George Jose

Visiting Associate Professor of Anthropology Affiliation: NYU Abu Dhabi
Education: Joint PhD, National University of Singapore (NUS) and King’s College London (KCL)

Research Areas: Urban Peripheries, Creative Cities


George Jose has held research, teaching, and leadership positions in the academia and not-for-profit sectors. In his role as Dean of the Jyoti Dalal School of Liberal Arts (JDSoLA), NMIMS University, Mumbai, Dr Jose provided academic leadership to the School and facilitated the realization of the School’s vision. He led JDSoLA’s strategic planning and curriculum development and specified educational objectives. George was the inaugural Program Director for Asia Society India; Program Officer with India Foundation for the Arts (IFA), Bengaluru; and was a Research Fellow at Forum Transregionale Studien, Berlin.

Dr Jose researches metropolitan transformation in and of contemporary south Asia. His work explores the urban periphery as a crucial, if undervalued, site for culture and politics that generates a distinctive form of urbanism especially in the global south. He studies the manner in which quotidian processes of work and consumption craft citizenship even as it limits rights and produces the conditions of precarity and informality. George is interested in the multiple ways in which the contemporary city is imagined, produced and consumed in its margins, by its marginalized citizens.

Dr Jose is also interested in understanding the expressive registers of urban creativity in our time. While his academic work is in the cognate disciplines of anthropology and sociology George has directed programs in the field of arts and culture for international and regional not-for-profit organizations. He has taught in architecture, design, and management institutes in India while also facilitating the development of policies and strategies to manage programs in research and documentation, collaboration and education in the arts, and helped design partnerships with artists and arts organizations. George maintains a strong interest in arts practice across disciplines and serves collaborative projects in an advisory capacity.

Courses Taught