An anthropology of states, statistics, and computing.
PhD candidate in Anthropology and South Asian Studies at the University of Toronto. Research on bureaucracy, data infrastructures, and the technopolitics of the Indian state.
Aakash Solanki is a PhD candidate in Anthropology and South Asian Studies at the University of Toronto. His research sits at the intersection of the anthropology of the state, science and technology studies, and the historical study of statistics and computing. He has worked on the collection, classification, and management of information in colonial and postcolonial India. In addition to prior training in computer science, he has worked in government agencies in the US and India on data science projects in education, health, and skill development at municipal, state, and federal levels.
His dissertation, Governing Indeterminately: An Ethnography of Technopopulism from India, draws on long-term fieldwork in Indian state and central bureaucracies to examine how digital infrastructures mediate development, statecraft, and fiscal federal relations. The research is funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research.
He has previously published in South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies and is a former Student Editor at Cultural Anthropology. He convened the interdisciplinary Development Seminar at the University of Toronto.
- 01Colonial and postcolonial histories of statistics and statecraft
- 02Ethnography of the state and bureaucracy in South Asia
- 03Design, deployment, and maintenance of data infrastructures
- 04Caste, technoscience, and digital publics
- 05Mixed-method and collaborative approaches to studying governance technologies
- 2024Writing Fellowship, Center for Ethnography, University of Toronto Scarborough
- 2021Dissertation Fieldwork Grant, Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research
- 2019Doctoral Research Fellowship, International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada
- Oct 2025Talk at the International Federation for Library Associations and Institutions webinar: “Caste, Libraries, and Public Finance.”
- Aug 2025Invited talk at the Symposium on Digital Inequalities and the Global South, IIIT-Delhi.
- Apr 2025Talk at the Center for South Asian Studies, University of Toronto Scarborough.
See all talks and publications.