Priya holds a BA in World Religions from McGill University (Canada) and an MPhil and PhD in Area Studies from Leiden University. Her research critically engages with the ways in which people in and from South Asian diasporas innovate and rearticulate their religious and political beliefs across historical moments and social contexts. In order to trouble Hindu nationalist rhetoric, her work has focused on diasporic locations such as Suriname and the Netherlands, where Hindu material culture and religious practice can help us construct alternative narratives and histories of religion and ritual. Her focus has been on the legacies and material culture of Indian indentured labour not only to deepen solidarities and historical understanding across various South Asian diasporas, but to understand these legacies and objects as belonging to multiple, creolized locations such as the Caribbean. Her current research grapples with questions of caste dominance in collection and exhibition practices, in order to think through the potential that political categories like Bahujan (‘the many’, ‘majority’), have to repair and redefine the ways in which South Asia and its diasporas are articulated in museums.
Her curatorial work prioritizes community-based approaches and projects, where the joys and challenges of curation are open to those who may not have previously thought about their reparative and creative potential. She is committed to mentoring young people whose histories and material culture have been marginalized or ignored by museums in the past. She also values work with contemporary artists whose practice can intervene into ‘representational provenances’ (Swamy and Lewis 2021) of objects, collections, and exhibitions at Wereldmuseum.
In the past, she has lectured and held postdoctoral positions. She has been published in Citizenship Studies, International Journal of Hindu Studies, Contemporary South Asia and by Bloomsbury Press.