Department of Anthropology and Sociology

Dr Itay Noy

Key information

Roles
Department of Anthropology and Sociology Lecturer in Anthropology
Building
Russell Square: College Buildings
Office
471
Email address
in14@soas.ac.uk
Support hours
Thursdays 1:00pm-3:00pm by appointment (see bio for link), online unless otherwise arranged.

Biography

Situated at the intersection of anthropology and development studies, my research is broadly concerned with the interaction between extractive industries and indigenous communities in the global South, and draws on long-term fieldwork in eastern India’s coal mining tracts. I received my PhD from the London School of Economic and Political Science, and held postdoctoral positions at SOAS and the University of St Andrews before joining SOAS as a Lecturer in Anthropology in 2022.

Office hours

Thursdays 1:00pm - 3:00pm, online unless otherwise arranged. Please book an appointment.

Key publications

  • Noy, Itay (forthcoming) ‘Unpicking Precarity: Informal Work in Eastern India's Coal Mining Tracts'. Development and Change.
  • Noy, Itay (2022) ‘The Politics of Dispossession and Compensation in the Eastern Indian Coal Belt’. Critique of Anthropology 42 (1), pp 56-77.
  • Noy, Itay (2020) ‘Public Sector Employment, Class Mobility, and Differentiation in a Tribal Coal Mining Village in India’. Contemporary South Asia 28 (3), pp 374-391.
  • Noy, Itay (2019) ‘Rethinking Land, Enclosure and Resistance’ (review article). Focaal: Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 83, pp 114-121.

Research interests

Based on 18 months of fieldwork in a mining-affected village, my research explores the variegated impact of resource extraction operations on lives and livelihoods in an Adivasi (tribal) community in eastern India’s coal belt. It challenges common assumptions about the effects of, and local responses to, mining, land dispossession, and displacement, and engages with debates about development, extraction, and their politics; inequality and precarious ways of life; and environmental change and energy transitions.

Contact Itay