麻豆传媒

I am a social anthropologist specialising in the areas of law, politics and local governance, with a particular focus on Nepal and the Himalayas.

I am currently a Research Associate on the Wellcome Trust funded project Accessing the Wellbeing Commons: therapeutic resource-ification of natural and historic environments and social exclusion in the UK and Inner Asia, with Dr Elizabeth Turk as PI. Prior to joining 麻豆传媒 in October 2025, I was a Research and Teaching Associate in Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge (2023-2024).

I hold a PhD in Anthropology from the London School of Economics, with my doctoral thesis providing an ethnographic study of a district prison in its wider context in rural Nepal.

I have a BA in History of Art from SOAS, University of London (2012), and a MSc in Anthropology and Development from the LSE (2016).

Outside of academia, I have worked with NGOs in Nepal, focusing on monitoring political developments at the local level, and infrastructural reconstruction following the 2015 earthquakes.

Accessing the Wellbeing Commons is a multi-sited project that considers the forms of social inequalities that arise from differential access to therapeutic environments, by analysing how social exclusion is connected to institutional relations, juridico-legal structures, and political economy. For this project, my research will take me to Sikkim, Northeast India, for an ethnographic and historical study of therapeutic hot springs and medicinal plant pastures. I will ask how access to these has changed over time for different socio-economic groups, with the commodification of natural resources and changes in national and local governance policies.

My previous work explored the many socio-political changes Nepal has undergone in recent decades through an ethnography of the daily life of a rural prison. I question the presumed boundedness of a prison by placing an emphasis on the complex and dynamic relations within the prison, and with its wider social networks outside. The prison is indeed a state institution of punishment and control, but the purpose of imprisonment is also adapted to local views of justice and the state in a remote region. Further, while some forms of social hierarchy are replicated inside the prison, new dynamics emerge as figures of authority depend on each other and compete for opportunities that arise in ever changing ways. I am interested in the many ways in which ‘the carceral’, understood as strategies of control, coercion, and surveillance, is configured across the material boundaries of the prison. These boundaries appear to be porous and permeable as the prison both reflects, and is in constant dialogue with, the wider context around it. Ultimately, unexpected discoveries on the inside reflect the constraints and inequalities that shape ‘free’ society.

Research interests include: ethnography; legal pluralism; local governance; structural inequality; identity politics; Nepal; South Asia; Himalayas

Funding and awards

2025  Frederick Williamson Memorial Fund, University of Cambridge

2024  Gibbs Travelling Research Fellowship, Newnham College, Cambridge

2024  Postdoctoral Grant, Camel Trust

2022  Satusoma Award for Outstanding Research, Royal Anthropological Institute

2020  Alfred Gell Studentship, Department of Anthropology, LSE

2018  Slawson Award, Royal Geographical Society

2018  Frederick Williamson Memorial Fund, University of Cambridge

I have four years of experience teaching undergraduate and postgraduate students on a range of courses, including research methods, introduction to social anthropology, legal anthropology, and the anthropology of post-socialist societies. I have also delivered lectures on regional and thematic expertise, including on the history of socialism and Maoist movements in India and Nepal, and on total institutions and carcerality.

• Articles

  • Ramble C. . South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal 2026. In Press.
  • Gardner K, Jivraj N, Ramble C. . South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal 2026. In Press.

• Book Chapter

  • Ramble, C. . In: L T Schneider, P Rebughini, R Dillema, ed. Agency Beyond Confinement: Rethinking the Relationship Between Agency and Structure in the Contemporary World. Taylor & Francis, 2026. In Press.

• Review

  • Ramble C. . Himalaya : The Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies 2025, 44(2), 104–106.