Shikha Dilawri is a LSE Fellow in International Relations Theory in the Department of International Relations at LSE. Her interdisciplinary work is broadly concerned with histories and afterlives of empire and takes up critical questions regarding the entanglements between migration, race, and capitalism.
Shikha’s current project centres histories and legacies of migration between India, East Africa, and Britain from the turn of the twentieth century to the present, foregrounding sites and subjects that unsettle assumed boundaries between the domestic and international, elite and subaltern, and the cultural and material. Recasting these sites and subjects – including the Indian vernacular capitalist and diasporic cultural institutions – as locations of worldmaking, this project makes apparent historic and contemporary entanglements between global and local logics of stratification – in particular race, caste, and capital – across spatial scales. Building from historically grounded political and social relations, this project lends to a theorisation of global hierarchies more attentive to mobility and gradations.
Her PhD research has been conducted in the Department of Politics and International Studies at SOAS, University of London under the supervision of Dr Rahul Rao and Dr Meera Sabaratnam. It has been funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada (SSHRC).
Shikha’s broader research interests include examination of how notions of ‘culture’ are deployed in the study and practice of international politics. She is currently developing an article and podcast episode which interrogate how ‘cultural infrastructure’ works to advance global racial capitalism with a particular focus on the transnational temple building industry.
Prior to joining LSE as a Fellow, Shikha taught courses focused on International Relations, Political Theory and Global History at SOAS. She has given talks and facilitated workshops, including at the School of Advanced Study (University of London), Goldsmiths (University of London), and the Austria Study Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution. Shikha also has a decade-long professional background conducting research and advocacy on issues concerning minority rights in South Asia with international human rights organisations and institutions. Shikha also holds an MSc in International Relations from LSE.
Not available to supervise MPhil/PhD students.