
Harini Kumar
Harini Kumar is a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton University. She received her PhD in sociocultural anthropology from the University of Chicago in 2022. Her research focuses on Islam and Muslim societies in contemporary India, with further regional interests in Southeast Asia and the Americas. Her scholarship lies at the intersection of lived religion, material culture, gender, ethics, the built environment, and migration. Dr. Kumar's current book, Formations of Tamil Islam: Belonging, Place, and Historical Consciousness in South India, is an ethnographic study of Tamil-speaking Muslims' lived experience and religious practices.
She is also at work on her second book project, The Logistics of Religiosity: Transoceanic Muslim Mobility from the Bay of Bengal to the Americas.This research connects South India, Southeast Asia, and the Americas through the enduring legacy of a Sufi saint. It traces present-day continuities with older logistical networks of trade, indentureship, and migration, providing new perspectives on religious belonging that emerges from an interconnected ocean space.