Gitika Saksena

Gitika's research expertise follows a multidisciplinary academic and professional grounding. She holds a BA with Honours in Economics from Lady Shri Ram College, University of Delhi, and an MBA from Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar. 

Following a long, successful career as a talent strategy professional at Accenture Technology, she returned to higher education in 2019 to pursue a Masters in Social Anthropology at SOAS University of London on a British Chevening Scholarship. Prior to her doctoral studies, she co-founded LagomWorks Consulting, a research and innovation firm applying design thinking and ethnographic research methods to address organisational challenges. 

Her work at LagomWorks led to the development of futurescapes, an anthropology-led research methodology that has been integral to the company's work with clients across India, the Middle East, APAC, and the EU. Futurescapes was featured in the UNESCO Digital Library as a compilation of methodological innovations in digital anthropology. Gitika's published research had focused on areas such as technology, community, livelihoods, work, organisations, and entrepreneurship, and is underpinned by a methodological commitment to ethnographic and mixed-methods approaches. 

Her paper, "Reimagining Livelihoods: An Ethnographic Inquiry into Anticipation, Agency, and Reflexivity as India's Impact Ecosystem Responds to Post-Pandemic Rebuilding" (Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference Proceedings, 2021) followed a social impact project focused on post-pandemic livelihood rebuilding in India, exploring how ethnographic engagement across multiple networks shapes possibilities for recovery and renewal. In another paper, "Everybody's a Winner" (Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference Proceedings, 2020), with India's startup capital Bangalore as its field, Gitika researched the lived experiences of its entrepreneurs, and advocated a case for an alternative model of entrepreneurship. 

Her book chapter "Lessons from the Field: Culture and Sustainability" (Routledge, 2024) draws on original fieldwork with a large global bank during the COVID-19 pandemic, where friction experienced across teams was empirically observed as not rooted in resistance to technology, but in deeper cultural questions about work in a digitally mediated environment. Gitika has presented her research at various conferences, including the Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference 2020, Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference 2021, the ASA (Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK) conference 2021 titled 'Responsibility', the Response-ability Summit (Formerly Anth + Tech Conference) 2021 and the RAI (Royal Anthropological Institute) Conference 2022 titled 'Anthropology, AI and the Future of Human Society. 

She has taught 'Design Thinking in Management' as a Visiting Faculty at business schools in India and the UAE. Finally, Gitika is a practising documentary photographer whose assignments have been published by and contributed to several not-for profit organisations including the Rockefeller Foundation, CRY, VSO UK, Frontline AIDS, and Mission for Vision.

• Feminist/alternative value-making
• Digital anthropology as method and theory
• Design anthropology as method and theory
• Technology, organisational culture, and the future of work
• Work, livelihoods, entrepreneurship, and scale  
• Information, wellbeing, and community  
• Applied ethnographic methods  
• Experimental ethnographic methods