IIT Gandhinagar: 17 Years of ExcellenceNews
Research

Tanka B. Subba

  1. Faculty
  2. Humanities & Social Sciences

  3. Tanka B. Subba

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Tanka B. Subba

Visiting Professor, Humanities and Social Sciences

  • BA (Hons): Kalimpong College, 1977
  • MA: University of North Bengal, 1980
  • PhD: University of North Bengal, 1985

Email: tanka.subba -AT- iitgn.ac.in



  • Recent Publications

    1. Verrier Elwin and His Fieldwork Method. Journal of the Anthropological Survey of India, 69(1), 7-14, 2020. DOI: 10.1177/2277436X20905924

    2. Being an assistant to a shaman. Ateliers d'anthropologie [Online], 49 | 2021, Online since 15 January 2021, connection on 20 December 2020. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/ateliers/14343

    3. Section Editor. 2021. Brill’s Encyclopedia of the Religions of the Indigenous People of South Asia. Leiden: Brill.

    4. The Routledge Companion to Northeast India. Edited with Jelle J.P. Wouters. London: Taylor & Francis, 2022.

    5. “How I became an Anthropologist” in Inside Out: A Collection of Autobiographies by Indian Anthropologists, edited by P.C. Joshi and V.K. Srivastava. New Delhi: Concept, 2024, Chap. 16, pp. 161-69.

    6. The Routledge International Handbook of the Himalayan Environments, Development and Wellbeing edited with Ben Campbell and Mary Cameron. London: Taylor & Francis, 2025.

    7. “Customary Law and Gender in Northeast India” (pp. 92-99) in Nandini Bhattacharyya Panda (ed.) Custom, Law and the Colonial State in Northeast India (London & New York: Routledge, 2025).

  • Work Experience

    • Visiting Professor, Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar (Jul 2024 to present)
    • Professor, North-Eastern Hill University (Oct 2017 - Apr 2022)
    • Vice-Chancellor, Writing Center, University of Houston (Oct 2012 - Oct 2017)
    • Professor, North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong, Meghalaya (Sep 1997 - Oct 2012)
    • Reader, North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong, Meghalaya (Sep 1991 - Mar 1997)
    • Sr. Lecturer, University of North Bengal, Dt. Darjeeling, West Bengal. (Mar 1990 - Sep 1991)
    • Lecturer, University of North Bengal, Dt. Darjeeling, West Bengal. (Mar 1985 - Mar 1990)

  • Awards

    • Gold Medal for securing first class first in MA (1980).
    • Christian Institute for the Study of Religion and Sociey (CISRS, Bangalore) Junior Research Fellowship 1980-81.
    • University Grants Commission (New Delhi) Junior Research Fellowship 1981-85.
    • Homi Bhabha Fellowship (Mumbai) 1992-94.
    • Dr. Panchanan Mitra Lectureship 2007 awarded by the Asiatic Society, Kolkata.
    • DAAD Guest-professorship at the Free University of Berlin from April 1 to July 30, 2008.
    • Baden-Wuerttemberg Fellowship at the South Asian Institute, Heidelberg University, Germany from 15 October 2010 to 15 January 2011.
    • R.P. Chanda Centenary Medal for 2015, awarded by the Asiatic Society, Kolkata for my contribution to Anthropology.

Research Interests

  • ● Social/Cultural Anthropology of the Eastern Himalayas

Complete List of Publications