PhD  thesis
 

Provisional PhD Thesis Title: Mothers on the Move: The Politics of Displaced Mothers in South Asia

Expected Completion Date: 2026

Raksha’s PhD dissertation analyzes the gendered politics of forced displacement by focusing on the narratives of refugee mothers surviving and raising families at the margins of the modern states. It brings together debates from critical security studies, migration research, and feminist International Relations to understand how the everyday practices performed by refugee mothers challenge the boundaries of citizen/non-citizen, security/insecurity, inclusion/exclusion in destination countries. This research also asks how power and politics are reconfigured and by whom in the aftermath of violent and prolonged displacement.

Profile
 

Raksha Gopal is a PhD Candidate in International Relations and Political Science and a research assistant for the Swiss National Science Foundation project Gendering Survival from the Margins at the Gender Centre. She holds a Master’s degree in International Relations and Political Science from the Geneva Graduate Institute and a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) degree in Political Science from Lady Shri Ram College for Women, University of Delhi. Most recently, she has held visiting fellowships at the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford and the University of Warwick. Her research centres on issues of migration, forced displacement, critical security studies, gender, violence, and local and global governance. 

PUBLICATIONS
 

• Gendered circuits of violence: A social reproduction perspective, with Elisabeth Prügl and Luisa Lupo. Book Chapter in War Economy: Gendered Circuits of Violence and Capital, edited by Aida A Hozić and Jacqui True for Routledge/RIPE Series in Global Political Economy (forthcoming).
• Mothering from the Margins: Ethnographic Reflections on the Gendered Politics of Rohingya Mothers in India. International Migration Review. 0(0): 1-25, (online 22 April 2025).
• Displaced lives: rethinking survival, social reproduction, and (in)security with refugees, with Luisa Lupo. International Feminist Journal of Politics. 27(1): 56-80 (online 12 February 2025).

Fellowships, Grants, Awards
 

• Swiss National Science Foundation Mobility Grant (2025)
• Swiss National Science Foundation Project Grant (2022-2026)
• Geneva Graduate Institute Scholarship for PhD Students (2022-2023)
   

Affiliations
 

• Borders, Race, Ethnicity and Migration Network, University of Warwick
• International Studies Association
• Pluralising Social Reproduction Approaches Network (PSRAN)