Prof. (Dr.) Niharika Banerjea
October 5, 2023 2023-11-06 4:28Prof. (Dr.) Niharika Banerjea
Prof. (Dr.) Niharika Banerjea
Professor
B.A., (Presidency College, University of Calcutta);
M.A., (Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi);
M.Phil., (Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi);
Ph.D., (University at Buffalo, The State University of New York)
Prof. (Dr.) Niharika Banerjea is Professor, Jindal Global Law School and Honorary Visiting Fellow (non-residential) at the School of Geography, Geology and the Environment, University of Leicester. Niharika has held a visiting scholar position at the School of Geography, University College Dublin. She has about twenty years of consolidated undergraduate, graduate, and Ph.D. teaching, supervision, and mentorship experience across the United States and India.
Niharika is uniquely situated as a transdisciplinary queer, gender and sexuality studies scholar, with critical empirical and collaborative work that crosses academic/activist borders and global north/global south divides. Her transnational collaborative work has been generously supported by competitive awards and grants, including an Economic and Social Research Council Grant, United Kingdom, and awards from the Leicester Institute of Advanced Studies, United Kingdom.
Niharika’s key contribution to queer, gender, and sexuality studies has been studying liveabilities in both its conceptual and critical empirical parameters. In collaboration with Professor Kath Browne, University College Dublin, she explored what makes life liveable for LGBTQ identifying persons across India and the UK. Deploying liveability as an alternative to the conceptual binary of inclusion/exclusion used by nation-states to rank order populations according to progress/backward narratives, they sought new routes to understand the role and limits of legislative markers in the formation and lives of sexual subjects.
Niharika’s work is routed through transnational feminisms, focusing on queer-feminist knowledge making and the legitimization of academic-activist voices in the academy. In a co-edited book, Lesbian Feminism: Essays Opposing Global Heteropatriarchies, after highlighting the systematic devaluation of lesbian and queer feminist knowledge across the globe, she has brought together voices of writers, academics, and activists to consider the broader place of lesbian feminisms within queer theory, post-colonial feminism, and the movement for LGBTQ rights. Her other work in this area deals with the challenges and possibilities of queer feminist methodological standpoints, focusing on academic-activist collaborations.
Niharika’s contribution to queer-feminist research methods is rooted in collaborative methodologies. It is informed by practices of care, queer kinship, and friendships that underscore concerns around social justice activism. In a co-edited book on Friendship as Social Justice Activism, she has brought together academics and activists to talk about friendship, love, and desire as kinetics for social justice movements. Using both auto-ethnographies and material from her research projects, she, along with her collaborators in academic-activist networks, have highlighted the need to conceptualize the complexities of marginalized lives with different writing styles and innovative research designs. To take forward her concerns with research methods, Niharika, along with Dr. Paul Boyce, University of Sussex, and Dr. Rohit Dasgupta, University of Glasgow, hold a Routledge book series on Ethnographic Innovations: South Asian Perspectives. The series engenders a publishing environment for interdisciplinary conversations that query various uses of ethnography as a methodological and representational form.
Niharika is associated with Sappho for Equality, the organisation working to address the socio-political marginalization of lesbian, bisexual women, and transmasculine persons in eastern India. With Sappho for Equality, she regularly creates and archives knowledge around queer feminist politics and practices through events such as queer conferences and sexuality academies.
Books and Edited Volumes
- Banerjea, Niharika and Kath Browne (2023). Liveable Lives: Living and Surviving LGBTQ Equalities in India and the UK. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
- Kath Browne, Mary Gilmartin, Dhiren Borisa and Niharika Banerjea. Social Geographies: Place, Protests and Precarities (under contract with London: Routledge).
- Ed., Banerjea, Niharika, Paul Boyce and Rohit Dasgupta. 2022. COVID – 19 Assemblages: Queer and Feminist Ethnographies from South Asia. New Delhi: Routledge.
- Ed., Banerjea, Niharika, Kath Browne, Eduarda Ferriera, Marta Olasik and Julie Podmore 2019. Lesbian Feminism: Essays Opposing Global Heteropatriarchies. London: Zed Books.
- Ed., Banerjea, Niharika, Debanuj Dasgupta, Rohit Dasgupta and Jaime Grant edited. 2018. Friendship as Social Justice Activism. London, New York, Kolkata: Seagull Books.
Journal Articles and Chapters in Edited Volumes (selected)
- Banerjea, Niharika. 2022. “Homopopulism: A New Layer of LGBTQ Politics in India” in a Special Issue on ‘Here vs There’ in Sexualities 0 (0): 1-25 DOI: 10.1177/13634607221083200
- Banerjea, Niharika. 2021. “Sexuality, Development and Governance-A Transnational Queer Feminist Critique” in A.V. Satish Chandra edited. Politics of Identity, Gender and Development. New Delhi: Viva Books, pp. 71-75.
- Browne, Kath, Niharika Banerjea and Leela Bakshi. 2020. “Survival and liveability in #COVIDtimes: Queer women’s transnational witnessing of COVID-19.” Dialogues in Human Geography. Vol. 10 (2): 128-131. https://doi.org/10.1177/2043820620930833
- Banerjea, Niharika. 2020. “Toward a Transformative Pedagogy: Queer-Feminist Reflections of the Classroom.” Peaceprints – South Asian Journal of Peacebulding. 6 (1) http://wiscomp.org/peaceprints/PPJ20/PPJ20-6-1-Article1.pdf ISSN: 2582-7871
- McGlynn, Nick, Kath Browne, Niharika Banerjea, Leela Bakshi, Sumita Beethi, Ranjita Biswas, Rukmini Banerjee. 2020. “More than Happiness: Aliveness and Struggle in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Queer Lives.” Sexualities. Vol. 23 (7): 1113-1134
https://doi.org/10.1177/1363460719888436 - Banerjea, Niharika in conversation with Rituparna Borah. 2019. “Being Queer Feminists in Delhi: Narratives of (Non)Belonging.” Geography Research Forum. 39: 90-105 available online at http://raphael.geography.ad.bgu.ac.il/ojs/index.php/GRF/article/view/584
- Browne, Kath, Niharika Banerjea, Nick McGlynn, Leela Bakshi, Sumita Beethi, Ranjita Biswas. 2019. “The limits of Legislative Change: Moving beyond Inclusion/Exclusion to Create ‘a Life Worth Living’.” Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space. https://doi.org/10.1177/2399654419845910
- Banerjea, Niharika. 2018. “ Life-Making” in Niharika Banerjea, Debanuj Dasgupta, Rohit Dasgupta and Jaime Grant edited. Friendship as Social Justice Activism. London, New York, Kolkata: Seagull Books, pp. 128-134.
- Banerjea, Niharika, Debanuj Dasgupta, Rohit Dasgupta, Aniruddha Dutta, Amit S Rai and Jack Quintana. 2018. “Queering Digital Cultures: A Roundtable Conversation with Academics and Practitioners” in Rohit Dasgupta and Debanuj Dasgupta edited. Queering Digital India: Activisms, Identities and Subjectivities. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 29-53.
- Banerjea, Niharika and Katherine Browne. 2018. “Liveable Lives: A Transnational Queer-Feminist Reflection on Sexuality, Development and Governance” in Corrine Mason edited. Queer Development Studies: A Reader. New York: Routledge, pp. 169-180.
- Banerjea, Niharika. 2017. “Revisiting Ethics of Care in Academic Lives” in Gita Chadha and Rukmini Sen edited. Power and Relationships in the Academia: Feminist Dilemmas beyond the List- Statement Binary. Economic and Political Weekly Engage, 52(50), 16 December 2017, available online at http://www.epw.in/engage/special-features/power-relationships-academia
- Browne, Kath, Niharika Banerjea, Nick McGlynn, Sumita B., Leela Bakshi, Rukmini Banerjee and Ranjita Biswas. 2017. “Towards Transnational Feminist Queer Methodologies.” Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography. 24 (10): 1376-1397.First published online 18 September 2017. DOI: 10.1080/0966369X.2017.1372374
- Banerjea, Niharika, Katherine Browne, Leela Bakshi and Subhagata Ghosh. 2016. “Writing through Activisms and Academia: Challenges and Opportunities” in Katherine Browne and Gavin Brown edited. The Routledge Research Companion to Geographies of Sex and Sexualities. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 175-184.
- Browne, Katherine, Niharika Banerjea, Leela Bakshi and Nick McGlynn. 2015. “Intervention – Gay Friendly or Homophobic? The Absence of and Problems of Global Standards” in Antipode: A Journal of Radical Geography. http://antipodefoundation.org/2015/05/11/gay-friendly-or- homophobic/
- Banerjea, Niharika. 2015. “Critical Urban Collaborative Ethnographies: Articulating Community and Activism with Women Loving Women in Kolkata, India.” Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography. 22 (8): 1058-1072. First published online 8 August 2014. DOI:10.1080/0966369X.2014.939145
- Banerjea, Niharika. 2012. “Voluntary Participation and Self-Governance: A Study of Community Health Volunteering in Kolkata, India.” Cultural Dynamics 23 (3): 198-219.
- Banerjea, Niharika. 2011. “Voluntary Participation and Poor Women’s Work: A Critical Examination of a Community Health Improvement Initiative in a Kolkata Slum.” Contemporary South Asia 19 (4): 427-440.
Working papers, Reports and Commentaries (selected)
- Ashby, Dave, Niharika Banerjea, Pascale Baker, Dhiren Borisa, Kath Browne, Cesare di Feliciantonio, Zalfa Feghali, Dylan Kerrigan, Mary McAuliffe, Aoife Neary, Gavin Brown. 2022. The Epistemologies of ‘Lockdown’: closets, vulnerability, and citizenship. 2022. LIAS Working Paper Series[Online], 7: n. pag. Web. 3 May.
- Ashby, Dave, Niharika Banerjea, Pascale Baker, Dhiren Borisa, Kath Browne, Cesare di Feliciantonio, Zalfa Feghali, Dylan Kerrigan, Mary McAuliffe, Aoife Neary, & Gavin Brown. 2022. “Sexual and intimate citizenship in a Time of Pandemic..” LIAS Working Paper Series[Online], 7: n. pag. Web. 3 May.
- Banerjea, Niharika. 2018. A Commentary on ‘Homopopulism’. Swakanthey, June, 2019.
- Biswas Ranjita, Niharika Banerjea, Rukmini Banerjee, Sumita B. 2016. “Understanding Liveability/ies.” A report of Making Liveable Lives: Rethinking Social Exclusion, ESRC Grant No: ES/M000931/1
- Browne, Kath, Nicholas McGlynn, Leela Bakshi, Niharika Banerjea. 2016. “Acting on Equalities: Are Local Authorities in England Meeting the Duties of the Equality Act 2010 and Addressing Sexual Orientation & Gender Identity?”. A report of Making Liveable Lives: Rethinking Social Exclusion, ESRC Grant No: ES/M000931/1
- Sumita B. and Niharika Banerjea. 2014. “Reflecting on Lesbian Suicides in India: A Heart to Heart Conversation.” make/shift: feminisms in motion, Spring/Summer 2015, Issue 15.
- Banerjea, Niharika and Debanuj Dasgupta. 2013. “States of Desire: Homonationalism and LGBT Activism in India.” Swakanthey, January 2013, Sappho for Equality. Reprinted in Sanhati, June 6 2013 http://sanhati.com/articles/7185/
Creative work with academic output/impact:
- ‘I Script my Script’ (CD). 2016. A collaborative output from the ‘Making Liveable Lives: Rethinking Social Exclusion’, ESRC Grant No: ES/M000931/1
- ‘Amar Bhasha, Amar Bhashyo (I Script my Script): Street Theatre Workshop: Kolkata’. 2015. A collaborative output from the ‘Making Liveable Lives: Rethinking Social Exclusion’, ESRC Grant No: ES/M000931/1
- ‘I Script my Script: Street Theatre Workshop: Brighton’. 2015. A collaborative output from the ‘Making Liveable Lives: Rethinking Social Exclusion’, ESRC Grant No: ES/M000931/1
Grants (selected)
- A Manifesto for Pandemic Sexual and Gendered Citizenships: Practicing Urgent Witnessing, Leicester Institute for Advanced Studies Pandemics Programme Amplification Award, 2021 (January – July), £29,735 [PI: Gavin Brown]
- The Epistemologies of ‘Lockdown’: The Spatialization of Sexual and Gender Politics in a Time of Pandemic. Leicester Institute for Advanced Studies, 2020 (May – July) £3996 [PI: Gavin Brown]
- Livable Lives. College of Liberal Arts Faculty Development Award; University of Southern Indiana, $2215.87; 2014
- Making Liveable Lives: Rethinking Social Exclusion. Economic and Social Research Council, $63,680; total $320,793, [PI: Kath Browne], University of Brighton; 2014 – 2017
- Collaborative Ethnography Interview Transcriptions. College of Liberal Arts Faculty Development Award; University of Southern Indiana, $326.25; 2013
- Chapter 3: Tales, Reflections, and Political Visions. College of Liberal Arts Faculty Development Award; University of Southern Indiana, $2958.69; 2012
- Being Queer in a Globalizing City: Narratives of Politics and Community. College of Liberal Arts Faculty Development Award; University of Southern Indiana, $899.94; 2011
Fellowships and Awards (selected)
- Honorary Visiting Fellow, School of Geography, Geology and the Environment, University of Leicester; May 2021 – April 2024
- Visiting Scholar (Research Scientist), School of Geography, University College Dublin;
March – August 2021
- Liberal Arts Research Award; University of Southern Indiana; One-course release; 2012
- Scholarly Writing Institute; University of Southern Indiana; $1000; May 10-14, 2010
- Liberal Arts Research Award; University of Southern Indiana; One-course release; 2010
Invited Talks and Keynotes
- “Homopopulism: A New Layer of LGBTQ Politics in India”, Centre for Policy Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, August 23, 2022 (Invited talk)
- “Homopopulism”, Sexuality and Nationalism Series, York Centre for Asian Research, Centre for Feminist Research, York University, March 11, 2022 (Invited talk)
- “Homing”, National Students Conference on Queer Political Assemblages, 2.0. Department of English, Jadavpur University, March 7, 2022 (Keynote)
- “Spectrum of Gender and Sexuality”, National Seminar on Anthropology in 21st Century and Beyond. Department of Anthropology, University of Delhi, February 10, 2022 (Invited talk, with Paul Boyce and Rohit Dasgupta)
- “Research, Advocacy, Pedagogy: Academic-Activist Narratives”, International Symposium on Trans Community/Spectrum of the South Asian Diaspora. Indian Queer Academia, December 19, 2020 (Invited Talk)
- “Academic-Activist Exigencies in Neoliberal Modernity: Transnationalizing Queer-Feminist Lives”, Slyvia Pankhurst Gender and Diversity Research Centre, Manchester Metropolitan University, United Kingdom, June 20th, 2019 (Invited talk)
- “Here, There and Elsewhere: Third World Difference and a Politics of Liveability”, Here Versus There: Beyond Comparison in Queer and Sexuality Politics, Maynooth University, Ireland, June 17-18, 2019 (Keynote)
- “Liveability as a Decolonial Option through Collaborative Research and Activisms”, 10th European Feminist Research Conference, Georg-August-Universitat, Gottingen, Germany, September 12-15, 2018 (Keynote)
- “Queer Temporalities: Geographical Imaginations of the Other”, Queer here, Queer There: Bodies, Identities, and Location, University of Kalyani, March 13-14, 2018 (Invited talk)
- “Community, Friendship, and Collaborative Ethnography with Sappho for Equality in an ‘Ordinary City’”, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India, March 11, 2014 (Invited talk)
- “Community, Friendship, and Collaborative Ethnography with Sappho for Equality in an ‘Ordinary City’”, Ambedkar University, New Delhi, India, March 7, 2014 (Invited talk)
Conferences/Seminars/Webinars/Workshops (selected)
- “Contact, Context and Comparison Scale and Connection in the Making of Knowledge about Gender and Sexualities between Africa and South Asia”, Transnational Contact Zones: African and South Asian Sexualities and Genders, An International Hybrid Conference, University of Pretoria, July 26, 2022
- “Re-imagining Intimacies, Re-configuring Kinship”, Ear to the Ground, Webinar Series, Centre for Women’s Rights, Jindal Global Law School, April 13, 2022
- “Academic-Activist Materialities in Transnational Collaboration: Theorizing, Writing, Doing”, Working Transnationally Beyond Comparative Hiearchies. Exploring Relationalities, Solidarities and Changing Conditions in Transnational Research and Pedagogies. Lund University, December 2, 2021.
- “Epistemic Agency, Pedagogical Practices, and Hungers for Justice: A Workshop with 2021 James Blaut Award Winner Richa Nagar Co-facilitated by Efadul Huq and Andrea Miller”, Socialist and Critical Geography Specialty Group, Zoom Workshop, April 10, 2021.
- “Exploring Feminist Pedagogies in Online Learning”, UN Women Training Centre, International Feminist Journal Of Politics Conference, February 18, 2021
- “Queer-Feminist Methodology in Practice: A Cross Disciplinary Conversation”, Roundtable, International Feminist Journal of Politics, February 19, 2021
- “COVID 19 Assemblages: Queer and Feminist Perspectives from South Asia”, ESRC/UKRI Festival of Social Science https://festivalofsocialscience.com/events/covid-19-assemblages-queer-and-feminist-perspectives-from-south-asia/ with Rohit Dasgupta and Paul Boyce, November 12, 2020
- “Beyond Eurocentric Feminisms” Rountable, 10th European Feminist Research Conference, Georg-August-Universitat, Gottingen, Germany, September 12-15, 2018
- “Queer-feminist Geographies in an ‘Unsafe City’: An Autoethnographic Account of Freedom and Belonging”, Women and Public Spaces: Questions of Sexuality, Visibility and Freedom. 25th European Conference on South Asian Studies, Paris, July 24-27, 2018
- “Queer-feminist Pedagogies and the Politics of Interruption in the Classroom”, Feminist Pedagogy in Higher Education: Resistances & Negotiations, 7th Annual International Feminist Journal of Politics Annual Conference, University of San Francisco, California, April 2-3, 2018
Core Courses
- Gender and Society
Courses Taught in Universities in India and the United States (PhD, MA, BA)
- Theoretical Issues in Social Research (PhD Core)
- Guided Reading (PhD core)
- Transnational Feminisms (MA elective)
- Relationships and Affinities (MA core)
- Faith, Religion and Society (MA core)
- Protests, Movements and Transformations (MA core)
- Social Theory I (MA core)
- Workshop on Expressions (MA core)
- Organizational Exposure (MA core)
- Sociological Theory (BA core)
- Gender and Society (BA core)
- Culture, Identity and Society (BA core)
- Marriage, Kinship and Family Forms (BA core)
- Principles of Sociology (BA Core)
- Special Topics in Sociology: Urban Sociology (BA Elective)
- Social Problems (BA Core)
- Seminar: City Scapes (BA Elective)
- Seminar: Globalization (BA Elective)
- Seminar: Global Issues, India (BA Elective)
- Seminar: Urban Sociology (BA Elective)
- Social Change (BA Core)
- Introduction to Sociology (BA Core)
- Social Problems (BA Core)
- Introduction to Social Change (BA Core)
- Sociology of City Life (BA Core)
- Individual and Society (BA Core)
- Social Movements (BA Core)
- Contemporary Protest Movements (BA Core)