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Aarti Sethi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. A social-cultural anthropologist, her primary research interests lie in agrarian anthropology and political economy, particularly relating to South Asia. Sethi's work broadly investigates the transformation of rural life amid agrarian capitalism, studying the socio-economic dynamics involved in cash-crop agricultural economies, along with the intimate social relations affected by practices like transgenic cotton cultivation. Her ongoing project, 'Republic Readers,' looks at the connection between reading, literacy, and libraries within the context of postcolonial democracy and citizenship. Sethi holds degrees in political science and cinema cultural studies, obtained from Delhi University and Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. She received her Ph.D. in anthropology from Columbia University in 2017. Prior to joining UC Berkeley, she held postdoctoral fellowships at Harvard University and Brown University. Sethi has published multiple articles and books, exploring topics ranging from feminist anthropology to the effects of debt capitalism and socio-economic inequality in rural contexts.
University of California, Berkeley • Berkeley, CA
Teaching courses in anthropology and conducting research in socio-cultural anthropology.
University of California, Berkeley • Berkeley, CA
Engaged in diverse research projects focusing on rural anthropology and agrarian studies.
The Mathematics Subject GRE is required for the Fall 2026 admissions cycle. General GRE is optional.