Department of Anthropology and Sociology
Dr Rich Thornton
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Key information
Key information
- Roles
- Department of Anthropology and Sociology ESRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow
- Department
- Department of Anthropology and Sociology
- Subject
- Anthropology and Sociology
- Office
- 576
- Email address
- rt39@soas.ac.uk
- Support hours
- By appointment
Biography
Dr Rich Thornton is a Research Fellow in Anthropology currently completing his first book, Lifeworlds of Leadership: Entrepreneurial Subjectivities in Indian Education, based on his doctoral thesis.
He is also launching a podcast that explores notions of ‘leadership’ with Indian social entrepreneurs and is running theatre-based workshops, both on theatre-as-research-method, and participatory theatre as tool to teach anthropological concepts.
Since 2016, Rich has been conducting fieldwork with educationalists in Delhi, India. His research explores Indian middle-class graduates who have launched social enterprises to improve schooling for India’s urban poor. By examining affective experience, his work reveals how ‘neoliberal’ subjectivities are produced in education NGO fellowships, and how casteism and classism are entangled with the rise of ‘entrepreneurial subjectivity’ as an aspirational category in India.
Rich is also a theatre maker, visual artist, tarot card reader, musician, and storyteller. He is currently exploring mystical religion, such as Sufism, and wondering how to accept multiple realities – like intuition and social science.
Research interests
Dr Thornton is interested in India, South Asia, UK, Subjectivity, Education, Neoliberalism, Affect, Autoethnography, Creative Anthropology, Theatre, Creative Pedagogy, New Materialism, Poetry, Self-Reflection, Ethics, Schooling, Music, Social Entrepreneurship
