Esha Shah

Bio

Esha Shah is environmental engineer by training and a social scientist by professional choice. Her past and current research is focused on anthropology, history and philosophy of science and technology. She employs anthropological and historical methods in all her research and is increasingly using sources from popular culture (films and fiction) and (auto)biographical life-writings for her research and teaching.

Since her Doctorate from Wageningen University in the Netherlands, Esha has held research and teaching positions in the discipline of STS (science and technology studies) at the University of Sussex in the UK and the Maastricht University in the Netherlands where she has taught courses on Science Technology and Development and Globalisation, Debates on Technological Controversies, Philosophy of Science, and Anthropology of Technology. She also held the position of fellow with the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, India (2013 -- 2015) and the Institut d'études avancées de Nantes, France (October 207 - June 2018). At the moment she is scholarly teacher at Wageningen Unversity.

Until recently her research interests are concerned with the history and anthropology of science and technology-led development in India on the divide of modernity and democracy. Currently she is working on: 1) the way ideals and practices of manliness and masculinity shaped the colonial history of dam engineering, 2) the way imagineering mega-hydraulic infrastructure such as large dams and the colossal National River Interlinking Project in India.