Dr Thomas Chambers
PhD, MSc, BA (First Class Hons)
Associate Professor in Social Anthropology School of Law and Social Sciences
Role
I am a Social Anthropologist specialising in the political economy of labour, migration and development in the Global South, with a focus on South Asia. Drawing on over a decade of ethnographic research in India and the Gulf, my work examines how economic transformation, mobility and inequality shape everyday experiences of work, livelihoods, urbanity, marginalisation, and state–society relations. I am the author of a monograph with UCL Press and have published in numerous leading journals. My research contributes to interdisciplinary debates in anthropology, human geography, and development studies on labour, migration, care economies and global inequalities. I have extensive experience teaching across anthropology and global development, and have held significant roles in academic leadership, editorial work and programme administration.
Selected Current Professional Roles
- Associate Professor in Social Anthropology, (Oxford Brookes University)
- Editor in Chief of the Contemporary South Asia Journal (https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/ccsa20)
- Host of the Contemporary South Asia Podcast (https://rss.com/podcasts/contemporary-south-asia-podcast-episode-1/)
- Executive Board Member - British Association of South Asian Studies (https://www.basas.org.uk/)
Teaching and supervision
Courses
Modules taught
- Family, Kinship & Society
- Becoming an Anthropologist
- Social Anthropology Theory
- Understanding India
- Material Culture
- Culture & Capitalism
Supervision
Research Students
| Name | Thesis title | Completed |
|---|---|---|
| Precious Bayliss | Captive Conservation: Factors influencing public perceptions and attitudes toward primate conservation, does “the tragedy of becoming common” apply to zoo settings? | Active |
Research
I work on a range of fields covering everyday life and the political economy of South Asia (primarily North India). Although rooted in anthropological and ethnographic approaches, as well as particularised geographical contexts, my research is inherently interdisciplinary and examines themes including: informal and precarious labour, communal conflict and peacebuilding, global development, political and economic justice, labour rights, migrant workers, state-people relations, democratic processes, digital development and inequality, the state and gendered marginalisation, experiences of India’s Muslim minority, bureaucratic claim-making, artisanal production in global supply chains, and domestic-care economies in the Global South, along with conceptional questions surrounding agency, subjectivities, and social transformation. I am particularly concerned with how economic transformation and inequality are experienced in everyday life, and how people navigate changing conditions of work, livelihood, and social belonging. My work contributes to interdisciplinary debates in anthropology, human geography, sociology, and development studies.