Arjun Appadurai FRAI (born 4 February 1949) is an Indian-American anthropologist who has been recognized as a major theorist in globalization studies. He is an elected fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. In his anthropological work, he discusses the importance of the modernity of nation-states and globalization. He is the former professor of anthropology and South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago, Humanities Dean at the University of Chicago, director of the Center on Cities and Globalization at Yale University, provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs at The New School, and professor of education and human development studies at New York University's Steinhardt School. He is currently professor emeritus of the Media, Culture, and Communication Department in the Steinhardt School.

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). He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1997.

Appadurai was born on 4 February 1949 into a Tamil family in present-day Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. He graduated from St. Xavier's High School, Fort, Mumbai, and earned his Intermediate Arts degree from Elphinstone College, Mumbai. He moved to the United States and received his B.A. from Brandeis University in 1970. After this he earned his M.A. (1973) and Ph.D. (1976) from the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. He then spent a brief time at Yale University.

Appadurai taught for many years at the University of Pennsylvania, in the departments of Anthropology and South Asia Studies. In 1984, during his time there, he hosted a conference through the Penn Ethnohistory program. This conference led to the publication of the volume called The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective (1986).

In 2004, after a brief time as administrator at Yale University, Appadurai became Provost of The New School. Appadurai's resignation from the Provost's office was announced 30 January 2006 by New School President Bob Kerrey. He held the John Dewey Distinguished Professorship in the Social Sciences at New School. Appadurai became one of the more outspoken critics of President Kerrey when he attempted to appoint himself provost in 2008.

In 2008 it was announced that Appadurai was appointed Goddard Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at the NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. Appadurai retired as emeritus from the department in 2021.

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

Appadurai is a co-founder of the academic journal Public Culture; 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. He has served as a consultant or advisor to a wide range of public and private organizations, including the Ford, Rockefeller and MacArthur Foundations; UNESCO; the World Bank; and the National Science Foundation.