Assistant Professor
Biography
Sohini Kar is a socio-cultural anthropologist focusing on economic anthropology of South Asia. In particular, she looks at the impact of increasing financialization on poverty and development programs. She is completing a book project looking at commercial microfinance in India. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the Indian city of Kolkata, the book examines how lenders and borrowers of microfinance negotiate the often-divergent ethics of financial sustainability and locally constituted obligations of social relationships. It demonstrates how in search for financial stability, commercial microfinance tends to reinforce rather than challenge structural forms of inequality. She is currently working on a new project examining the impact of finance on health care financing for the poor in India.
Prior to joining LSE, Dr Kar held a postdoctoral position as Harvard College Fellow in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University between 2013-14. She holds an MA and PhD in Anthropology from Brown University, an MA in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago, and a BA in Economics and French from Columbia University.
Research Interests / Experience Keywords
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Economic anthropology.
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Anthropology of finance.
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Microfinance.
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Debt.
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Bottom of the pyramid.
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Social entrepreneurship.
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Gender.
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Ethnographic methods.
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South Asia, particularly urban India.
Sectors and Industries to which Research Relates:
Finance and banking; Social enterprise.
Countries to which Research Relates:
India
Languages
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Bengali [Spoken: Fluent];
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French [Spoken: Intermediate; Written: Fluent];
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Japanese [Spoken: Fluent; Written: Intermediate]
Publications
Refereed Articles
Kar, S. (Forthcoming). Securitizing women: Gender, precaution, and risk in Indian finance. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society.
Kar, S. (Forthcoming). Relative indemnity: risk, insurance, and kinship in Indian microfinance. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 23(2).
Kar, S., & Schuster, C. (2016). Comparative projects and the limits of choice: ethnography and microfinance in India and Paraguay. Journal of Cultural Economy, 9(4), 347-363.
Kar, S. (2013). Recovering debts: Microfinance loan officers and the work of “proxy‐creditors” in India. American Ethnologist, 40(3), 480-493.
Other Pubications
Kar, S. (2016). A Tale of Two Rooms: Debt, Success and Freedom in Indian Microfinance. Allegra Lab.
Contact Details
Email: S.Kar1@lse.ac.uk