Matthew Raj Webb is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Anthropology at New York University (Program in Culture & Media) and incoming postdoctoral fellow in the History of Art and Visual Culture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His research explores how fashion design operates as a field where material practices, cultural values, and political visions circulate across global and local contexts to shape emergent forms of creative expertise and social critique. He is the author of “Compositing the Body: Ethical Expertise Among Professional Photographic Retouchers“ (2025), “Henna’s New Medium: Translating Color and Culture from Skin to Cloth” (2025, with N. J Shah), and “Artisans, Creativity, and Ethics: ‘Skill Regimes’ in a Mumbai Fashion Export House” (2023).
