Staff profile

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

My doctoral research explores how social injustice, marginalization, and urban precarity 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 aim to offer new insights for enhancing palliative care in marginalized communities in the Global South.

Academic Background:

I completed an M.Phil in Development Practice from Ambedkar University Delhi (AUD) and an MSc in Environmental Economics from TERI School of Advanced Studies. 

Shaped by a post-colonial theory, my previous research was based on intensive fieldwork in Odisha, India. My MSc project explored the complexity of lived experiences of Kondha indigenous people and their conceptions of "development" in the face of bauxite mining and displacement—an aspect often ignored by dominant corporate and environmental justice clashing discourses. 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, and we co-created a collective to alleviate distress. Drawing on the philosophy of practical wisdom (phronesis) and the labor of self-transformation (askesis, by Foucault) to understand the subaltern life-worlds, I theorized a 'care-praxis' to rethink the paradigmatic development practice. The training has informed my current 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 multidisciplinary mixed-methods projects. The research domains included the role of cooperative enterprises in advancing well-being, 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:

In addition to my research mandate in the organizations, I shaped the two theory-informed scalable initiatives for social change.

1. Grassroots Researcher Project:

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

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

Implemented and sustained by the excellent SEWA Bharat team since 2019, over 600 women have been trained as researchers and found part-time employment through the initiative. The project has been fostering 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” in collaboration with the Health Team 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 student attrition was high in nursing aides training and placement in healthcare settings. My phenomenological research identified that, instead of a “skills gap,” the attrition largely stemmed from low self-esteem due to the students’ caste and class location and the emotional toll of discrimination by the socio-politically privileged patients. 

As affect is political, the training included the following to address high attrition: Caste-sensitive counselling and artwork-based expression, friendships, and learning boundary-setting with privileged caste and class patients to navigate exclusionary micro-events at care work.

Implemented and sustained by the supportive RTI-India team, over 30 students were retained as nursing aides in local healthcare settings by the project's end in 2024. Prioritizing student dignity improved their financial stability and well-being, 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