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 socio-political 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 for socio-politically marginalized communities working in India's informal economy.

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. Working directly within subaltern lifeworlds, we co-created a collective to alleviate distress and articulate community-led definitions of 'development.' By bringing Foucault’s concept of askesis into dialogue with phronesis (practical wisdom), I conceptualized a 'care-praxis' designed to reorient standard development practice toward emotional and bodily well-being. The training has informed my current focus on emotional and bodily well-being as sites of socio-political struggle.

Professional Experience and Action-Research in India

Prior to my PhD, I led qualitative research (2019-2024) at national and international organizations in India, contributing to interdisciplinary mixed-methods funded projects and stakeholder management, as well as business and partnership development. 

The research domains included the role of cooperative enterprises in advancing well-being, mental health & urban precarity, and neglected tropical diseases. Methodological approaches spanned phenomenology, action research, and ethnography. I engaged in collaborative dissemination of actionable insights to influence NGOs' and public health systems' practice and policy for community development, health, and well-being. 

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

1. Grassroots Researcher Project:

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

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

Nursing aide training and placement in healthcare settings face high student attrition. My phenomenological engagement with the students from marginalized castes highlighted that, instead of a “skills gap," the attrition largely stems 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 emotions are political, the insight helped shape a nursing aide training that 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.

The nursing aide training was implemented and sustained by the supportive RTI-India team, with over 30 students 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

2026. Selected through an international call (1 of 11 annually) to lead a 1-hour session in the Behind-the-Scenes: Conversations on Fieldwork series. Delivered a standalone presentation and Q&A focusing on ethical decision-making, methodology, and risk management in fieldwork-based research on sensitive subjects. Institute of Languages, Cultures and Societies, School of Advanced Study, University of London, UK, April 15

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. Presented “Beyond ‘development’: Coming together in abandonment, death, and healing” paper at the interdisciplinary conference on Residue and Remnants, (re)presenting Cultural Memory Contamination, and Destruction, University of Washington, USA, April 6

2018. Presented “Beyond ‘development’ through (the) Silence(d): From young to wrinkled, from growth to care" paper at the multidisciplinary conference on Breaking the Eurocentric Model in the Humanities, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA, April 13.

2018. Presented “Working towards an alternative to development" paper at the CARN (Collaborative Action Research Network) conference on 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