Announcing Selected Researchers: Welfare, Gender, and Surveillance
We published a Call for Researchers on January 10, 2020, to invite applications from researchers interested in writing a narrative essay that interrogates the modes of surveillance that people of LGBTHIAQ+ and gender non-conforming identities and sexual orientations are put under as they seek sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services in India. We received 29 applications from over 10 locations in India in response to the call, and are truly overwhelmed by and grateful for this interest and support. We eventually selected applications by 3 researchers that we felt aligned best with the specific objectives of the project. Please find below brief profile notes of the selected researchers.
Call for Researchers: URL
Kaushal Bodwal
Kaushal is persuing his MPhil in Sociology at Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi. He completed his Master's in Sociology at Centre for the Study of Social Systems, Jawaharlal Nehru University after getting a BSc honors degree in Biomedical Sciences from Delhi University. He is one of the founding members of Hasratein: a queer collective, New Delhi. He has been an active spokesperson for Queer and Trans Rights in India and have been on a number of panel discussion on Trans Act 2019 in various campuses. He has also delivered a lecture series on Colonialism and Medicine in Ambedkar University, Kashmiri Gate, Delhi. His areas of interest are Sociology of medicine, gender and medicine, sexuality, religion and biomedical science, intersex studies.
Queerness as disease – a continuing narrative in 21st century India, Kafila, 27 August 2019
What it means to be queer under a regime bent on remaking India on its own ideological terms, Firstpost, 17 January 2020
Rosamma Thomas
Rosamma has worked both as a reporter and as an editor of news reports with newspapers. She currently writes reports for NGOs while also undertaking freelance reporting assignments. She is based in Pune.
India's mining state steps up fight to rein in killer silicosis, The Times of India, 29 June 2016
Doctor may have found early marker for silicosis, but who will fund him?, Newsclick, 18 July 2019
Asbestos poisoning: Raghunath Manwar’s fight for safer work conditions, Newsclick, 9 January 2020
Shreya Ila Anasuya
Shreya is a writer, editor, journalist and performance artist currently based in Calcutta. Her fiction explores the places where myth, memory, history and the performing arts meet. As a journalist, her work explores gender, sexuality, politics, culture and history. She has been published in The Wire, Caravan, Scroll, Mint Lounge, Deep Dives, GenderIT, Helter Skelter, and many more. She is the editor of the digital publication Skin Stories, housed at the non-profit Point of View. She is the writer and narrator of ‘Gul - a story in text, song and dance’ which has been performed in several cities in India. She was a Felix Scholar at SOAS, University of London, from where she has an MA in Anthropology. For a full portfolio, please click here or visit her website.
This project is led by Ambika Tandon, Aayush Rathi, and Sumandro Chattapadhyay at the Centre for Internet and Society, and is supported by a grant from Privacy International.
Author
Sumandro Chattapadhyay
As a Director at CIS, I co-lead the researchers@work programme, and engage with academic and policy research on data governance and digital economy. I can be reached at sumandro[at]cis-india[dot]org.
