Nandita Banerjee Dhawan

Dr. Nandita Banerjee Dhawan has an interdisciplinary background in Women’s/Gender Studies. Her expertise lies in using the feminist lens to question the social and patriarchal institutions of family, marriage, religion, and higher education. She studies the discourse on the ‘new Indian woman’ to explore how these institutions use tropes of the (il)legitimate through the blending of economic liberalism and cultural illiberalism to reinforce the hegemony of the ‘New Indian (Hindu) Middle Class’. A critical examination of majoritarian privilege in the existing hegemonic Hindu(tva) social order by studying gender and intersectional violence is also an important focus of her research. She has also worked on the Indian women’s/feminist movement and the challenges faced by them due to the category of ‘difference’. Dr. Dhawan has earned research funding from national and international funding agencies on the issues of transforming gender relations in marriage, understanding the epidemic of domestic violence, gender and the transformation of higher education, and gender and urban (re)structuring. She has collaborated with academics in the UK and South Africa for research projects, with national academics from different universities, and with activists from women’s organisations. The latest research project funded by the Government of India and the Northern Ireland Department of the Economy focuses on first-generation academics in Indian higher education. She has published widely on these issues and has co-edited three volumes as well. Dr. Dhawan has been Programme Developer and Coordinator for the MPhil programme at her university. She has supervised MPhil and PhD research and has been an External Examiner for doctoral scholars at various Indian universities. She is a member of the Research Ethics Committee and External Expert for Department of Women’s Studies in universities in Kolkata. Dr. Dhawan has held administrative positions of Director and Joint Director at the School of Women’s Studies in the past. Dr. Dhawan has played leading intellectual roles at the School of Women’s Studies, Jadavpur University. The School has a rich inter/multidisciplinary experience of more than 30 years to inform university’s contribution to gender justice at regional and national levels and it is therefore well placed in building transformative imaginaries within and outside higher education. She is committed to contribute to the School’s mission of teaching, research and community engagement by building and disseminating knowledge in Women’s Studies (inter)nationally; strengthening the research component; bringing together teaching, research and action for social change; and in using feminist methodologies for attaining gender justice. Ten years after having finished her Masters in Physics (STEM), she expanded to the academic field of Women’s Studies, with her epistemological lenses enhanced by multidisciplinary feminist understandings. This was an empowering move in her academic career and the use of feminist lens has since been integral to her research and her academic contribution and impact on society.