Sandhya Krittika Narayanan, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
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Summary

Sandhya Narayanan is a linguistic anthropologist, whose work focuses on the ways that Indigenous and minoritized identities and subjectivities are managed through multilingual practices. She has done fieldwork in Peru, Bolivia and Southern New England. Her previous research focused on the consequences of inter-Indigenous language contact between Quechua and Aymara speakers in the Department of Puno, located in the Southern Peruvian Andes. In addition to tracking the changes in linguistic practices and grammatical structures that are a result of language contact, she places these changes within broader discourses and ideologies around proper Indigenous linguistic praxis, gender differences and identities, and Indigeneity. She is currently working on her first book, which explores the ways that Quechua-Aymara language contact is engendered in Puno. She is also currently engaged in a new project on Southern New England Algonquian (SNEA) language revitalization with the Massachusett tribe, where she is interested in the process, histories and politics around language revitalization and Indigenous recognition in the area.

Research interests

Dr. Narayanan welcomes inquiries from prospective M.A. and Ph.D. students in these related areas:

  • Linguistic anthropology
  • Language contact and multilingualism
  • Language, gender and sexuality
  • Language endangerment and revitalization
  • Indigeneity
  • Andes/Latin America
  • Southern New England

Selected publications

Courses taught

  • ANTH 281: Introduction to Language
  • ANTH 485/685: Language and Culture
  • ANTH 709: Graduate Seminar in Linguistic Anthropology

Education

  • Ph.D., University of Michigan, 2020
  • B.A., Brandeis University, 2010