Dr Gowhar Fazili holds a PhD in Sociology from the Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, and brings over 23 years of experience across academic, semi-academic, and non-academic social institutions. He has held faculty positions at Ashoka University, NALSAR University of Law, and Ambedkar University Delhi (AUD), where he served as Assistant Professor.

His ethnographic research on political subjectivity explores the intersection of intimate life and political experience, focusing on local agitations, familial grief, narratives of police personnel, and fictional writings. His work has been published in a range of academic and popular journals, as well as in edited volumes on civil wars and the anthropology of political violence.

Dr Fazili has taught both undergraduate and postgraduate courses in Sociology, Anthropology and Political Science. His academic interests span masculinity studies, political subjectivity, anthropology of emotions, literature as an archive of political emotion, humiliation, social movements, fascism, and totalitarianism. His current research focuses on the concept of the implicated subject and the question of collective and political responsibility toward the “other,” with particular attention to the dynamics of the Pandit-Muslim relationship in Kashmir.

Research

Dr Gowhar’s research interests lie at the intersection of political violence, subjectivity, and the psychosocial dynamics of power. His work engages with themes of trauma, subjection, humiliation, and marginality, exploring how these experiences shape and are shaped by broader political processes. He is particularly interested in the relationships between masculinity, gender, and politics, as well as the entanglements of familial grief and the political in contexts of violent conflict.

His writing draws critically on qualitative methods, especially ethnography, and he explores the potential of literature—both fiction and poetry—as an alternative archive of political emotion. This is particularly significant in contexts where conventional historical archives are limited or absent. Underpinning his research is a sustained concern with political ethics and social justice.

Publications

• Fazili, Gowhar. (2026). From Pedagogy of Pain to Pedagogy of Care: Interpreting the Discursive Shift. Journal of Sociology. Special Issue: Pedagogy of Care in the Context of Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1177/14407833261462211 
• Fazili, Gowhar. (2023). Rethinking Conflict at the Margins: Dalits and Borderland Hindus in J&K by Mohita Bhatia. Contributions to Indian Sociology, 57(1–2), 147–182.
• Fazili, Gowhar. (Forthcoming, 2023). Political Subjectivity: An Ethnographic Exploration. Routledge India, Taylor & Francis Group. (Ethnographic Innovations: South Asian Perspectives series).
• Fazili, Gowhar et al. (2023). For Now It Is Night – Translation of short stories by Hari Krishan Kaul. Published simultaneously by HarperCollins India and Archipelago Books, New York.
• Fazili, Gowhar. (2022). Ethnography, Solidarity and Outrage: Reflections on Saiba Varma’s Occupied Clinic. The Wire.
  https://thewire.in/books/ethnography-solidarity-and-outrage-in-kashmir-reflections-on-saiba-varmas-occupied-clinic
• Fazili, Gowhar. (2022). Liberal Silence and the Malleability of Ethics in India. In Deepti Misri, Haley Duschinski et al. (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Critical Studies. Routledge.
• Fazili, Gowhar & Sundar, Nandini. (2020). Academic Freedom in India: A Status Report, 2020. The India Forum: A Journal Magazine on Contemporary Issues.
  https://www.theindiaforum.in/sites/default/files/pdf/2020/09/04/academic-freedom-in-india.pdf
• Fazili, Gowhar. (2020). Collapse of the Regime of Victimhood. Seminar: Victimhood – A Symposium on its Politics in Our Times, February–March, pp. 18–22.
• Fazili, Gowhar. (2018). Police Subjectivity: Reflections on an Account of a Police Officer. In Haley Duschinski, Mona Bhan, Ather Zia, & Cynthia Mahmood (Eds.), R.O.K. (pp. xx–xx). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
• Fazili, Gowhar. (2016). Familial Grief, Resistance and the Political Imaginary. Indian Anthropologist, 46(2), 53–74.
• Fazili, Gowhar. (2014). Local Agitations in a Globalized Context: Case Study of Bomai and Shopian. In Nandini Sundar & Aparna Sundar (Eds.), Civil Wars in South Asia: State, Sovereignty, Development (pp. 212–239). California: Sage Publications.
• Fazili, Gowhar. (2011). Grieving as a Medium. In Ira Pande (Ed.), A Tangled Web (pp. 184–198). New Delhi: HarperCollins.
• Fazili, Gowhar. (2010). Kashmiri Marginalities: Construction, Nature and Response. In Sanjay Kak (Ed.), Until My Freedom Has Come. New Delhi: Penguin Books.

Teaching Modules

In addition to his long-standing engagement with pedagogical interventions in both formal and informal settings, Dr Gowhar Fazili has over a decade of teaching experience in Sociology, Anthropology and Political Science. He has taught undergraduate and postgraduate courses in Sociology and Anthropology at institutions such as Ashoka University (Sonipat), NALSAR University of Law (Hyderabad), and Ambedkar University Delhi (AUD). Prior to this, he taught Political Science at the Government College for Women (GWC), M.A. Road, Srinagar.

Dr Fazili has designed and taught a wide range of interdisciplinary courses, including: Ethnography of Political Violence; Caste, Community, Coloniality: From Victimhood to Political Responsibility; Introduction to Political Anthropology; Exploring the Social and the Historical; Understanding Humiliation; Social Movements; Protest Movements and Transformations; Culture, Hierarchy and Difference; Conceptualizing Urban and Rural Societies; Economy, Polity and Society; Science, Technology and Society; Social Theories; Research Methods; Introduction to Sociology; Social Change and Development; Culture, Identity and Society; and Capital, Value and Infrastructure.

He has also conducted workshops on Expressions, Research Writing, and Organizational Exposure, reflecting his broader commitment to building academic and critical capacities among students.