In 1992, while still at Stanford, Gupta along with fellow Stanford anthropologist James Ferguson wrote the well-known and oft-cited essay, "Beyond 'Culture': Space, Identity, and the Politics of Difference."[3] which argued that the analytic concept of culture had remained largely unproblematized by anthropological discourse, and that anthropologists of the day had failed to recognize and analyze the politics of cultural difference, how such differences were produced, and how such differences were used and abused by the state and by capital. The article argues for the examination of cultural anthropology as an unconscious mechanism of neo-imperialism.[citation needed]
Gupta has done extensive work in rural North India. In his book, Postcolonial Developments: Agriculture in the Making of Modern India, Gupta analyzes whether and how post-colonial theory can be applied to subaltern rural places. He attempts to understand the growth of modern India through its agricultural sector. Most of his work has taken place in the western part of the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Gupta has also tried to understand the ethnography of the state - as lived, understood and discussed in rural India.[citation needed]
He is also a leading figure in the anthropology of the state, and is the co-editor of a book of collected essays called The Anthropology of the State: A Reader.[4]
Gupta was unanimously approved for tenure in 1996 at Stanford, but was then denied tenure by the dean John Shoven. However, in the face of outcry from across the academy as well as mobilization by students, the dean's decision was overturned.[5][6][7]
^Gupta, Akhil; James Ferguson (February 1992). "Beyond "Culture": Space, Identity, and the Politics of Difference". Cultural Anthropology. 7 (1): 6–23. doi:10.1525/can.1992.7.1.02a00020. JSTOR656518.
^Aradhana Sharma; Gupta, Akhil (2007). The anthropology of the state : a reader ([Nachdr.] ed.). Malden: Blackwell. ISBN978-1-4051-1467-7.
