Sohini Kar is a socio-cultural anthropologist focusing on economic anthropology of South Asia, particularly urban India. Her work examines the impact of increasing financialization on poverty and development programs. Dr Kar’s book, Financializing Poverty: Labor and Risk in Indian Microfinancefrom Stanford University Press was awarded the 2020 Bernard Cohn Book Prize sponsored by the Association for Asian Studies. Financializing Poverty ethnographically examines how the emergence of commercial microfinance has allowed financial institutions in the city of Kolkata, India, to capitalize on the poverty of its residents. In addition to her work on microfinance, Dr Kar has written about women in finance, and on India’s financial inclusion policy, and its relation to social welfare programmes. She is currently working on financial activism and its impact on development goals.

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.