Our Collective
We are currently 430 members strong. The Collective includes postgraduate students, PhD scholars, Early Career and senior Academics, Independent Researchers, Youth Activists, and Practitioners.
Check out our member profiles for this month!
Current Interns
Khushi Ahuja
Intern
I am a third-year undergraduate student of Sociology (H) at Dr. B. R. Ambedkar University Delhi. The field of social sciences fascinates me, as it allows me to delve into the intricate complexities of human behaviour, the ever-evolving dynamics of society, and the subtle nuances of diverse cultures. In addition, I find immense joy in indulging in various artistic outlets: poetry, photography, and music.
Arishtika Jain
Intern
I am a third year undergraduate student at Dr. B. R. Ambedkar University Delhi. l am exploring the disciplines of Psychology, Sociology and English. Alongside these disciplines, I am a huge art, sports specifically tennis, culinary art and culture enthusiast. I love talking to different people and learn from them.
Alisha Chandranath
Intern
I am a final year History undergrad with a minor in International Relations at Shiv Nadar University. My research interests are childhood experiences, youth culture, caste and gender. I am interested in filmmaking, poetry and music. In the near future, I wish to explore these cumulative interests in a doctoral thesis.
Nikhita Jindal
Senior Research Fellow (UGC) and a PhD Scholar at the Department of Sociology and Social Work, CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bengaluru
My doctoral research focuses on the ways in which children with intellectual disabilities experience inclusive schools. Through the research, I am focusing on bringing out the 'voices' of these children.
Shadma Ahmed
MPhil Research Scholar, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai
Through her research, Shadma intends to capture the lived experiences and realities of children working in mica mines with a focus on their childhood and work, and how they negotiate with their lived realities. Previously, she has worked with the training and research division at Kailash Satyarthi Children's Foundation and demonstrates expertise in capacity building, knowledge management, policy analysis, research and advocacy."
Utsa Mukherjee
Lecturer (Assistant Professor), Department of Education, Brunel University London
I am currently an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Postdoctoral Fellow within the department of Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology at the University of Southampton. I am the Book Reviews Co-Editor for the journal Children & Society and my research explores children’s leisure geographies, adult-child relations, parenting ideologies, and social inequalities.
Ankit Keshri
PhD in Social Work, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai
I am a senior research fellow and PhD scholar in the school of social work, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. My doctoral research project is on Family-Based Alternative Care for Vulnerable Children where I am trying to document different fostering practices existing in the Indian context. During my MPhil, I conducted a qualitative study to understand the meaning of social reintegration among out of care institutionalized orphan youth. Before that, I have also worked as a Sr. co-worker in SOS children’s villages, India where I was responsible for ensuring the overall wellbeing of adolescent children. My current research interest includes issues of child rights and child protection with a focus on the rehabilitation of at-risk children/youth through family-based alternative care.
Madhuwanti Mitro
M.A. Development Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences
After completing my M.A. in Development Studies from TISS, I worked with both academicians and grassroots level officials across different states. I assisted them in studies & interventions around weaving clusters, community-based forest management, early childhood care & education, social sector expenditure and nutrition. Additionally, I have worked with self-help groups, Panchayat level institutions, local communities and government officials. My current research interest lies in the intersections between migration and early childhood care & education
Chandni Basu
Associate Researcher, University of Freiburg, Germany
I’m a Visiting Faculty at the Institute of Development Studies Kolkata, India and I’m affiliated as an Associated Researcher with the Institute Sociology, University of Freiburg, Germany. I’ve been a Research Associate at the Department of Sociology, University of Frankfurt, Germany. I’ve variously guest lectured at the Ambedkar University, Delhi, Calcutta University, Jadavpur University, West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, India; University of Strassbourg, France; Leiden Law School, University of Leiden, Netherlands; University of Applied Sciences, Potsdam, Germany; Käte Hamburger Centre, 'Law as Culture', University of Bonn, Germany. I participated in a mobility exchange programme at the Institute of Education, University of Zürich, Switzerland. I’m an empanelled consultant with Save the Children, Kolkata. I’ve worked on a children’s project at an asylum seekers camp in Germany. My research interest includes children and childhood, law, marginality, gender and sexuality, knowledge circulation and the postcolonial.
Anshu Jain
Doctoral Student in Department of Educational Policy Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Anshu is a doctoral student in the department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. They are interested in understanding how formal schooling intervenes, upholds, reproduces, and contests the hierarchies of labour and dignity in south-Asia — both of which are intimately tied to each other. Prior to graduate school, they spent around five years within the non-profit education and development sector spaces, non-profit LBT collectives, and non-funded queer activism spaces in India. They have a master’s degree in Economics from Delhi School of Economics, India.
Atacan Atakan
PhD Candidate, University of Arizona
Atacan Atakan is researching the Ottoman Empire, based in the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies at the University of Arizona. As a PhD candidate his dissertation in progress focuses on reconceptualization and reconfiguration of children’s sexuality in the late Ottoman Empire, that is, from the mid-nineteenth century to the end of World War One. Besides his dissertation topic, his research interests are social, cultural, and intellectual history of the late Ottoman Empire, Ottoman feminist movement, theories of sexuality and gender, and nation and nationalism.
Mohit Dudeja
M.A. Education, Azim Premji University
I am a student of M.A. Education at Azim Premji University, Bangalore. Previously I did a B.Tech in Computer Science Engineering, Bachelor of Social Work and an MBA in HR. I have about 4 years of work experience in the social and corporate sector. I started my NGO called Mendlife Foundation in October 2017, through which we provide quality education and sustainable livelihood opportunities to underprivileged section of the society. I am also a researcher and the area of my research is 'Education and Gender & Sexual minorities'. The latest research project that I worked on is 'Schooling experiences of queer students in India'.
Emilie Ponceaud
PhD, University of Bordeaux
My thesis focuses on the diffusion of pre-schooling in South India (Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry). It presents the beginnings of public and free pre-schooling in India from 1975 to the current stakes where private interests are mixed while the State negotiates the redeployment of its functions. I was PhD candidate from the University of Bordeaux (France), affiliated to PASSAGES laboratory of Social Sciences and to the Center for South Asian Studies (Paris). My current research focuses more broadly on how Indian families view parenting and early childhood in the light of change.
Kajal Kumar Dutta
Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, West Bengal, India
Post-graduation in Statistical Quality Control and Operation Research from Indian Statistical Institute. Having 37 years of professional experience in the Power Sector. Retired from Larsen & Toubro Limited, an Indian multinational company in the year 2019. Presently working as a freelance consultant in the field of Power Sector, Project Management, and Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO). Associate Professor of GSFC University, Vadodara, Gujarat, India. A research scholar from Navrachana University, Vadodara, Gujarat, India. My research topic is related to the Education of underprivileged children as organized by NGOs.
Ajin Thomas
Research/Teaching Assistant at the Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad
Ajin works as a Research and Teaching Assistant at the Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad. He has worked as a school teacher in rural Maharashtra, and has translated children’s books. He is interested in education and Muslim identity in South Asia.
Deepthi Maria
M.A. Education, Tata Institute of Social Studies
I'm pursuing my M.A in Education from Tata Institute of Social Sciences. I did my bachelor's in English Literature, post which I joined a Fellowship Programme where I had a brief stint as a teacher for two years and taught underprivileged children. My research interest includes Exploring Informal and non-formal Schooling system, Socio-Emotional Learning and Education in Conflict zones.
Ritwika Roy
PhD Research Fellow at the Department of English, Jadavpur University, Kolkata
My doctoral research project is on Mental Health in Contemporary Indian Children's Fiction where I am exploring representations and treatment of psychopathologies in fiction aimed at the middle grade reader. My research so far has focussed on silence theory and race representation in American children’s fiction; and issues of hybridity and constructions of middle childhood in Indian and diasporic children’s fiction.
Ankhi Thakurta
PhD Student, University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education
(Reading/Writing/Literacy) in the Literacy, Culture, and International Education Division
Ankhi is a third year doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania GSE, and former middle school English Language Arts teacher. Her research draws on critical sociocultural literacy studies and theories of transnational girlhoods, and explores the civic literacies and identity formation processes of (im)migrant girls around the world. At Penn, she currently manages a research-practice partnership that explores issues of educational equity and access alongside youth and families from historically marginalized communities in the city of Philadelphia. Committed to developing equitable educational opportunities for youth with histories of migration, Ankhi is especially passionate to support the development of socially just civics education.
Rabani Garg
Ph.D Scholar, Literacy, Culture, and International Education, University of Pennsylvania
My research interests include feminist pedagogy, young adult media, literature, and culture, and youth literacy practices. My current work in India focuses on motivations guiding youth authoring and sharing on social media platforms, and digitally mediated sites itself as a tool of surveillance. I have worked in the field of children’s literature, curriculum design and informal education.
Ethiraj Gabriel Dattatreyan
Senior Lecturer, Department of Anthropology, Goldsmiths, University of London
Gabriel's audio-visual and written ethnography engages with the ways in which digital media consumption, production, and circulation shape understandings of migration, gender, race, and urban space. His forthcoming monograph, The Globally Familiar: Digital hip hop, masculinity and urban space in Delhi (Duke University Press), narrates the stories of Delhi’s young working class and migrant men as they productively re-fashion themselves and their city through their online and offline aesthetic practices. Dattatreyan has also published articles exploring digital media worlds in relation to, amongst other themes and concepts, waiting, memory, masculinity, postcolonial solidarity, and global racial formations.
Johannes Drerup
Professor,Philosophy of Education, TU Dortmund
I am also a guest professor at the Free University of Amsterdam. My research interests include philosophy of education and childhood, moral and political philosophy and applied ethics. I am also a co-founder of the open access journal On Education and co-edited a handbook on the philosophy of childhood (together with Gottfried Schweiger; 2019, J.B. Metzler). Other recent publications include: Education, Epistemic Virtues, and the Power of Toleration. In: Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy (CRISPP), 2019
Elizabeth Dillenburg
Assistant Professor, History
Ohio State University at Newark
I teach courses on the history of childhood, colonialism, and gender. My research focuses on the history of girlhood, and my current project examines girls’ culture, labor, and mobility in the British Empire during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Suchismita
Chattopadhyay
PhD scholar, Department of Anthropology and Sociology, Graduate Institute of International and Development studies, Geneva.
My Phd is on the grooming industry in Delhi and the aspirational youth culture accompanying the phenomena of personality development and image management. I am interested in ideas of self-fashioning, labour and gender.
Shreya Urvashi
Doctoral fellow at the Centre for Studies in Sociology of Education, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai
My PhD work aims to understand the role and purpose of public universities through an exploration of student experiences. Besides my thesis, my research interests include sociology of education, youth identity and politics, and critical theory.
Yael Warshel
Assistant Professor, Telecommunications and Media Industries & Founding Director of the Children, Media and Conflict Zones Lab at Pennsylvania State University (USA)
Yael Warshel (PhD in communication, University of California, San Diego; MA, University of Pennsylvania; BA, University of California, Berkeley) works at the intersection between media, young people, and international conflict analyses, practice and policy, specializing in the concept of “peace communication” she pioneered. She is author of Experiencing the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Children, Peace Communication and Socialization (Cambridge University Press), and writing the book, When Conflict Is Real: Reimagining the Study of Children, Youth and Media in International and Global Conflict Zones. Her current field research focuses on North and West African children and youth.
Raahi Adhya
Doctoral Scholar, SOAS
Raahi is a doctoral scholar at the Centre for Cultural, Literary and Postcolonial Studies at SOAS, University of London. Her research interests include concepts of childhood, print histories, folktales, gender and culture. Through her PhD thesis she explores the crystallisation of a literary genre (roopkotha) as both children’s literature and anti-colonial literature in Bengal during the turn of the 20th century, putting it in the context of histories of print and orality and debates about gender, sexuality and childhood at the time.
Nipunika Sachdeva
MA Education,
Ambedkar University, Delhi
I am a final year Masters student interested in a wide variety of things from political theory to artificial intelligence to art education and intersectional feminism. I like to combine my academic interests with my love for creative writing, spoken word poetry and podcasting.
Nisha Thapliyal
Senior Lecturer, University of Newcastle, Australia
I am a Senior Lecturer in Comparative Education at the University of Newcastle, Australia. I completed my doctoral research on the educational philosophy and practices of the Landless Workers Movement (Movimento Sem Terra), Brazil. My research and teaching continue to center around issues of equity and social justice in public education and the politics of childhood, education, and development more broadly. Critical, Women of Colour feminist and decolonial scholarship have provided constant companionship in my journey as an academic. I have lived and worked in Brazil, India, South Africa and the USA. For more information, see also https://www.newcastle.edu.au/profile/nisha-thapliyal.
Renu Singh
Doctoral Candidate, Ambedkar University Delhi
Currently, a doctoral candidate of Women's and Gender studies program jointly offered by Ambedkar University Delhi (AUD) and Centre for Women's Development Studies (CWDS). In her doctoral research she is working on higher education, young women’s aspiration and their interpersonal ties in the backdrop of liberalization. She is a Fulbright doctoral fellow at Gallatin School of Individualized Study, New York University (NYU) and during her grant period she plans to contribute in the on-going discourse on the crisis of higher education and its impact on the lives and futures of young women in India.
Roberta Ruggiero
Senior Research Associate, Centre for
Children’s Rights Studies (CCRS) - University of Geneva
Dr. Roberta Ruggiero, PhD is a Senior Research Associate at the University of Geneva’s Centre for Children’s Rights Studies (CCRS). She is also the Academic Coordinator of the Children’s Rights European Academic Network (CREAN). Most recently Dr. Ruggiero was a member of the indicators development team of the GlobalChild Project (GlobalChild) and contributed to the creation of a comprehensive child rights monitoring platform to facilitate and support the ability of State Parties to comply with their obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Her publications and research interests include independent human rights institutions for children, indicators and children’s rights implementation, children’s rights approaches to evidence-based policy, comparative childhood governmental policies, multilevel governance and children’s rights implementation, and the status of third parties in the CRC.
Shivani Nag
Assistant Professor, Ambedkar University Delhi
Shivani Nag is an Assistant Professor in the School of Education Studies at Ambedkar University Delhi, India. She is an education and language rights activist. Drawing on theories from cultural psychology and critical and feminist pedagogies, her research focuses on inclusion, experience and participation of children, adolescents and young adults from marginalized and disadvantaged contexts in school and higher education. She has been involved in documentation of Multilingual Education models, practices and resources in India. She has been one of the lead experts for the UNHRC's 12th Forum on Minority Issues on the theme- Education, Language and Human Rights of Minorities.
Seran Demiral
PhD in Sociology at Mimar Sinan University
I studied the subjectivity of children through their interaction with digital technologies. I am interested in changing childhood experiences within online environments, and I teach digital childhoods, children's literature, creative writing and sociology at various universities as a part-time lecturer. I also write novels for adolescents and conduct philosophy for children (P4C) workshops. In addition to the books for children and young adults, I have science-fiction and fantasy novels and stories, and a non-fiction book about Ursula K. Le Guin’s literary works published in Turkish. I am continuing to work on new writings.
Rebecca Swartz
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, International Studies Group, University of the Free State
I am a historian of childhood and education in British imperial contexts. My first monograph, Education and Empire: Children, Race and Humanitarianism in the British Settler Colonies, 1833-1880 (Palgrave, 2019), examined the provision of education to Indigenous children in different parts of the British Empire. I am currently working on histories of children, migration and labour in the context of slave emancipation in the Cape colony.
Diksha Poddar
Research Scholar at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University
Diksha Poddar is currently a Research Scholar at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, where she is studying the processes of narrativization around youth and peacebuilding in conflict areas. She is currently associated with WISCOMP (Women in Security, Conflict Management and Peace), New Delhi as a Consultant. Her interest lies at the intersection of youth, creative arts, peacebuilding, and feminist methodologies. An MPhil in South Asian Studies, Diksha has completed her Masters in Development Studies from Ambedkar University, Delhi and graduation in Political Science and Economics from Lady Shri Ram College for Women, University of Delhi. She also holds a post-graduate Diploma in Conflict Transformation and Peace Building from the University of Delhi.
Gurpreet Kaur
M.A. Society and Culture, IIT Gandhinagar
Gurpreet is currently enrolled in the M.A. Society and Culture program at IIT Gandhinagar. She holds an undergraduate degree in English Literature from the University of Delhi. Her research interests include Modernist Literature, Postcolonial Literature/Studies and Continental Philosophy. She is interested in exploring the intersections between Literature and Philosophy.
Deepty Victor
M.A. in English, Education, and Fine Arts Painting
Deepty Victor was born and brought up in Patna, Bihar. She completed her graduate studies from Patna Women’s College and is an M.A in English (IGNOU), Education (Ambedkar University Delhi) and Fine Arts Painting (Pracheen Kala Kendra). Her interest is in education, research, illustration, storytelling and creative writing. She is a British Council ELTReP awardee 2014. She has a teaching experience as a primary school teacher and as a Lecturer in English followed by several works done with Delhi based NGOS. She is part Delhi based author’s group initiated by Ambedkar University Delhi’s students’ #First Readers Group. She founded 'Colourful Story Mind', complete with a youtube channel and even live facebook performances as a storyteller for children. She's published a story book for children titled, 'Enter the World of tales of magic and mystery'.
Ayushi Rawat
Department of Sociology, University of Delhi
About to get my PhD in Sociology, my doctoral work is an ethnography looking at children's everyday experiences in Kashmir's conflict. I am also a trained Social Worker from TISS, Mumbai specializing in working with children and families. As a student coordinator for the Social Outreach and Enabling Centre of Fergusson College, Pune, I have worked closely in developing age appropriate and culturally sensitive teaching aids for activity-based learning for children of migrant construction workers and sex workers' children in Pune. This experience motivated me towards learning and developing child-friendly, creative ethnographic research tools that I used in my subsequent research. My interests include childhood, children's geographies, methods of research with children, ethnography, gender, conflict and resistance, education, interdisciplinary approaches.
Alice Sophie Sarcinelli
F.R.S.-FNRS Research Fellow at Laboratoire
d’Anthropologie Sociale (Irss/FaSS, University of Liège, Belgium)
Alice is specialised in the fields of anthropology of childhood and anthropology of kinship. She is currently conducting research on same-sex families in Italy and Belgium and is as part of the research programme “At the edges of kinship: origins and new familial configurations (2018-2021)”, National Research Agency, Centre
Norbert Elias, France. Her thesis on Roma childhood and parenthood in Italy, undertaken at the École des
Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, was awarded the Richelieu Prize 2015, Prix de la Chancellerie de Paris.
Tanu Biswas
Postdoctoral researcher under the Jr. Professorship for Political Philosophy, University of Bayreuth.
Advisory Board Member of The Childism Institute, University of Rutgers- Camden.
Tanu works on the intersections of philosophy of education, child rights and childhood studies from a childist point of view. Her post doctoral research considers contemporary children's civil disobedience (School Strikes for Climate) as an opportunity to rethink inter-generational relationality in education.
Yamila Rodríguez
Lawyer & PhD Scholar, Department of Law, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina
I research the extension of the international obligation of the state to ensure children's rights to participation and access to justice in the criminal justice system, focusing on children who are victims and witnesses of crimes.
My interest in children rights and child-friendly justice comes both from my academic training and my career as a civil servant at a Criminal Court in Buenos Aires, where I´ve worked for more than ten years, seeing how stressful it can be for children to give testimony and how they are frequently left aside in decision making processes.
Vidya Subramanian
Assistant Professor,
Centre for Education, Innovation & Action Research,
Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai
My research explores the trajectories of young corporate professionals entering the developmental sector to further aspirations of service, self-making, and entrepreneurship. This extends my doctoral research which studied the Teach for India programme focusing on intersecting discourses of corporate philanthropy, PPPs, and new forms of governance in public education. I have a PhD from the Zakir Husain Centre for Educational Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi. My research areas of interest include education policy and development, PPPs in education, and entrepreneurial cultures among the youth.
Hedi Viterbo
Senior Lecturer (Assistant Professor), School of Law, Queen Mary University of London
My research investigates legal issues concerning childhood, state violence, and sexuality from an
interdisciplinary and global perspective. Among other things, I critically examine the ways in which
law and human rights conceptualize and shape both childhood and adulthood.
Cyril Brandt
Associate Researcher, Institute of Development Policy, University of Antwerp.
I finished my PhD at the International Development Studies programme at the University of Amsterdam in 2018. I have worked on
(1) the political economy of educational governance, reforms and teacher salaries in protracted crises, particularly the Democratic Republic of Congo and (2) youths, education and peacebuilding. Furthermore, I have analysed teacher governance in violent contexts. More recently, my work has focused broadly on the contested provision of education in humanitarian emergencies.
Sushri Sangita Puhan
Ph.D. scholar, Social Work, University of Sussex, England.
I am a Development Practitioner with ten years of experience working exclusively on issues related to children and youth. I am currently pursuing my doctoral research on adoptive family practices in India, an exploratory study which aims to understand how and why people think, talk and practice adoption in their everyday lives in an environment where adoption is largely unspoken. I am also a recipient of the prestigious British Government’s Chevening and Chancellor's International scholarship.
R. Maithreyi
Strategic Lead, Karnataka Health Promotion Trust, Bangalore
I have a PhD from the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, and works in the area of childhood studies and sociology of education. I have led several projects on early childhood, skilling and education, indigenous childhoods and education and has also worked as a child psychologist. Currently, I work with KHPT, Bangalore, as a strategic lead for their adolescent thematic. I also lead a WHO - MoHFW study on 'Developing a Vulnerability Framework for Adolescents in India'.
Kim Fernandes
Joint Doctoral Student in Education and Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania
My current work focuses on the ways in which disability, processes of measurement and quantification, and identity documents intersect to produce the lifeworlds of disabled children. I have previously worked in education, development and monitoring and evaluation.