Dr Gabriel Dattatreyan
Staff details
Dr. Gabriel Dattatreyan is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology. He convenes the BA in Anthropology & Media and is the Co-Director of the Centre for Visual Anthropology.
Academic qualifications
- Joint PhD. Anthropology & Education, University of Pennsylvania 2015
Teaching and Supervision
Research interests
Ethiraj Gabriel Dattatreyan’s audio-visual and written work engages with the ways in which digital media consumption, production, and circulation shape understandings of migration, gender, race, and urban space. His recent book, The Globally Familiar: Digital hip hop, masculinity and urban space in Delhi (Duke University Press, 2020), narrates the stories of Delhi’s young working class and migrant men as they productively re-fashion themselves and their city through their online and offline aesthetic practices. Dattatreyan has also published articles exploring digital media worlds in relation to waiting, memory and postcolonial solidarity. His work has appeared in Culture, Communication, and Critique, Wide Screen, Identities, American Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology, Visual Anthropology Review, and Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East (CSSAAME). He has screened his films and exhibited his audio-visual work in various venues including the Tasveer International Film Festival, Ethnografilm, Mustard Seed Film Festival, Bow International Arts, Khoj International Arts, TIFA – Pune, The RAI (Royal Anthropological Institute) and the Slought Foundation.
Publications
Book
Dattatreyan, E. Gabriel. 2020. The Globally Familiar: Digital Hip Hop, Masculinity, and Urban Space in Delhi. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. ISBN 9781478011200
Book Section
Dattatreyan, E. Gabriel. 2020. Circulating ethnographic films in the digital age. In: Phillip Vannini, ed. The Routledge International Handbook of Ethnographic Film and Video. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 293-301. ISBN 9780367185824
Dattatreyan, E. Gabriel. 2017. Small Frame Politics. In: Sahana Udupa and Stephen D. McDowell, eds. Media as Politics in South Asia. London: Routledge. ISBN 9781138289437
Article
Dattatreyan, E. Gabriel and Marrero-Guillamón, Isaac. 2021. Pedagogies of the Senses: Multimodal strategies for Unsettling Visual Anthropology. Visual Anthropology Review, 37(2), pp. 267-289. ISSN 1058-7187
Astacio Alvarez, Patricia; Dattatreyan, E. Gabriel and Shankar, Arjun I.. 2021. Multimodal Ambivalence: A Manifesto for Producing in S@!#t Times. American Anthropologist, 123(2), pp. 420-427. ISSN 0002-7294
Dattatreyan, E. Gabriel. 2020. Desiring Bollywood: Re-staging racism, exploring difference. American Anthropologist, 122(4), pp. 961-972. ISSN 0002-7294
Dattatreyan, E. Gabriel. 2020. Brexit and the temporalities of racism in British higher education. HAU Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 10(2), pp. 345-350. ISSN 2049-1115
Dattatreyan, E. Gabriel and Singh, Jaspal Naveel. 2020. Ciphers, ‘hoods and digital DIY studios in India: Negotiating aspirational individuality and hip hop collectivity. Global Hip Hop Studies, 1(1), pp. 25-45. ISSN 2632-6825
Dattatreyan, E. Gabriel. 2020. Policing the "Sensible" in the Era of YouTube: Urban Villages and Racialized Subjects in Delhi. Television & New Media, 21(4), pp. 407-419. ISSN 1527-4764
Dattatreyan, E. Gabriel. 2019. Poonam, Snighdha. 2018. Dreamers: How young Indians are Changing the World. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Review. American Ethnologist, 46(3), pp. 357-358. ISSN 0094-0496
Dattatreyan, E. Gabriel and Marrero-Guillamón, Isaac. 2019. Introduction: Multimodal Anthropology and the Politics of Invention. American Anthropologist, 121(1), pp. 220-228. ISSN 0002-7294
Dattatreyan, E. Gabriel. 2018. Archiving Postcolonial Modernity: The Foreign Service Family Slide Show. Cultural Anthropology, ISSN 0886-7356
Dattatreyan, E. Gabriel and Orrantia, Juan. 2018. In the Dark all Cats are Black. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 38(2), pp. 412-440. ISSN 1089-201X
Dattatreyan, E. Gabriel. 2018. Critical hip hop cinema: Racial logics and ethnographic ciphas in Delhi, India. Wide Screen, 7(1), ISSN 1757-3920
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, 118(3), pp. 640-641. ISSN 0002-7294
Singh, Jaspal and Dattatreyan, E. Gabriel. 2016. Cultural Interventions: Repositioning hip hop in India. Linguistics and Education, 36, pp. 55-64. ISSN 0898-5898
Dattatreyan, E. Gabriel. 2015. Waiting Subjects: Social Media–Inspired Self-Portraits as Gallery Exhibition in Delhi, India. Visual Anthropology Review, 31(2), pp. 134-146. ISSN 1058-7187
Dattatreyan, E. Gabriel. 2015. Hard Kaur: Broadcasting the new Desi woman. Communication, Culture, and Critique, 18(1), pp. 20-36. ISSN 1753-9129
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
Digital
Dattatreyan, E. Gabriel and Shankar, Arjun I.. 2017. Multimodal Ethnography and the Possibilities for Engaged Anthropology.
Dattatreyan, E. Gabriel. 2016. Gazing and Talking Back.
Film/Video
Dattatreyan, E. Gabriel. 2019. Cry Out Loud.
Dattatreyan, E. Gabriel. 2018. Dr. Trash.
Report
Fernando, Mayanthi; Dattatreyan, E. Gabriel and Shankar, Arjun I.. 2020. Distribute Playbook. Project Report. Distribute 2020.
Further profile content
Featured publications
2018:
Critical Hip Hop Cinema: Racial logics and ethnographic ciphas in Delhi. Wide Screen
In this essay, I discuss how a group of young Somali men and I produced a film about the racism experienced by African students, entrepreneurs, and refugees residing in Delhi, India.
2015:
Hard Kaur: Broadcasting the new Desi woman. Culture, Communication and Critique.
In this article I examine the mediatized personae of Indian born and British raised recording artist Hard Kaur, who claims to be the first “Desi” female rapper.
Goldsmiths Research Centres/Groups
Media engagements
2020:
The Globally Familiar - New Books Podcast
In this podcast Dattatreyan discusses key themes from his new book, The Globally Familiar.
