Dr Harjant S Gill

Biography

Harjant Gill is a professor of anthropology and an award-winning documentary filmmaker whose work bridges ethnography, visual storytelling, and public scholarship. His research and creative practice explore masculinity, migration, media, religion, and popular culture in South Asia and its diasporas, with a particular focus on Punjab and Sikh communities. Through film and writing, he examines how intimate lives are shaped by patriarchy, nationalism, violence, and transnational mobility. Gill is the director of the internationally recognized documentary films Roots of Love, Mardistan/Macholand, and Sent Away Boys. His work has been broadcast on the BBC, PBS, and Doordarshan and screened widely at universities, film festivals, and public forums around the world. His scholarship appears in leading journals including American Anthropologist, Ethnography, and Visual Anthropology Review. His forthcoming book, Coming of Age in Macholand (University of Chicago Press), offers a deeply personal ethnographic exploration of patriarchy, masculinity, violence, and migration in Indian Punjab. Gill has received fellowships and awards from the American Institute of Indian Studies, Fulbright-Nehru, Point Foundation, Wenner-Gren, Whiting, and Woodrow Wilson foundations. Born in Chandigarh (India), Gill grew up in SF Bay Area and now lives in Washington, DC.

Scholarship

Books

• Coming of Age in Macholand: Masculinity, Patriarchy, and the Search for Freedom in Indian Punjab (2026)

Films

• Sent Away Boys (2016, 45 min. Punjabi)
• Mardistan (Macholand) (2014, 28 min. Punjabi, Hindi & English)
• Roots of Love (2011, 26 min. Punjabi & English)
• Lot's Wife (2008, 9 min. Turkish)
• Milind Soman Made Me Gay (2007, 26 min. English)
• Some Reasons For Living (2003, 20 min. English)

Articles & Book Chapters

• 2026. Patriarchal Masculinity, Homosocial Intimacy, and Male Failure in Punjabi Cinema. In Routledge Handbook of Punjab Studies (pp. 327-339). Routledge.
• 2025. Gender, caste, and queer interruptions in Punjabi cinema. In Routledge Handbook of South Asian Cinemas (pp. 119-136). Routledge.
• 2024. “India, Masculinity, Identity,” Oxford Bibliographies in Anthropology. Ed Lee Baker. New York: Oxford University Press.
• 2022. "Transnational Hair (and Turban): Sikh Masculinity, Embodied Practices and Politics of Representation in an Era of Global Travel," Ethnography, 23 (2)
• 2021 “Decolonizing Visual Anthropology: Locating Transnational, Diasporic, Queers-of-Color Voices in Ethnographic Cinema,” American Anthropologist, 123 (1) 36-49 [reprint in Scholar & Feminist Online, 17(1)].

• 2020 “Ethnographic Documentary Production,” Oxford Bibliographies in Anthropology.  Ed John Jackson Jr. New York: Oxford University Press.

• 2020 “How to Distribute Your Ethnographic Film,” in Phillip Vannini, ed. The Routledge International Handbook of Ethnographic Film and Video. Routledge.  

• 2020 "Harbhajan Maan: The Transnational Migrant Success Story of Punjabi Cinema," in Michael Lawrence ed., Indian Film Stars. BFI/Palgrave Macmillan.

• 2019 "Degentrifying Documentary and Ethnographic Cinemas: Displacement of Community-Based Storytelling in San Francisco’s Mission District," Pluralities, 1 (1).

• 2017 "Censorship and Ethnographic Film: Confronting Homophobia, State Bureaucracies and Cultural Regulation in India,” Visual Anthropology Review, 33 (1): 62-73.

• 2017 “Placing the Transnational Urban Migrant,” in Alison Bain and Linda Peake eds. Urbanization in a Global Perspective: A Canadian Perspective. Oxford University Press: 245-259 (Co-written w/ Margaret Walton-Roberts).

• 2017 “Multimodality: An Invitation,” American Anthropologist, 119 (1): 142-146 (Co-written w/ Samuel G. Collins and Matthew Durington).

• 2014 “Before Picking Up the Camera: My Process to Ethnographic Film.” Anthropology Now 6 (1): 72-80.

• 2012 “Masculinity, Mobility and Transformation in Punjabi Cinema: From Putt Jattan De [Sons of JatFarmers] to Munde UK De [Boys of UK].” South Asian Popular Culture, 10 (2): 109-122.

• 2010 “How Milind Soman Made Me Gay: Exploring Issues of Belonging and Citizenship Among Gay South Asian Men in Diaspora.” Anthropology Today: Contemporary Trends in Social and Cultural Anthropology, 7: 87-96.

Essays

• 2026 “Surveillance City - Delhi’s Security Aesthetics: Surveillance, Securitization, and Advanced Neoliberalism in India,” Antipode Online, May 13 (co-written with Inderpal Grewal and Pearl Sandhu).
• 2021 “The Uncertain Presents and the Multimodal Future,” American Anthropologist, 123 (1) (co-written with S. Collins and M. Durington).
• 2021 “Rethinking Anthropological Film Exhibition and Distribution Parts 1 & 2,” Cultural Anthropology, Dec 2 (co-authored with Sanderien Varstappen, Christos Varvantakis, Fiona P. McDonald, Alice Apley, Margot Mecca, Caterina Sartori and Frode Storaas).
• 2019 "Multimodality and the Future of Anthropological Research and Scholarship," Arts and International Affairs 3 (3).
• 2017 “Film as Powerful Feminist Medium” in Dána-Ain Davis and Christa Craven, eds. Feminist Ethnography: Thinking Through Methodologies, Challenges, and Possibilities. Rowman & Littlefield: 138-139.
• 2016 “What the Sikh Turban Means to Masculinity in These Transnational Times,” In Plainspeak – Talking About Reproductive and Sexual Health Issues (TARSHI), Sept.
• 2016 “Orlando: Observances,” Feminist Studies 42 (2): 530-531.
• 2015 “इससे पोर्न (कामुक सामग्री) का क्या लेना देना? भारत में नारीवाद, यौनिकता, पोर्नोग्राफी और मर्दानगी [What’s Porn Got to Do With It]: On Feminism, Masculinity and Sexuality in India.” In Plainspeak TARSHI, Nov.
• 2015 “Two Supreme Courts With Two Very Different Ideas of Gay Rights,” The Wire, July 2.
• 2015 “Why India’s Daughter Does a Disservice to Both Men & Women,” The Huffington Post, March 12.
• 2013 “Refusing to be Criminals (Again): Struggle for LGBT Equality Continues in India,” The Huffington Post, December 14.
• 2012 “Unthreatening the Sikh Turban,” Anthropology News (AAA), August.

Fellowships & Grants

2026 Fulbright-Nehru Research Award
2026 CLA Faculity Research Grant (Towson)
2024 Antipode Foundation Film Grant 
2024 TU Faculty Development & Research Fellowship (Towson)
2021 Whiting Foundation Public Engagement Fellowship 
2019 Fulbright-Nehru Research Award
2019 American Institute of Indian Studies Research Fellowship
2019 TU Faculty Development and Research Fellowship (Towson)
2017 MDOCS Storytellers’ Institute Fellowship, Skidmore College, Summer
2015 Woodrow Wilson Career Enhancement Fellowship for Junior Faculty 
2015 Fejos Post-Doctoral Fellowship, The Wenner-Gren Foundation
2015 National Film Commission Grant, Public Service Broadcasting Trust (PSBT) 
2013 National Film Commission Grant, Public Service Broadcasting Trust (PSBT) 
2010 National Film Commission Grant, Public Service Broadcasting Trust (PSBT) 
2006 – 2011 Point Foundation National LGBT Scholarship
2009 JB MRC Junior Research Fellowship, Jamia Millia Islamia University 

Languages

Hindi & Punjabi (native)