Prof Assa Doron

Professor Assa Doron

Research Areas:

• Urban Anthropology
• Development Studies
• Environment and Public Health
• Media and Technology

Biography: Professor Assa Doron is an anthropologist specializing in urban studies, development, environment, public health, media, and technology, with a particular focus on India. His research has significantly contributed to our understanding of cultural dynamics, technological change, and environmental challenges in South Asia.

Selected Publications (books):

• Doron, A., & Broom, A. (2026). A World of Resistance: India and the Global Antibiotics Crisis. Belknap-Harvard University Press. A vivid account of why superbugs demand we rethink inequality, health systems, farming, and life with microbes.
• Doron, A., & Jeffrey, R. (2018). Waste of a Nation: Garbage and Growth in India. Harvard University Press. This prize-winning book provides a comprehensive analysis of waste management and environmental challenges in India's rapidly growing economy.
• Doron, A., & Jeffrey, R. (2013). The Great Indian Phone Book: How the Cheap Cell Phone Changes Business, Politics, and Daily Life. Harvard University Press. This work examines the transformative impact of the mobile phone revolution on Indian society.
• Doron, A. (2013). Life on the Ganga: Boatmen and the Ritual Economy of Banaras. Cambridge University Press. This study explores the ritual economy of the river in Varanasi, offering insights into the cultural and economic dynamics of India's most sacred waterway.

Professor Doron's research has been featured in international media outlets including The New York Times, The Economist, The Guardian, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal , Nature, Science, New Scientist, Aeon, Times Literary Supplement, Los Angeles Review of Books, Times of India, amongst others.

Current Research: Professor Doron is currently investigating critical issues at the intersection of public health, environmental degradation, and the global crisis of antimicrobial resistance.

Career highlights

2022 - Reid Prize (citation for Waste of a Nation); Asian Studies Assoc Australia

2020 - President’s Book Prize for 2018–19 (citation)

2013/4 – Awarded Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (ASAA) Early Career Research Prize

2012 - Awarded Australian Research Council Future Fellowship

Student Supervision (PhDs)

Completions

• Justin Lao (Anthropology, 'Chasing Wonder: Textures and Infrastructures of Circular Economies in Cambodia' Chair Supervisor, 2025)
• Elvin Xing (Anthropology, ‘Tribal Organisations in South India’, Chair Supervisor, 2023)
• Geoffrey Piggott -  International cricket and India–Australia relations (Associate Supervisor 2023)
• Saidalav Thodika (Anthropology, ‘Social Hierarchy amongst Muslims in Malabar', Chair Supervisor, 2022)
• Mohit Chaturvedi (Anthropology and Development, ‘Changing Practices of Meat Consumption among Hindus in a North Indian Town', Supervisor, 2019)
• Jesse Buck (History/Cultural Studies, ‘The Sugar in the Milk and the Augmented Historian', Advisor, 2018)
• Kavesh Muhamed (Anthropology, ‘Human-Animal Relations in Rural Pakistan’, Chair Supervisor, 2018)
• Annie McCarthy (Anthropology, ‘Children’s Stories about Children’s Stories’, Chair Supervisor, ANU 2016)
• Sacha Cody (Anthropology, ‘Consumer Desire and Risk Society in Urban China’, Supervisor, 2016)
• Le Hoang Ngoc Yen (Anthropology, ‘The Social and Cultural Construction of Leprosy in Vietnam’, Supervisor, ANU 2015)
• Patrick McCarthy (Asian Studies, ‘Spiritual Capital, Power and Sanskrit: An Ethnographic Study of the Temple of Peace Ashram’, Supervisor, ANU 2015)
• Xuang Dong (Anthropology, ‘Fighting for Urban Citizenship in China’, Supervisor, ANU 2015)
• Udeni Appuhamilage (Anthropology, Sri Lanka, Supervisor, ANU 2014)
• Venkatachalam Thiruppugazh (Asian Studies, ‘Natural Disasters and Their Mitigation in South Asia’, Advisor, ANU 2012)
• Jessica Hinchy (Asian Studies, ‘Illicit Sex, Criminal Gender: The “Deviant” Subjects of the British Raj’, Advisor, ANU 2013)

Ongoing Supervision

• Remeen Firoz (Anthropology, ‘Munda Life in the Sundarbans’, Chair)
• Ranu Kunwar (Anthropology, ‘Informal Urbanism in India’, Chair)
• Giti Dutt (Anthropology, ‘India’s Perfume Oil Industry’, Supervisor)
• Muhamad Saputra (Anthropology, ‘Media Power Beyond Jakarta’, Advisor)
• Azizah Nur (Polical and social change, Waste managment in Indonesia', advisor) 

PhD, Cultural Anthropology

The anthropology of contemporary India, and South Asia; development studies;  technology, urbanization; public health & sanitation, identity politics; religion; ethnographic practice, new media, waste and recycling, antimicrobial resistance.