Jusmeet S. Sihra is an urban and political sociologist with a deep interest in understanding caste inequalities rooted in space. He joined the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge in January 2024 as a British Academy International Fellow.
He received his PhD in Sociology in 2023, jointly from Sciences Po Paris and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he was awarded the President's Award. His dissertation earned the Alex Berger Prize for outstanding dissertation in the Faculty of the Humanities and Social Sciences at the Hebrew University. Jusmeet holds an MA in Urban Studies (Master Governing the Large Metropolis) from Sciences Po Paris and a BA majoring in Political Science and History from St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi.
His doctoral research explored the mechanisms of caste segregation in urban India through an innovative mixed-methods approach, combining ethnography, interviews, GIS mapping, and newly generated datasets on disaggregated caste categories. His dissertation offered the first micro street view of segregation from below using disaggregated caste categories. In doing so, his research showed how caste stratification and caste inequalities are reproduced through urban space.
During his postdoctoral fellowship, Jusmeet’s research aims to generate a view of segregation from above, showing how the colonial and the postcolonial state institutions have promoted caste segregation.
He theorises segregation from a South Asian perspective while engaging with conceptualisation of segregation from the US and other Global South settings.
His theoretical focus includes examining the degrees of stigma, how stigma affects space and how space affects the processes of stratification and reproduces inequality. Jusmeet is currently writing about the spatial theory of caste.
Selected Publications:
The odour of segregation - Jusmeet S Sihra, 2025
Forthcoming Transacting Piety: Sharing at Ajmer Dargah. In Christophe Jaffrelot, Aminah Mohammad-Arif, Laurent Gayer and Grégoire Schlemmer (Eds.), The Indian Subcontinent’s Shared Sacred Sites. Hurst Publishers: London.
Forthcoming Jusmeet S. Sihra, Priyanka Kotamraju and Vishal Vasanthakumar. Caste Mobilisations. In Indrajit Roy and Manali Desai (Eds.), Cambridge Companion to Indian Politics and Society, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
2022 Camille Abescat, Pablo Barnier-Khawam, Alix Chaplain, Leonard Colomba-Petteng, Claire Duboscq, Ronan Jacquin, Elisabeth Miljkovic, Sophie Russo, Jusmeet S. Sihra, Anaelle Vergonjeanne. Terrains « sans contact » : L’Enquête Qualitative en Sciences Sociales Pendant la Pandémie, Tracés. Revue de Sciences humaines, 42, 75-93.
2021 Xuefei Ren 2020: Governing the Urban in China and India: Land Grabs, Slum Clearance and the War on Air Pollution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 45(4), 748-750.