Arizona State University
Associate Professor, School of Social and Behavioral Sciences
I am an associate professor in the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Arizona State University (ASU). I completed my Ph.D. in Political Science at University of California, Los Angeles, where my training focused on Race, Ethnicity, Politics and Comparative Politics.
As a scholar, I explain why the promise of democratic equality remains unrealized, and I identify potential ways to create more egalitarian relations in liberal democracies and the discipline of political science. This intellectual endeavor has demanded that I cross disciplinary boundaries and challenge epistemological and methodological norms in political science to understand the gendered and raced nature of politics as a practice and political science as a discipline. I use interpretive, feminist, and decolonial methods to examine what are often assumed to be neutral concepts, objective methodologies, and universal institutions, and demonstrate that these very concepts, methodologies, and institutions are gendered and raced such that they determine who enjoys democratic inclusion, who commands academic authority, and who is most vulnerable to violence.
My book, Gendered Citizenship: Understanding Gendered Violence in Democratic India, is published with Oxford University Press. The book received the American Political Science Association's 2021 Lee Ann Fujii Award for Innovation in the Interpretive Study of Political Violence. My research is published in leading journals like American Political Science Review, PS: Political Science and Politics, Feminist Formations, and Politics, Groups, and Identities. I was awarded the Outstanding Teaching Award and Outstanding Faculty Mentor Awards at ASU. I was also awarded ASU’s Excellence in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Award and Social Impact Award. I have written for The Washington Post and Economic & Political Weekly, and given a TEDx Talk.
As a scholar, I explain why the promise of democratic equality remains unrealized, and I identify potential ways to create more egalitarian relations in liberal democracies and the discipline of political science. This intellectual endeavor has demanded that I cross disciplinary boundaries and challenge epistemological and methodological norms in political science to understand the gendered and raced nature of politics as a practice and political science as a discipline. I use interpretive, feminist, and decolonial methods to examine what are often assumed to be neutral concepts, objective methodologies, and universal institutions, and demonstrate that these very concepts, methodologies, and institutions are gendered and raced such that they determine who enjoys democratic inclusion, who commands academic authority, and who is most vulnerable to violence.
My book, Gendered Citizenship: Understanding Gendered Violence in Democratic India, is published with Oxford University Press. The book received the American Political Science Association's 2021 Lee Ann Fujii Award for Innovation in the Interpretive Study of Political Violence. My research is published in leading journals like American Political Science Review, PS: Political Science and Politics, Feminist Formations, and Politics, Groups, and Identities. I was awarded the Outstanding Teaching Award and Outstanding Faculty Mentor Awards at ASU. I was also awarded ASU’s Excellence in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Award and Social Impact Award. I have written for The Washington Post and Economic & Political Weekly, and given a TEDx Talk.
