Arjun Appadurai FRAI (born 4 February 1949) is an Indian-American anthropologist who has been recognized as a major theorist in globalization studies.

[5][6] Some of his notable works include Worship and Conflict under Colonial Rule (1981), Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy (1990), of which an expanded version is found in Modernity at Large (1996), and Fear of Small Numbers (2006).

Appadurai taught for many years at the University of Pennsylvania, in the departments of Anthropology and South Asia Studies.

This conference led to the publication of the volume called The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective (1986).

Appadurai's resignation from the Provost's office was announced 30 January 2006 by New School President Bob Kerrey.

In 2021, Appadurai was appointed Max Weber Global Professor at the Bard Graduate Center, though he is based in Berlin and teaches remotely.

[12] Appadurai is a co-founder of the academic journal Public Culture;[13] founder of the non-profit Partners for Urban Knowledge, Action and Research (PUKAR) in Mumbai; co-founder and co-director of Interdisciplinary Network on Globalization (ING); and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

[citation needed] Some of his most important works include Worship and Conflict under Colonial Rule (1981), Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy (1990), of which an expanded version is found in Modernity at Large (1996), and Fear of Small Numbers (2006).

Arjun Appadurai is member of the Advisory Board of the Forum d'Avignon, international meetings of culture, the economy and the media.

However, Appadurai's ethnography of urban social movements in the city of Mumbai has proved to be contentious with several scholars like the Canadian anthropologist, Judith Whitehead arguing that SPARC (an organization which Appadurai espouses as an instance of progressive social activism in housing) being complicit in the World Bank's agenda for re-developing Mumbai.