Dr. Nathaniel Roberts, 2011-2017
Curriculum Vitae
Nate Roberts is now at Centre for Modern Indian Studies (CeMIS).
Nathaniel ('Nate') Roberts is a socio-cultural anthropologist who joined MPI-MMG in 2011 and is the author of To Be Cared For: The Power of Conversion and Foreignness of Belonging in an Indian Slum. He has conducted ethnographic research on slum-dwellers in Chennai, Pentecostals in Dharavi (Mumbai), and the Nagarathar (Chettiar) in South East Asia. His major theoretical interests are in the anthropology of religion (esp. Christianity) and secularism, the relationship between national elites and subaltern subpopulations, the comparative study of race and caste, and in the cultural logic of political representation and 'democracy.' He approaches these topics comparatively, and draws on work in the history of political thought and in postcolonial and subalternist historiography. His principal disciplinary framework, however, is anthropological and ethnographic.