Currently a visiting fellow at Harvard University's American Studies program, Balbir is a PhD Candidate in English at the University of Washington. She comes to her work in the Department of English with a background in postcolonial theory and critical ethnic studies. Her research interests center on issues of race and racial violence, South Asian diasporic politics, minority critique and philosophy, the theoretical convergences of race/religion/empire, with an acute interest in religious and secular theories of violence. Further, she has extended investments in women of color feminist critique and queer theory.
Balbir is currently working on her dissertation titled "Militant Bodies: Policing Race, Religion and Violence in the U.S. Sikh Diaspora." Broadly, her dissertation examines the Sikh diaspora in the U.S. through the lens of militancy, theorizing anew the relationship between race, violence, and minoritarian politics. As a both an episodic cultural history and a history of violence, Balbir's project tracks the Sikh diaspora long histories of racial coding, the policing of these bodies through various forms of govenmentality, and the paradoxes of racial and religious tolerance in the 20th and early 21st centuries. Her dissertation, moreover, is heavily engaged in feminist methods, affective politics, and minority critique.
Further, she has designed and taught writing courses on ideology critique, the literature of crisis, and racial and state violences. Balbir is also co-founder and co-organizer of the University of Washington’s Women of Color Collective, as well as principal organizer for "Reflections on Oak Creek: Critical Mourning and the Logics of Racist Violence," a public scholarship project. Currently, Balbir is an Andrew Hilen Dissertation Fellow, and she has work recently published in Sikh Formations: Religion, Culture, Theory, as well as on ZNet, Dissident Voice, and Truthout.
Curriculum Vitae