Malini Sur is an Associate Professor of Anthropology in the School of Social Sciences, where her research and teaching focus on mobility—of people, goods, everyday technologies, and healthcare—shaped by global, political, and climatic forces. An award-winning author, documentary filmmaker and photographer, her work has been supported by the Australian Research Council, the Dutch Research Council, Singapore’s Ministry of Education, Tata Trusts, and Parramatta Council. She was a Chevening Scholar and a receipient of the J.R.D Tata Trust and J.N.Tata Trust awards. 

A/P Sur is the author of Jungle Passports: Fences, Mobility, and Citizenship at the Northeast India–Bangladesh Border (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021), which received the President’s Book Prize from the South Asian Studies Association of Australia, Bernard S. Cohn Prize (hon.mention), and a Choice Outstanding Academic Title. She has co-authored a book on human security in Bangladesh (with Hameeda Hossain and Meghna Guhathakurta) and co-edited five books and journal special issues on transnational migration (with Barak Kalir), the urban form (with Brenda Yeoh & Eli Elinoff), repair and maintenance (with Nausheen Anwar), objects and museums (with Kylie Message Jones) and anthropological methods (with Sophie Chao and Daniel Tranter-Santoso, forthcoming). She has published in Comparative Studies in History and Society, Cultural Anthropology, PoLAR, Modern Asian Studies and the Australian Journal of Anthropology. Her public writing and media  feature in Public Books (New York), New Books Network, Conversations in Anthropology, The Polis Project, and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

She has served in academic leadership roles for five years, including Director of Higher Degree Research and Teaching (2024–2025) and Deputy Director of Engagement and International (2017–2018; 2022–2023) at the Institute for Culture and Society. A/P Sur was the President of the Australian Anthropological Society (2023-2024) and has held fellowships and appointments at the Australian National University, University of Amsterdam, University of Toronto, National University of Singapore and Social Science Research Council (New York). She is an Associate Editor of South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies and serves on the editorial boards of the Australian Journal of Anthropology, Commoning Ethnography, and Humanities Research.

A/P Sur's documentary films, photography, and visual essays bring anthropology to public audiences. Her internationally acclaimed film Life Cycle (2016; 42 min) explores repair economies, air pollution, and urban cycling in India and has been screened across five continents and widely used in university teaching. Her recently completed film Parramatta Redux (2025; 38 min) examines urban renewal along the Parramatta River and the ancestral spirits tied to its flow, bearing witness to tensions between Country and displacement, heritage and modernity, and the pursuit of progress amid growing environmental uncertainty. Her photographic series Life in South Asia’s Borderlands has been exhibited internationally, including in Amsterdam, Berlin, Bonn, Gothenburg, Heidelberg, Kathmandu, and Chiang Mai, and her visual essays have been featured by the Sher-Gil Sundaram Arts Foundation and Somatosphere. She has collaborated with the Powerhouse Museum, De Balie Amsterdam, Seagull Foundation for the Arts and Le Fresnoy.

Students interested in the study of anthropology (major/minor) at Western can reach her at [email protected].