Dr Ashwin Varghese is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Centre of Governance and Human Rights, University of Cambridge. Before joining CGHR he taught Sociology at O.P. Jindal Global University, India. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology in 2023 for which he studied power relations in everyday policing practices, drawing from an ethnographic study of police stations in India. His subsequent work has focused on the concept of Algorithmic Governance, analysing digital transformations of state practices.
He was previously a Researcher in the Research Council of Norway-funded project Algorithmic Governance and Cultures of Policing: Comparative Perspectives from Norway, India, Brazil, Russia and South Africa (AGOPOL); a Research Fellow in the SSHRC Insight Grant, Canada-funded project Police Unions, Democratic Security, & Social Justice; and a Research Assistant to Legislators at the Rajiv Gandhi Instituted for Contemporary Studies, India. His broader areas of interest include political economy of the state, ethnographic methods, science and technology studies and sociology of governance and development.
At King’s he will continue to expand his work on Algorithmic Governance focusing on the changing dynamics of discretion, autonomy and control in predictive policing in India.
