I am a Lecturer in International Relations at the ANU. I received a MSc and PhD in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Prior to this, I received a BA (hons) in History from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University.

My research centers on the microsociological study of international relations. Everyday practices, face-to-face interactions, emotions, and embodied experiences are the small units of analysis that take centerstage in my research. Long considered irrelevant in a field dominated by grand and structural theories, my work is part of a growing body of scholarship that shows how small units have a distinct form (morphology) and enjoy a puzzling degree of autonomy from wider structural constraints, making them consequential in world politics.

While I have an abiding interest in the wonders of the ‘micro,’ I wrestle with my historical and structural instincts. This informs my interest in asking how micro-level units are tethered to wider structures of class, race, and gender. In making these connections I draw inspiration from structural approaches like historical sociology and Bourdieusian political sociology.

Empirically, I pursue my interest in the micro by studying diplomats and international bureaucrats. Most of my fieldwork has been in the circuitries of everyday diplomacy spanning ministries and diplomatic enclaves in Southeast Asia, especially in the budding ASEAN diplomatic field in Jakarta, Indonesia. I use interpretive approaches and methods in my research, mainly elite interviews and ethnography (when possible), supported by historical print-media analysis.

I am currently working on a book manuscript on the everyday cultural production of ASEAN. Titled “Doing Nothing: The Cultural Production of Inaction in ASEAN Diplomacy” the book examines how seemingly banal, bogus, and empty activity can have powerful political effects. Since joining ANU, I have started a project on the “Third Indochina War in the Making of Southeast Asia: The Afterlives of War, Genocide, and Diplomacy.” I have been awarded an ANU Futures Scheme Grant to develop this project.

Besides my research, I love literary fiction (especially postcolonial fiction in South and Southeast Asia), sci-fi films, and nearly anything by the virtuoso Vladimir Horowitz.

Areas of Expertise
Microsociology
Diplomacy
International Politics of Southeast Asia
ASEAN

Awards & Fellowships
2022 ANU Futures Scheme Grant
2022 Antony Deos Young Scholar Award, ISA Diplomatic Studies Section
2021 ISA Diplomatic Studies Section Article Prize
2020 Best Article in the European Journal of International Relations (EJIR)