhi, India from the perspective of migrant youth who live in the margins of the city's burgeoning economy. Specifically, he explores how the diverse groups of young people he got to know in Delhi's urban villages are utilizing digital technology and globally circulating popular cultural forms as a way to participate in the collective reimagining of the city. His next project explores the Pan-African enclaves of Delhi. Through film, photo, and text, Dattatreyan documents the ways in which the students, entrepreneurs and refugees who reside in these enclaves imagine and experience their relationship to India, to Delhi, to their respective nation- states, and to Africa.
Publications
Book
The Globally Familiar: Digital hip hop and difference in Delhi.
Dattatreyan, E. Gabriel. 2020. The Globally Familiar: Digital hip hop and difference in Delhi. Durham, London: Duke University Press.
Book Section
Small Frame Politics: Pulbic performance in the digital age
Dattatreyan, E. Gabriel. 2017. Small Frame Politics: Pulbic performance in the digital age. In: Sahana Udupa and Stephen D. McDowell, eds. Media as Politics in South Asia. London: Routledge. ISBN 9781138289437
Article
Archiving Postcolonial Modernity: The Foreign Service Family Slide Show
Dattatreyan, E. Gabriel. 2018. Archiving Postcolonial Modernity: The Foreign Service Family Slide Show. Cultural Anthropology, ISSN 0886-7356
In the Dark all Cats are Black
Dattatreyan, E. Gabriel and Orrantia, Juan. 2018. In the Dark all Cats are Black. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, ISSN 1089-201X
Critical hip hop cinema: Racial logics and ethnographic ciphas in Delhi, India
Dattatreyan, E. Gabriel. 2018. Critical hip hop cinema: Racial logics and ethnographic ciphas in Delhi, India. Wide Screen, 7(1), ISSN 1757-3920
Multimodal Ethnography and the Possibilities for Engaged Anthropology
Dattatreyan, E. Gabriel and Shankar, Arjun I.. 2017. Multimodal Ethnography and the Possibilities for Engaged Anthropology. Anthropology News, 57(10), e76-e80. ISSN 1541-6151
Gazing and Talking Back
Dattatreyan, E. Gabriel. 2016. Gazing and Talking Back. Cultural Anthropology, ISSN 0886-7356
The Echo of Things: The Lives of Photographs in the Solomon Islands. Christopher Wright Durham: Duke University Press, 2013. 221 pp. [Review]
Dattatreyan, E. Gabriel. 2016. The Echo of Things: The Lives of Photographs in the Solomon Islands. Christopher Wright Durham: Duke University Press, 2013. 221 pp. [Review]. American Anthropologist, ISSN 0002-7294
Cultural Interventions: Repositioning hip hop in India
Singh, Jaspal and Dattatreyan, E. Gabriel. 2016. Cultural Interventions: Repositioning hip hop in India. Linguistics and Education, 36, pp. 55-64. ISSN 0898-5898
Waiting Subjects: Social Media–InspiredSelf-Portraits as Gallery Exhibition in Delhi, India
Dattatreyan, E. Gabriel. 2015. Waiting Subjects: Social Media–InspiredSelf-Portraits as Gallery Exhibition in Delhi, India. Visual Anthropology Review, 31(2), pp. 134-146. ISSN 1058-7187
Hard Kaur: Broadcasting the new Desi woman
Dattatreyan, E. Gabriel. 2015. Hard Kaur: Broadcasting the new Desi woman. Communication, Culture, and Critique, 18(1), pp. 20-36. ISSN 1753-9129
Diasporic Sincerity: Tales from a 'returnee' researcher
Dattatreyan, E. Gabriel. 2014. Diasporic Sincerity: Tales from a 'returnee' researcher. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, 21(2), pp. 152-167. ISSN 1070-289X
Film/Video
Dr. Trash
Dattatreyan, E. Gabriel. 2018. Dr. Trash.