Stine Simonsen Puri

Stine Simonsen Puri

Teaching Associate Professor

Primary fields of research

I study movement. Movement of bodies, minds, money, clouds and stars. I am interested in how we come to know the world, and speculate on the world through movement. Both the movement of our own bodies, as well as movement that we observe outside ourselves. Also, importantly, I consider myself an expert on India, on its history, culture and society, and I have lived, studied, travelled and done research in both rural and urban India for more than three years.

 

In my research, I have focused on gambling, climate and dance through a combination of ethnographic and historic methods. I have studied horse race betting as a method of researching excessive use of money in urban India. I have studied weather forecasting among farmers, rain gamblers and grain traders, as an entry into understanding engagements with climate risks in desert India. Furthermore, I have studied (and learnt) Indian temple dance as a way to come to grasp hinduism and gender in India, and finally, I am in the process of investigating the history of the dance eurythmy to shed light on embodied cultural exchange between East and West.

 

As an anthropologist I engage in methods of radical participation. This means that my main research methods has been dancing and gambling. Analytically, I like to combine a phenomenological approach that investigates the phenomena at a kinesthetic level, with a hermeneutic approach that takes into account the cultural significance given to the phenomena in the context of everyday lives, as well as a critical approach, that situates the phenomena in a historic context of power relations.

 

As a teacher, I try to open up these analytical possibilities for the students to develop flexible ways of understanding and engaging with the world and the cultural diversity that one encounters. This involves multi modal methods of teaching that for example experiments with the use of movement in class, as I am particularly interested in the body as both a sense organ and as an instrument of thinking.

Fields of interest

Movement, India and anthropology; this includes dance, gambling, money, climate, agriculture, hinduism, gender, esotericism, cultural exchange. 

Selected publications

  1. Published

    Waiting for accelerations. Speculating on guar seeds in the Indian desert

    Puri, Stine Simonsen, 2021, In: History and Anthropology. 32, 1, p. 18-31 14 p.

    Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

  2. Published

    Escalations: Theorizing Sudden Accelerating Change

    Højer, Lars, Kublitz, A., Puri, Stine Simonsen & Bandak, Andreas, 2018, In: Anthropological Theory. 18, 1, p. 36-58 22 p., 2.

    Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

  3. Published

    Speculation on Racing Odds in India

    Puri, Stine Simonsen, 14 Feb 2020, In: Economy and Society. 49, 1, p. 170-186 16 p.

    Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

  4. Published

    Speculation: Futures and Capitalism in India

    Bear, L., Birla, R. & Puri, Stine Simonsen, 2015, In: Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East. 35, 3, p. 387-391 5 p.

    Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

  5. Published

    Billeder på integration: Kulturmøder, samfundsforandringer og projektmetoder

    Petersen, A. M. & Puri, Stine Simonsen, 2014, Aarhus: Systime. (Systime iBog).

    Research output: Book/ReportBook

Selected activities

  1. Betting on the Monsoon in Rajasthans Desert

    Puri, Stine Simonsen (Other)

    21 Apr 2017

    Activity: Talk or presentation typesLecture and oral contribution

ID: 5764377