Staff profile

I am a PhD student in anthropology and a recipient of an ESRC NINE DTP scholarship (2024-2028).

Current Research:

My doctoral research explores how social injustice and marginalization shape the emotional and bodily experiences of people living with life-threatening illnesses.

Currently, I am undertaking ethnographic fieldwork with patients and caregivers in an informal-settlement in Mumbai-India. The findings aims to offer new insights for enhancing palliative care in marginalized communities in the Global South.

Academic Background:

I completed a M.Phil in Development Practice from Ambedkar University Delhi (AUD) and MSc in Environmental Economics from TERI SAS.

Based on intensive fieldwork in Odisha-India, my research focused on the lives of indigenous people facing resource extraction, land conflicts, and environmental injustice in forest-dwelling contexts. 

MSc project explored how Kondha indigenous people define "development" in the face of bauxite mining and displacement. I highlighted how the complexities of their lived experiences are often ignored by the dominant clashing discourse of corporate interests and the environmental justice movements. I argued for centering 'messy experiences' of mining-affected people, in all their non-linearity, inconsistencies, and contradictions, to strengthen environmental justice movements. 

Subsequently, my M.Phil action-research dissertation explored how bauxite mining and extractive agriculture shaped fragility and the dying process of older Kondha indigenous women. We co-created a collective to alleviate distress. Drawing on the philosophy of practical wisdom (phronesis), I theorized a 'care-praxis' to re-think the paradigmatic development practice. The training has informed my doctoral research focus on emotional and bodily well-being as sites of socio-political struggle.

Professional Experience in India

Prior to my PhD, I led qualitative research (2019-2024) at national and international organizations in India, contributing to multi-disciplinary mixed-methods projects. The research domains included the role of co-operative enterprises in advancing wellbeing, mental health & urban precarity, and neglected tropical diseases. 

My methodological approaches included phenomenology, action-research, ethnography, and narrative inquiry to meet diverse project mandates of the organizations. I led qualitative research design, data collection, data analysis and writing, and synthesized projects’ conclusions in collaboration with statisticians, epidemiologists, and clinicians. I disseminated actionable insights to influence NGOs and public health systems practice and policy for community development, health, and wellbeing. 

Action-Research Praxis for Social Change:

At the intersection of theory & practice, I conceptualized and co-launched the two initiatives for social change.

1. Grassroots Researcher Project

In 2019, I conceptualized and co-launched the “Grassroots Researcher Project” with the Learning Hub Team while working at SEWA Bharat (Self-Employed Women's Association), New Delhi-India.

The project trains women in urban informal-settlements as “community-researchers” to critically engage with social, economic, and health problems of their own community, to foster epistemological justice by democratizing knowledge production.

Operationalized by the excellent SEWA Bharat team, over 700 women are trained as researchers and found part-time employment through this initiative as of 2023. Informed by the critical perspectives on development theory, this initiative has helped foster epistemological justice by promoting community ownership and leadership. 

     2. Nursing-aide Livelihood Project

In 2022-23, I conceptualized and co-launched the “Nursing-aide Livelihood Project” with the Health Team while working at Research Triangle Institute-India (RTI), New Delhi-India.

This two-year project trained informal-settlement residents as palliative care nursing-aides, integrating caste-sensitive mental health support to foster vocational justice.

The nursing-aide training and placement faced high student attrition. My phenomenological research identified that, instead of  “skills gap,” the attrition largely stemmed from--low self-esteem due to the students’ caste and class location, the emotional toll of facing discrimination by the socio-politically privileged patients, and their anger towards the patients coexisting with guilt.

To address high attrition, the nursing-aide vocational training was integrated with: caste-sensitive counselling and artwork-based expression, friendships; and learning boundary-setting with privileged class and caste patients to navigate exclusionary micro-events at care-work.

Operationalized by the supportive RTI-India team, over 50 students were retained as nursing aides in local healthcare settings by 2023. As affect is political. prioritizing student dignity improved their financial stability and wellbeing, fostering vocational justice in care-work.

Public Engagement: 

Going the last mile: How to enable a graceful care journey for the elderly Tandon, R & Kumari, S. (2022, September). Conceptualized the argument, and drafted this newspaper article to influence state-level investment in palliative care training in India. Hindustan Times. 

Conferences/Workshops: Health & Wellbeing

2025. Invited contributor on mental health perspectives to An Interdisciplinary Workshop on Displaced Childhood. Institute of Advanced Study, University of Durham, UK, June 3.

2019. “Beyond ‘development’: Coming together in abandonment, death, and healing” paper presented at the Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference: Residue and Remnants, (re)presenting Cultural Memory Contamination, and Destruction, University of Washington, USA, April 6

2018. “Beyond ‘development’ through (the) Silence(d): From young to wrinkled, from growth to care” paper presented at The Premodern Workshop Multidisciplinary Spring Conference: Breaking the Eurocentric Model in the Humanities, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA, April 13

2018. “Working towards an alternative to development" paper presented at the CARN (Collaborative Action Research Network) Conference titled Voicing and Valuing: Daring and Doing, Manchester, UK, October 26

 

 

• Medical anthropology
• Anthropology of care
• Anthropology and global health
• Interdisciplinary research on emotional and bodily life
• Ethnographic methods