Having sought a diverse academic training viz., in Sociology (2003-05) at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, India and Urban Geography (2011-12) at University College London (UCL), UK, I find myself well-cushioned to pursue a Doctorate in Civil Society, Citizenship and Rule of Law (2016-19) at the University of Aberdeen. My post-graduate days at JNU from 2003-05 informed me about the subtle nuances of the political economy of development in postcolonial societies of South Asia. Thereupon my four-year (2005-2009) stint in India’s NGO/ voluntary sector animated my sociological imagination by introducing me to the praxis of developmental interventions like primary education, micro-finance and local self-government at the grassroots level. After my two years (2009-11) of research project on new urban social movements at IIT Kanpur and a year’s (2011-12) Commonwealth Scholarship based stint at the UrbanLab, University College London (UCL) helped me to re-imagine urbanisation as a multi-scalar process which operates beyond the demographic fix of numbers.
Since 2012 I’ve been working as an Assistant Professor of Development Studies at the Central University of South Bihar, Gaya, India. Currently I’m on a three-year (2016-19) study leave to pursue a PhD on the tentatively titled topic ‘Doing Subaltern Politics from Above: The Case of Valmikis in Delhi’. My current PhD research project falls within the interstices of Urban Studies and Post-colonial/ South Asian studies. It specially aims to explore a) the tractions that new urban politics exerts on the subaltern groups and b) how does that in turn recast the contours of identity politics and processes of contentious politics.
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Post-Marxism, Civil Society, Subaltern Studies, Governance and Citizenship Studies
MEMBERSHIP IN ACADEMIC/ PROFESSIONAL BODIES
#Indian Sociological Society (LMI 3317) #International Sociological Association (4013)
#International Public Policy Association (2017-18) #Development Studies Association (M26585)
SELECT WORKSHOPS/ TRAINING PROGRAMMES ATTENDED
#Workshop on Legal Theory held at and organized by the Edinburgh Law School, University of Edinburgh during 30 May – 02 June 2016
#Workshop on Women’s Empowerment Programs: Experimental evidence from JEEViKA in Bihar, organized by the International Growth Centre, India-Bihar Programme and held at the Asian Development Research Institute, Patna on 03 April 2015
#‘Sustainability: Concepts and Materials’, organized by the UCL Environment Institute at University College London (UCL), London on 18 May, 2012
#‘Political Textures of the City: Word and Bricks in the Global South’ organized by and held at the University of Manchester on 23 November, 2011
#‘Locating Internets: Histories of the Internet(s) in India’, organized by the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore at CEPT University, Ahmedabad during 19-22 August, 2011
#Young Sociologists’ Workshop 2010 organized by the Indian Sociological Society (ISS), New Delhi and held at Ravenshaw University, Cuttack during 25-26 December, 2010
#‘Building Livable Cities’, organized by the Urban Vision, Mumbai and held at at India International Centre (IIC), New Delhi on 19 October, 2010
AWARDS, PRIZES & POSITIONS HELD
#Graduate Scholar Award at the 2016 International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences, 2-4 August 2016, London organized by Common Ground publishers, USA at Imperial College London, UK
#Conference Travel Grant by the Research Committee 21 (RC21) of the International Sociology Association, the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research (IJURR) and the Foundation for Urban and Regional Studies (FURS) to participate in the Third Summer School on Comparative Urban Studies, held at Humboldt University, Berlin from 17 August 2013 to 03 September 2013
#Conference Travel Grant by the Frankfurt Research Center for Postcolonial Studies to present a paper in the International Graduate Conference held at the Goethe University, Frankfurt in June 2011
#Conference Travel Grant by the Swiss National Fund (SNF) to present a paper in the International Conference held at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich held in November 2009
#UGC National Eligibility Test (NET) for Lectureship in Sociology both in December 2005 and June 2006
POST-GRADUATE TEACHING EXPERIENCE
#Anthropology, Sociology and Development
#Contemporary Development Discourse
#Postcolonial Perspectives of Development
#Qualitative Research Methods
#Development Communication
#ICTs in Development
# Urbanization and Urban Development
#Informal Sector
PUBLICATIONS
Articles
#From Bhagidari to Mohalla Sabhas: When participation trumps governance! in the Journal Economic and Political Weekly Volume 49 No.14 (ISSN: 0012-9976)
#‘Differential Spaces of Globalisation’ in the Journal Economic and Political Weekly Volume 47 No.1 (ISSN: 0012-9976)
Conference Proceedings
#‘The Production of Governmentality in the Postcolonial Megalopolis of Delhi’ presented in the International conference themed ‘Rethinking Urban Inclusion: Spaces, Mobilizations, Interventions’ held at the University of Coimbra, Portugal from 28-30 June, 2012 and published in the e-journal CEScontexio Volume No. 2, June 2013
Book Reviews
#Hank Johnston (2011) States and Social Movements in the Journal International Sociology Volume 27 No. 6 (Print ISSN: 0268-5809; Online ISSN: 1461-7242)
#Ugo Rossi and Alberto Vanolo’s (2012) Urban Political Geographies: A Global Perspective in the Journal Urban Policy and Research Volume 30(2) (ISSN 0811-1146 (Print), 1476-7244 (Online))
#Avijit Pathak’s (2009) Recalling the Forgotten: Education and Moral Quest in the Journal Asian Journal of Social Science Volume 39 No. 1 (ISSN: 1568-4849, E-ISSN: 1568-5314)
SELECT PAPER PRESENTATIONS IN CONFERENCES/SEMINARS
International
#Is Social Democracy a Myth? Interrogating the Valmiki Movement in neoliberal Delhi’ in the Interdisciplinary Social Sciences International Conference 2016 held at Imperial College London, UK from 02 – 05 August 2016
#‘Civil Society, Planetary Urbanization and the Postcolonial Predicament’ in the Annual International Conference 2016 of the Royal Geographical Society, UK held at Imperial College London, UK from 30 August – 02 September 2016
#‘Informality and the Forging of an Assemblage Urbanism in the Indian City of Patna’ in the XVIII ISA World Congress of Sociology 2014 organized by the International Sociological Association held at Yokohama, Japan from 13-19 July 2014
#‘Participatory Governance and the Specter of Citizenship in the Global South’ in the Annual International Studies Convention 2013 held at the Jawaharlal Nehru University from 10-12 January 2013
#‘Negotiating Liminality in a Megalopolis’ in the 22nd European Conference on South Asian Studiesto be held at the University of Lisbon, Portugal from 25-28 July, 2012
#‘Civilizing the Political or Politicizing the Civil: The Enigma of Bhagidari in Delhi’ in the Annual International Conference 2012 of the Royal Geographical Society, UK held at the University of Edinburgh from 03-05 July 2012
#‘Moving beyond the Civil versus Political Society Dichotomy in Neoliberal Delhi’ in the 2012 Annual Conference of the British Association of South Asian Studies held at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London from 12-14 April 2012
#‘Urban (Re)newal and Megalopolises in the Global South’ in the 40th World Congress of the International Institute of Sociology held in collaboration with the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies at the India Habitat Centre, New Delhi from 16-19 February, 2012
#‘Musings on Delhi’s New Urban Imagery Conundrum’ in an International Workshop themed “Political Textures of the City: Word and Bricks in the Global South” held at the University of Manchester, UK on 23 November, 2011 and jointly organized by the Manchester Architecture Research Centre (MARC) and the cities@manchester initiative
#‘Negotiating Hybridity in the ‘New’ Indian City’ in the International Graduate Conference on Colonial Legacies, Postcolonial Contestations: Decolonizing the Social Sciences and the Humanities held at Goethe University, Frankfurt from 16-18 June 2011.
#‘The Emergence of India’s Knowledge Economy and the Homogenization of Urban Spaces’, in the International Conference on Urban Research and Architecture: Beyond Henri Lefebvre, held at and organized by the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich from 24-26 November 2009
National
#’Theorizing Civil Society in an age of neo-liberal urbanism’ in the 41st All India Sociological Conference Indian Sociological Society conference organized by the Indian Sociological Society held at KIIT University, Bhubaneswar from 27-29 December 2015
#‘Seeing through the State: Ethnographic Vignettes from RWAs in Delhi’ in the National Conference on Politics & Governance 2013 held at India International Centre, New Delhi on 5 May 2013
#‘Squinting at New Urbanism in the Tropics’ in the 37th All India Sociological Conference organized by the Indian Sociological Society held at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi from 11-13 December, 2011
#‘Is Sanskritization the chronotope of change in Indian Society?’ in the 36th All India Sociological Conference organized by the Indian Sociological Society held at Ravenshaw University, Cuttack from 27-29 December, 2010
#‘Engaging Civil Society in Urban Governance’ in the National Seminar themed ‘Ethical Dimensions of Governance’, organized by the University of Delhi in association with India International Centre (IIC), New Delhi at IIC from February 15-16, 2010
#‘Ethnographic Research and the adoption of Mixed Methods in India’s Post-Liberalization era: Option or Compulsion?’ in the 35th All India Sociological Conference organized by the Indian Sociological Society held at the University of Kashmir, Srinagar from