ÌÇÐÄTV

Email: Nisha dot Kapoor at warwick dot ac dot uk

 

Profile

Nisha Kapoor is Associate Professor in Sociology and joined ÌÇÐÄTV in December 2018. She previously worked at the University of York, UK and has held appointments at Duke University, US where she was 2012-13 Samuel DuBois Cook Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for the study of Race, Ethnicity and Gender in the Social Sciences (REGSS) and at Manchester Metropolitan University. She completed her PhD in Sociology at the University of Manchester, UK in 2010.

Her research interests are broadly concerned with racism and the security state covering topics relating to immigration, citizenship, criminalization, Islamophobia, segregation and authoritarianism. Theoretically, she draws on critical race, postcolonial, and political theory to assist in the undertaking of this work.

Her current research, still in its early stages, explores the role surveillance processes and technologies play in bordering practices in different national contexts (UK, India). This research will utilize a relational methodology to explore the role of Islamophobia in the promotion of surveillance cultures, the entrenchment of race, gender and class in surveillance regimes and the cross pollination of surveillance technologies and governmentalities between nation-states for policing borders. The relational nature of the project will allow for examination of the political-economy of surveillance and the role of state-corporate partnerships in the global context, alongside the borrowing and interaction between governments, and the circulation of populist and broader societal positions vis a vis surveillance.

Her earlier research, some of which is published in her book Deport Deprive Extradite. 21st Century State Extremism (Verso, 2018), was funded by an ESRC Future Research Leaders Award (2015-2018). The three-year project examined . Documenting stories and cases of individuals subject to extradition, citizenship deprivation and passport removals, incarceration and deportation, the research asked what such techniques and technologies illuminate about the broader features and operations of the security state. The project used a range of methods (interviews, documentary and media analysis, quantitative analysis of data obtained via FOI requests) analysing legal judgments, policy documents and statistical data to explore the intensification of securitization and its authoritarian dimensions.

Publications

Books

Kapoor, N. (2018) . 21st State Extremism, London: Verso.
Kapoor, N., Kalra, V. S., and Rhodes, J. (eds.) (2013/19 in paperback) The State of Race, Palgrave.

Journal Articles

Kapoor, N. (2026, forthcoming) 'Islamophobia, Authoritarianism and the Criminalisation of Dissent: After the case of Talha Ahsan', The Long View.

Kapoor, N. (2024) 'Big Tech, Borders and Biosecurity: Securitization in Britain after Covid-19' in M. Aizeki, M. Mahmoudi & C. Schupfer (eds.) Resisting Borders and Technologies of Violence, Haymarket Books.

Valluvan, S. & Kapoor, N. (2023) Sociology after the Postcolonial: Response to Julian Go's 'thinking against empire', British Journal of Sociology, 74(3), 310-323.

Kapoor, N. (2022) 'Brave New World: Notes of Citizenship for the Data State', Salvage Journal, No.13, 51-66.

Kapoor, N. (2021) 'Racism and the Right: A Response to Reactionary Democracy', Ethnic and Racial Studies, 44(13) 2393-2398.

Kapoor, N. (2020) 'Liberal Surveillance Capitalism and its Discontents', Society and Space, 7 December 2020.

Kapoor, N. & Narkowicz, K. (2019) ‘Characterising Citizenship: Race, Criminalisation and the Extension of Internal Borders’, Sociology, 53(4) 652-670.
Kapoor, N. & Narkowicz, K. (2017) ‘'Unmaking Citizens: Passport Removals, Pre-emptive Policing and the Re-Imagining of Colonial Governmentalities’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 42(16), 45-62.
Valluvan, S. & Kapoor, N. (2016) ‘On Theorising Race and Other Things’, Ethnic and Racial Studies Review, 39 (3).
Kapoor, N. (2016) ‘Implementing Internationalisation in Higher Education’, York Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Journal, 1, 89-103.
Kapoor, N. (2015) ‘Removing the Right to have Rights’, Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, 15(1).
Kapoor, N. (2013) ‘Re-thinking Empirical Approaches to Racial Segregation’, Sociological Review, 61(3), 440-59.
Kapoor, N. (2013) ‘On the North West Ten: Postcoloniality, the British Racial State and the War on Terror’, Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, 20(1), 61-76.
Valluvan, S., Kapoor N. & Kalra, V.S. (2013) ‘Crisis of Explanation: Narrating the 2011 Manchester riots’, Journal of Cultural Research, 17(2), 164-82.
Kapoor, N. (2011/13) ‘The Advancement of Racial Neoliberalism in Britain’ Ethnic and Racial Studies, 36(6), 1028-46.
Kalra, V.S., & Kapoor, N. (2009) ‘Interrogating Segregation, Integration and the Community Cohesion Agenda’ Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 35(9), 1397-1415.

Book Chapters

Kapoor, N. (2026) ‘Race and Gender’ in D. Richardson and V. Robinson (eds.) Introducing Gender and Women’s Studies: 6th edition, Palgrave.

Kapoor, N. (2020) ‘Deportation Diaries’ in M. Davidson and S. Barber (eds.) Through that which Separates Us, Gus Fisher Gallery.

Kapoor, N. (2020) ‘Race and Gender’ in D. Richardson and V. Robinson (eds.) Introducing Gender and Women’s Studies: 5th edition, Palgrave.
Kapoor, N. (2017) ‘The Tale of the Two Disappeared: Racism, Resistance and Fighting for the Right to Life’ in D. Naik and T. Oldfield (eds.) Critical Cities, vol.5.
Kapoor, N. (2013) ‘Extraordinary Extradition: Racial (In)justice in Britain’, in Kapoor, N., Kalra, V., and Rhodes, J. (eds.) The State of Race, Palgrave.
Kapoor, N. & Kalra, V.S. (2013) ‘Introduction: The State of Race’ in Kapoor, N., Kalra, V., and Rhodes, J. (eds.) The State of Race, Palgrave.
Kapoor, N. (2013) ‘Afterword: Racial Futures’ in Kapoor, N., Kalra, V., and Rhodes, J. (eds.) The State of Race, Palgrave.

Policy Reports / Contributions / Public Engagement

Kapoor, N. (2025) 'Modi's Waqf bill buries Indian secularism with bulldozer justice', The New Arab, 19 May.

Kapoor, N. (2024) Expert Report for SIAC Case no. SN/01/2023. FGF vs Secretary of State for the Home Department.

Kapoor, N. (2023) Report to Independent Commission on UK Counterterrorism Law, Policy and Practice, 17 January.

Kapoor, N. (2021) 'On Citizenship Deprivation: When neo-nationalism meets big-tech', Red Pepper, 16 December.

Kapoor, N. (2020) ‘Borders and Biometrics. The ÌÇÐÄTV of Citizenship Deprivation in Assam’, Red Pepper.

Blakeley, R. Hayes, B., Kapoor, N., Kundnani, A. Massoumi, N., Miller, D. Mills, T., Sabir, R., Sian, K. & Tufail, W. (2019) Leaving the War on Terror. A Progressive Alternative to Counter-Terrorism Policy, TNI.

Kapoor N. (2019) ‘Citizenship Deprivation at the Nexus of Race, Gender and Geopolitics’, Verso Blog, 22 February 2019.

Kapoor, N. (2018) ‘On Windrush, Citizenship and its Others’, Verso Blog, 1 May 2018.
Kapoor, N. (2018) ‘When They Take Babies from Mothers and Mothers from Babies’, Verso Blog, 7 March 2018
Kapoor, N. & Narkowicz, K. (2017) ‘The Character of Citizenship: Denying the Rights of Asylum Seekers and Criminalising Dissent’, Open Democracy, 20 May 2017.
Kapoor, N. (2015) ‘Deport, Deprive, Extradite: On the Removal of Rights in Terrorising Times’ Discover Society, 22, 1 July 2015 http://goo.gl/YOl8CS
Kapoor, N. (2013) ‘Along the Fault Lines of ‘British Justice for British Citizens’: Locating the non/British Muslim’ in Alexander, C., Redclift, V. and Hussian, A. (eds) The New Muslims, London: Runnymede Trust.
Finney, N, Kapoor, N, Marshall, A, Sabater, A and L. Simpson (2008) Ethnic Inequalities in the UK, A report for the Runnymede Trust, London: Runnymede.

Films

The Eyes of Aaliyah (2017) [Film]. Directed by Ken Fero, Produced by Nisha Kapoor. London: Migrant Media Production.
Aaden & the Spiders (2017) [Film]. Directed by Ken Fero, Produced by Nisha Kapoor. London: Migrant Media Production.

Book Reviews

Kapoor, N. (2015) Review of W. D. Hund and A. Lentin (2014) Racism and Sociology, Ethnic and Racial Studies
Kapoor, N. (2014) Review of A. Kundnani (2014) The Muslims are Coming, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 37(10), 1957-59.
Kapoor, N (2009) Review of J Herbert (2008) Negotiating Boundaries in the City, Oral History, 37 (Spring), 112-113.