My research interests include: gender and the politics of space, the middle classes, sexuality and the body, feminist politics among young women, reproductive subjectivities, feminist parenting, single women and marriage, friendship, and pedagogic practices. 

My areas of work include cultural studies, gender studies, urban studies, and sexuality studies. 

BOOK:

Why Loiter: Women and Risk on Mumbai’s, Penguin India, 2011. Co-author with Sameera Khan and Shilpa Ranade.

FILM:

Khule Asmaan ke Neeche (Under the Open Sky) on girls and football in Mumbra. Co-Director. Funded by Murthy Nayak Foundation, Produced by SMCS, TISS.

ESSAYS IN ACADEMIC JOURNALS AND BOOKS

Doing Community Media: Collectivising in Online Spaces, in Faiz Ullah, Anjali Monteiro and KP Jayasankar (eds), Unheard Voices, Unseen Worlds: Critical Perspectives on Community Media in India, Sage forthcoming (co-author with Nithila Kanagasabai)
 

Rebuilding Precarious Solidarities:  A Feminist Debate in Internet Time in Intimacy and Injury: In the Wake of #MeToo in India and South Africa Edited by Nicky Falkof, Shilpa Phadke and Srila Roy, Manchester University Press, forthcoming. 

'“You are next”: Unmarried Urban Women in India and the “Marriage Talk', in Christiane Brosius and Jeroen deKloet (eds) Single Women in the City, Heidelberg University Press, forthcoming. 

‘Why Loiter’ in Digital Lives in the Global City: Contesting Infrastructures edited by Deborah Cowen and Emily Pradis, UBC Press, forthcoming. (co-author with Sameera Khan)
 

‘Defending Frivolous Fun: Feminist Acts of Reclaiming Public Space in South Asia’ in South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 43:2, (2020) 281-293. DOI: 10.1080/00856401.2020.1703245 ISSN: 14790270, 00856401
 

‘Isolated Bubbles: Reflections on Performing New Motherhood on Facebook’ in Anjali Monteiro, KP Jayasankar and Amit Rai (eds). Diginaka: Where the Digital Meets the Local in India, Orient Blackswan (2020). 

Dialogue Interlude: #WhyLoiter. (with Radhika Gajjala). In Gajjala, R. Digital Diasporas: Labor, Affect in Gendered Indian Digital Publics. UK: Rowman and Littlefield International, 2019. ISBN: 9781783481156
'Women walk out', Index on Censorship, Volume 46, Issue 4, 2017, pp. 50–53.

How to do Feminist Mothering in Urban India? Some Reflections on the Politics of Beauty and Body Shapes’ in Aesthetic Labour: Rethinking Beauty Politics in Neoliberalism, ed by Rosalind Gill, Christina Scharff, and Ana Sofia Elias, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017, p.247-261.

§  ‘The Unruly Margins: Reflections on Violence in Public in Mumbai’, in Kalpana Kannabiran (ed), Violence Studies, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2016,  p239-251.

'Risking Feminism: Voices from the Classroom', Economic and Political Weekly, Vol L, No. 17, 2015, 63-70. 

'Invisible women', Index on Censorship, Vol. 42, No.3, p.40-45. (co-authored with Shilpa Ranade and Sameera Khan)

'Feminist Mothering: Some Notes on Sexuality and Risk from Urban India', South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies,Vol. 36. Issue 1, 2013, pp.92-106.

'Unfriendly Bodies, Hostile Cities: Reflections on Loitering and Gendered Public Space', Economic and Political Weekly, Vol - XLVIII, No. 39, 2013. 50-59.

'TRAVERSING THE CITY: Some gendered questions of access in Mumbai' in Transforming Asian Cities: Intellectual impasse, Asianizing space, and emerging translocalities, Edited by Nihal Perera and Wing-Shing Tang, Routledge, 2013.

‘But I Can’t Carry a Condom! Young Women, Risk and Sexuality in the Time of Globalisation’, in Sanjay Srivastava (ed.), The Sexualities Reader. Oxford India Studies on Contemporary Society (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2012).

‘The Gendered Usage of Public Space’ in The Fear that Stalks: Gender Based Violence in Public Spaces, edited by Lora Prabhu and Sara Pilot, New Delhi: Zubaan, 2012.

“and when she roared” in Westerly, Vol 56, No. 2, November 2011, 43-47.

‘If Women Could Risk Pleasure: Reinterpreting Violence in Public Space’ in Bishakha Datta (ed) Nine Degrees of Justice: New perspectives on violence against women in India, New Delhi: Zubaan, 2010.

‘Why Loiter? Radical Possibilities for Gendered Dissent’ in Melissa Butcher and Selvaraj Velayutham (eds), Dissent and Cultural Resistance in Asia's Cities, London: Routledge, 2009 (with Shilpa Ranade and Sameera Khan).

‘Dangerous Liaisons: Women and Men; Risk and Reputation in Mumbai’, in Economic & Political Weekly, Vol.42 No.17, 28 April 2007.

‘Re-mapping the Public: Gendered Spaces in Mumbai’, in Madhavi Desai (ed.), Gender and the Built Environment, N. Delhi: Zubaan, 2007.

‘You can be Lonely in a Crowd: the Production of Safety in Mumbai’, in Urban Studies ed. By Sujata Patel & Kushal Deb, OUP, 2006. (anthologised from journal essay).

‘Some Notes Towards Understanding the Construction of Middle Class Urban Women’s Sexuality in India’, in Radhika Chandiramani and Geeta Misra (eds.), Gender, Sexuality & Rights: Exploring Theory & Practice, N Delhi: Sage, 2005

‘You can be Lonely in a Crowd: The Production of Safety in Mumbai’, in Indian Journal of Gender Studies, N Delhi: Sage, February 2005.

Monograph: Middle-Class Sexuality: Construction of Women's Sexual Desire in the 1990s and early 21st Century Mumbai, Trivandrum: Achutha Menon Centre for Health Science Studies, 2005.

‘Thirty Years On: Women’s Studies Reflects on the Women’s Movement’, in Economic & Political Weekly, October 23, 2003.

‘Pro Choice or Population Control: A Study of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, Government of India 1971’, essay published in Re/Productions, on-line journal of the Global Reproductive Health Forum, the Harvard School of Public Health, 1997.

ESSAYS IN OTHER BOOKS, COLLECTIONS, JOURNALS AND MAGAZINES

Moon of One's Own in Lapham's Quarterly, American Agora Foundation, Vol. 12, No. 1 Winter 2019, p56-59. (co-authored)

'A Shifting Core', ART India: The Art News Magazine of India, 2019 

‘Loitering Online: Conditions of Possibility’, InPlainspeak, 15 April 2019.

'Risking Politics, Practising Art: The Precarity of Feminism', in ART India: The Art News Magazine of India, January 2016, Volume XX, Issue I

‘Written into the City/ Writing the City’, in Mumbai Reader ’13, Mumbai: UDRI, 2013, p.362-367. 

Parent Trap’ in India Today, NOVEMBER 24, 2011

‘The Unbelongers’ (with Shilpa Ranade and Sameera Khan) (extract from Why loiter), in Mumbai Reader ’10, Mumbai: UDRI, 2011, p.308-313. 

'Entry Restricted: Open Public Spaces in Mumbai', in Mumbai Reader 09, Mumbai: UDRI, 2011. (reprinted) (co-authored with Shilpa Ranade and Sameera Khan).

‘Who’s Having Fun’ in First Proof: The Penguin Book of New Writing from India 5, New Delhi: Penguin, 2009, p.42-49 (with Shilpa Ranade and Sameera Khan).

‘Insider-Outsider: The Vexed Questions of Access to Public Space’, in Mumbai Reader ’08, Mumbai: UDRI, 2009, p.276-281.

‘These Mumbai Streets…’ in Mumbai Reader 08, Mumbai: UDRI, 2009, p.282-287. (reprinted).

‘Objects of Desire’ in India Today, December 7, 2009, pp.58-65.

'Entry Restricted: Open Public Spaces in Mumbai', Indian Architect and Builder, 22(5), 90–93, January 2009 (with Shilpa Ranade and Sameera Khan).

The Perils of Pleasure’ in Art India Vol X, Issue III, 2007, p.55.

‘These Mumbai Streets…’, Indian Architect and Builder, Vol.20, No.12, August 2007, p.116-118.

‘Ritual Pollution: Public Toilets and Questions of Citizenship’ in Mumbai Reader ’07, Mumbai: UDRI, p.296-301.

‘Cows on the Street, People in their Cars’, section of ‘Who Let the Cows Out’, Indian Architect and Builder, Vol.20, No.10, June 2007, p.86.

With Sameera Khan and Shilpa Ranade, ‘Mumbai, Streeya ani Sarvajanikta: Duyyam Nagriktvachi Dainandin Anubhuti’, Samaj Prabodhan Patrika, April-June Vol.45 No.178, April-June 2007. (Marathi)

With Sameera Khan and Shilpa Ranade, ‘Re-visioning Mumbai: A Gendered View’ in Mumbai Reader, UDRI for the 10th International Architecture Exhibition, Venice Biennale, 2006, p. 246-249.

‘Barcode’, in Mumbai Reader, UDRI for the 10th International Architecture Exhibition, Venice Biennale, 2006, p. 242-243. (reprinted)

‘Transcending the City’, in Mumbai Reader, UDRI for the 10th International Architecture Exhibition, Venice Biennale, 2006, p. 244-245. (reprinted)

With Sameera Khan. ‘The 21st Century Politics of College Clothing (And Other Things), Agenda, Info-Change India, February 2006.

‘Sexuality & Space: Thinking Through Some Issues’, In Plainspeak, Journal of The South & South East Asia Resource Centre on Sexuality, January 2006.

‘The Ban on Dance Bars in Mumbai, India’, Spread Magazine, New York.

‘Transcending the City’, Architecture Time Space & People, January 2006.

‘Glass Barriers’, Architecture Time Space & People, December, 2005.

‘Traversing the City’, Architecture Time Space & People, November, 2005, pp45-47

‘Ritual; Pollution’, Architecture Time Space & People, August, 2005, pp 40-41.

‘Can We Reclaim the Night: The Politics of Nocturnal Public Space’, Humanscape, July 2005.

‘Decoding Spaces’, Architecture Time Space & People, June, 2005, pp 52-53.

‘Taking on the Challenge’, Freedom First, April-June 2005, p.31.

With Shilpa Ranade and Sameera Khan, ‘Teaching Gender, Framing Architecture – 2’ Architecture Space Time & People, April 2005, p. 20-22.

‘(En)Lighten the Night’, Architecture Space Time & People, March 2005, p. 10-12.

With Shilpa Ranade and Sameera Khan, ‘Teaching Gender, Framing Architecture – 2’ Architecture Space Time & People, March 2005, p. 20-22.

‘Whither archives: The Politics of Inclusion & Interpretation’, Humanscape, special issue on Archives, February, 2004.

‘Gender in the Classroom’, Humanscape, special issue on Pedagogy, August, 2003.

‘Feminism & the Stories of Our Foremothers’ Humanscape, special issue on Heritage, August 2002.

‘‘Looking over our Shoulders: Women, Fear & Violence in Public Space’, Humanscape special issue on ‘Women and Violence, April 2002.

NEWSPAPER ARTICLES:

'Mere populism? Kejriwal plan to make transport free for Delhi women could actually transform city', Scroll.in, 07 July 2019.

 '‘A service, not an enterprise’: Privatising Mumbai’s BEST buses means unraveling a system that works', Scroll.in, August 21, 2018

• 'What Kirron Kher could learn from women who actually use public transport', Scroll, 02 December 2017.

• , 'What We Can Learn From the Young Woman Who Has Rocked the Madhya Pradesh Police', Wire, 10 November 2017.

#MeToo: There is power in speaking and being heard, and every enraged voice counts', Scroll.in, Oct 18, 2017.

Why is the government threatened by women’s studies centres in universities? Indian Express, June 15, 2017.

‘Freedom without binaries, without borders’, Live Mint, 04 February 2017.

‘Women too have the Right to Fun’, Mint, January 19, 2017.

‘Taking it to the Streets’, Indian Express, January 08, 2017.

‘The condom-counting MLA has earned a laugh, but his antics betray a deeply entrenched sexism’, Scroll.in, 26 February 2016.

 'How the Deonar garbage-dump fire exposed the self-centredness of Mumbai’s elite', Scroll.in, Feb 05, 2016. (co-authored with Faiz Ullah).

'Are Indian college dorms turning into women’s prisons?? Faced with strict curfews, women say they feel like inmates, not students', Al Jazeera, December 22, 2015.

'Kiss and tell: Why we started a campaign calling for Park Mein PDA', Scroll.in, Sep 27, 2015.

'To halt moral policing, we must support our grown-up kids' right to share rooms with their partners', Scroll.in, 08 August 2015.

Please spare us the safety lectures. Women should claim the Right to Risk in the city,  Scroll.in, 13 December 2014.

Love jihad: restricting women, DNA,Sep 11, 2014.

Sex education for India’s feminist mothers, Al Jazeera America, Aug 25, 2014.

Better toilets won’t solve India’s rape problem: Women need to feel safe in public, not hide in private, Al Jazeera America,  Jun 17, 2014.

Defending Fr Frazer's right to criticise, DNA, 25 April 2014.

No crime deserves death, DNA, Apr 15, 2014.

Workplace relationships: Reclaiming the consent conversation with all its attendant ambiguities, DNA, Mar 5, 2014.

Perceptions about violence against women are not the same since December 16 last year, DNA, Dec 16, 2013.

A judgement that's inexplicable on several counts, DNA, Dec 12, 2013.

The fun of taking risks in a milieu where it is recognised, celebrated, DNA, Nov 2, 2013

Mumbai 2020: A little fantasy about this mumbai — my very own Numbai, DNA, Aug 27, 2013

‘Lets teach our children about consent and free will and not just about danger’, in Hindustan Times, January 28, 2013.

‘Thinking about cities and violence’, in Mid-Day, December 21, 2012, Mumbai

‘The Campaign against Fun’ in The Indian Express, July 04, 2012.

‘Of Feminism and Sex-Selection’, in Hindustan Times, April 29, 2012.

‘Guest Column - Claiming fun, not just safety’, in the city, Hindustan Times, Dec 18 2011,Page 15.

‘Women want bright lights, safe parks and female cops’ in the Sunday Times of India, 30 January 2005. With Sameera Khan and Shilpa Ranade,

‘Walking on the Streets isn’t streetwalking’, Hindustan Times, Mumbai, August 2, 2005. With Sameera Khan and Shilpa Phadke,

BOOK REVIEWS:

Review of ‘The Camera Chronicles of Homai Vyrawalla’ edited by Sabeena Gadihoke, in Art India, Volume XI, Issue III, Jul-Sept 2006.

Review of ‘Feminist Foundations: ‘Towards Transforming Sociology’ ed by Myers et al and ‘Knowing Feminisms’ ed. by Liz Stanley, in Journal of Gender Studies, 9:1 (2002).

Review of ‘Contentious Traditions: The Debate on Sati in Colonial India’, by Lata Mani, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999, Economic and Political Weekly, December 2, 2000.

Review of ‘From Independence towards Freedom: Indian women since 1947’ edited by Aparna Basu and Bharati Ray published in the Economic and Political Weekly, January 15, 2000.

Review of ‘A Question of Silence: The Sexual Economies of Modern India’ edited by Mary John and Janaki Nair, published in the Economic and Political Weekly, September 11, 1999, Vol. XXXIV, No. 37.

ART REVIEWS

'BETWEEN STATIONS', Review of Chirodeep Chaudhuri's 'The Commuters' in Art India, Volume XVII, Issue I, Quarter I, 2012.

Review of ‘Glass House’ show of art works by Hema Upadhyay, Art India, Vol X, Issue II, 2007.

Review of ‘Bear the Truth, Bare the Truth’ show of art works by Naiza Khan, Art India, Volume IX, Issue II, Apr.–Jun. 2006

Review of ‘The Catalogue’ show by Vidya Kamat, Art India, October 2003.

Review of ‘Sweet-Sweat Memories’ show of art works by Hema Upadhyay, Art India, January 2002.

EDITED BOOK:

In process: Intimacy and Injury: In the wake of #Metoo in India and South Africa. Edited by Nicky Falkof, Shilpa Phadke and Srila Roy. Publishers: Manchester University Press.

OTHER EDITED WORK

Guest-edited issue of Humanscape on the theme ‘Learning Beyond Teaching: Experiments with Pedagogy’, August 2003.

Co-editor, Lakshmi Lingam and Shilpa Phadke (eds.) Globalisation, Women’s Identity And Violence, Indian Association For Women’s Studies, 2002

Editor of Journal of the Dept. of Sociology, St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai, 1991-92.

CATALOGUE ESSAYS

Catalogue essay for paintings and video installations by artist Shakuntala Kulkarni at the Chemould Art Gallery, October 2007.

Catalogue essay for exhibition on ‘City Limits: Engendering the Body in Public Space’, Kitab Mahal, March 2005.

Catalogue essay for video installation by artist Shakuntala Kulkarni at the Chemould Art Gallery, March 2004.

Catalogue essay for exhibition of artworks by artist Hema Upadhyay at the Chemould Art Gallery, February 2004.

REPORT:

Women in Public: Safety in Mumbai. Unpublished Report submitted to the Indo Dutch Programme on Alternatives in Development (IDPAD), 2006, (With Sameera Khan and Shilpa Ranade).

AUDIO AND VISUAL MEDIA WORK

Curated a photo-exhibition, City Limits: Engendering the Body in Public Space with Bishakha Datta, Point of View as part of the Gender & Space Project endeavours.

Produced an audio-documentary, And then they Came for My Jeans, on dress codes in colleges as part of the Gender & Space Project endeavours.

Conceived and produced a documentary film Freedom Before 11, on women’s hostels in the city part of the Gender & Space Project endeavours.

NEW MEDIA WORK

Installation ‘Gendered Strategies for Loitering’ at the International Symposium on Electronic Art, developed as part of a new media residency at the National University of Singapore, July-August 2008, with Shilpa Ranade and Sameera Khan.

Installation ‘Gendered Strategies for Loitering’ at the University of Hyderabad and the Goethe-Zentrum Hyderabad in March 2009 with Shilpa Ranade and Sameera Khan.

Installation ‘ Gendered Strategies for Loitering’ (along with Shilpa Ranade and Sameera Khan) selected for the exhibition: ‘What Makes India Urban?’ at Aedes Gallery, Berlin in Oct. 2009.

Research Projects (past and present):

• Gender and public space (with Sameera Khan and Shilpa Ranade)
• Feminist Mothering.
• Feminism and Young Women
• Unfriendly Bodies? Talking on Young Men on Streets funded by the TISS Research Council.
• Reproductive Subjectivities
• Single Women and the Marriage Talk
• Friendship and its Possibilities (with Nithila Kanagasabai) 

Cultural Studies: An Introduction I, Basic Course, Semester I, 2 credits. 

Cultural Studies: An Introduction II, Basic Course, Semester II, 2 credits. 

Gender, Media and Culture, Optional Course, Semester III, 2 credits. (cross taught to Women's Studies and Media and Cultural Studies)

Gender, Space and Culture, Optional Course, Semester IV, 2 credits. (CBCS Course)