Faculty at School of Humanities and Social Sciences

P. C. Saidalavi

P. C. Saidalavi

Assistant Professor

School of Humanities and Social Sciences


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anthropology of religion, labour, caste and technology

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Ph.D. in Anthropology, Australian National University, Canberra, 2022

MPhil in Sociology, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, 2015

MA in English, English and Foreign Languages University, (Lucknow Campus), 2012

BA in English Literature, Calicut University, 2010

08/22 – present: Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Shiv Nadar University, Delhi-NCR

2022                Sir Raymond Firth Thesis Prize, Australian National University

2019                Sir Raymond Firth Research Prize, Australian National University

2018                Best Paper Award for PhD scholars, ANU Religion Conference

2012                UGC Junior Research Fellowship

  • Saidalavi, P.C. 2025. “Ethical Listening Within a Culture of Difference.” Anthropology and Humanism 00(0): e70040. https://doi.org/10.1111/anhu.70040.
  • Saidalavi, P.C. 2025. “Seeking antassu: The making of a Muslim barber in South India,” HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 15 (1): 45-58. https://doi.org/10.1086/734600
  • Saidalavi, P.C. 2024. “Koyapāpa: Ways to sacredness from madness,” [Malayalam] Thelicham Monthly 26 (10): 14-21.
  • Saidalavi, P.C. 2022. “Beyond the normative: Ambiguity in the making of a South Indian sufi,” American Anthropologist 124 (2): 319-332. https://doi.org/10.1111/aman.13715.
  • Saidalavi, P.C. 2019. “Canadian Trajectories of Kerala Studies: Interview with Robin Jeffrey,” (Malayalam), Mathrubhumi Weekly, November 3: 30-39.
  • Saidalavi, P.C. 2017. “Muslim social organisation and cultural Islamisation in Malabar,” South Asia Research 37 (1): 19-36. https://doi.org/10.1177/0262728016675530.
  • Saidalavi, P.C. 2017. “Status Claims among Muslims in Malabar, South India.” Anthropological Notebooks 23 (2): 103-105.

  • 2025. Presented a paper titled “‘There is no Caste in Islam’: Social Hierarchy among Muslims in India,” at the International Symposium on Academic study of Religion, 7-8 August, Flame University, Pune.
  • 2025. Co-organised a workshop with R. Prasad and Mohammed Adhil titled "Thinking Region; Thinking South,” 18-19 June, Calicut University, Kerala.
  • 2024. Invited lecture titled “Looking for Religion in Everyday Life,” on 30th August at the Department of Sociology, Miranda House, University of Delhi.
  • 2024. Presented a paper titled “Crises in Fieldwork: Inequality, Identity and Islam in south India,” SMUS Conference, 26-29 July, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand.
  • 2024. Presented a paper titled “‘Is it Islamic by any counts? Space and Inequality among Muslims in South India,” Swiss Anthropological Association Conference, 06-08 June, University of Lucerne, Switzerland.
  • 2024. Presented a paper titled “Making of a Barber: Collective Agency and the Transformation of Self in South India,” Performing the political: ICAS-MP Conference, 06-07 June, University of Erfurt, Germany.
  • 2024. Organised a panel titled “Religion and everyday life” at the Indian Sociological Society Conference, December 22-24, BML Munjal University, Haryana.
  • Invited talk titled ‘Religion and Religious Syncretism in India’ in the winter school on Religion and Modernity in Contemporary India, IIT Delhi, 21 February 2023.

  • Saidalavi, P.C. (Forthcoming, November 2025). Seeking Allah’s Hierarchy: Caste, Labor and Islam in India. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.