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Shriya Patnaik new

Shriya Patnaik

PhD Researcher in International History and Politics
Research Affiliate, Gender Centre
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Spoken languages
English, Hindi, Oriya, Sanskrit, French
Areas of expertise
  • Gender and Sexuality Studies
  • Human rights
  • International History
  • Minority Rights
  • Oral History
  • Social and Cultural History
  • Imperial History
  • Postcolonial Studies
  • South Asian Studies
Geographical Region of Expertise
  • South Asia
  • India
  • United Kingdom

PhD Thesis

 

Title: Re-constructing and Re-imagining the Now Extinct Community of Mahari-Devadasis in Orissa: Gender, Subalternity and Human Rights Projects in Late Colonial and Postcolonial India

PhD Supervisor, 2nd Reader & external Co-supervisor: Nicole Bourbonnais, Aditya Bharadwaj and Frédérique Apffel-Marglin (Professor Emerita, Smith College)

Expected completion date: 2024

Shriya’s research focuses on the historical genealogy surrounding discourses related to prostitution, trafficking, sex-worker rights, and civil society movements in late colonial and postcolonial India. In particular, she focuses on the case-study of the now-extinct community of temple-dancers called Mahari-Devadasis in the eastern state of Orissa, along with their legal and healthcare frameworks under international humanitarian conventions across the 21st century. Devadasis have historically constituted groups of hereditary temple-dancers across various regions in India with matrilineal kinship practices, who were classified as “religious prostitutes” from the colonial period onwards under Contagious Disease and Prostitution Abolition regulations. Shriya’s research focuses on the regional community of temple-dancers in the Jagannath Temple of Puri in Orissa, known as Mahari-Devadasis, and examines their distinct regional practices of religiosity and quotidian cultures through an ethno-historical lens of analysis. Shriya’s research is methodologically reliant on oral histories, archival records, along with UN/ILO humanitarian conventions on the rights of marginalized communities in the Global South. Her work spans across archives in India, the United Kingdom, and Geneva, and also deploys fieldwork, through which she ascertains transnational connections in gender, sexuality, human rights, and women’s reform projects. Consequently, upon the extinction of the Mahari-Devadasi community in the state of Orissa in 2015, the thesis methodologically incorporates her interviews with the last living Maharis – Sashimani and Parasamani, alongside regional interlocutors in India, through which it articulates mutating contours of collective memory, popular culture, bodily agency, and the complex teleological subjectivities of such subaltern subjects.

 

Profile
 

Shriya is a Swiss National Science Foundation Doc.Ch Fellow and is affiliated with the Graduate Institute’s Gender Centre for her doctoral project. She has pursued her Bachelor’s in History from Cornell University (with Honours), and has subsequently pursued a Double Masters’ in International History with a focus on Gender Studies from the Columbia University-London School of Economics Dual Degree MA-MSc program (with a Distinction). In her undergraduate years, she has been part of a Study Abroad Exchange program at Oxford University [Mansfield College]. During her academic trajectory so far, she has been closely involved in conducting archival and qualitative research across various universities. Besides her scholarly interests, she has also worked in the public policy and NGO/development sectors on gender and human rights projects, and these experiences have played a crucial role in shaping her research focus on women’s rights and minority rights initiatives in postcolonial societies at a transnational scale. In terms of her linguistic abilities, she is fully-proficient in English, Hindi and Oriya, has medium-proficiency in Sanskrit, and beginner-level proficiency in French. Shriya is also a PhD affiliate with the Graduate Institute Gender Centre and the Global Migration Centre.

 

Academic Work experience

 

Research Experience

  • International Organisations Stipend Research Fellow at Swiss Network for International Studies (2021)
  • PhD Research Affiliate at IHEID Gender Centre (2020-2024)
  • PhD Research Affiliate at IHEID Global Migration Centre (2021-2024) 
  • Archival Research Assistant at Columbia University Rare Books and Manuscripts Library (2015-2016)
  • Research Assistant at Cornell University Future of Minority Studies Project (2010-2014)
  • Research Assistant at Cornell University Language Acquisition Lab (2011-2014)
     

Research Interests

 

  • International and Global History
  • Gender
  • Humanitarian Approaches of International Development Organisations
  • Civil Society Movements
  • Histories of Marginalization
  • Subaltern Studies
  • British Colonial History
  • Decolonization
  • Women’s Rights
  • Minority Rights

 

Relevant Publications and Works

  1. Shriya Patnaik, “The Status of Sex-workers in India: Problematizing Prostitution Policies with Grassroots Modalities of Resistance from Civil Society.” Book Chapter in Catherine Phipps (eds), Global History of Sex Work (London: Routledge, 2024 forthcoming). 
  2. Shriya Patnaik, “Shifting Modes of Popular Culture in the Re-construction and Re-imagination of the ‘Tawaif’: Evaluating Mutating Forms of Collective Memory in the Study of Matriarchal Actors.” Book Chapter in Anurima Banerji, Royona Mitra and Jasmine Johnson (eds), Oxford Handbook of Dance Praxis (London: Oxford University Press, 2024 forthcoming). 
  3. Shriya Patnaik, (2023). "Exploring the Contested and Controversial Nature of the Sex Industry in India: Experiential Encounters by Sex-Workers from the Periphery." In: Ojha, A., Jaiswal, P. (eds) South Asian Women and International Relations. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9426-5_15 
  4. Shriya Patnaik, “Sex-workers Defying Patriarchy and Challenging State Reform and Rehabilitation Projects in India: Voices from the Margins”, Feminist Encounters: A Journal of Critical Studies in Culture and Politics, Special Issue on Gender Activism in India, 7(1) (2023): https://doi.org/10.20897/femenc/12883 
  5. Shriya Patnaik, “The Lost Life Stories of Mahari-Devadasis in Postcolonial India (1947-2015)”, Borderlines (2021).
  6. Shriya Patnaik, “Marginalizing the Matriarchal, Minority Subject: A Critical Analysis of Human Rights and Women’s Reform Projects in Colonial and Postcolonial India through the Case-Study of the ‘Mahari-Devadasi’”, Electronic Journal of Social and Strategic Studies, Special Issue (2021): pp. 59-88. (DOI: 10.47362/EJSSS.2021.2105).
  7. Shriya Patnaik, “The Invisible Voices of India’s Informal Sector Sex Workers”, LSE South Asia Centre Blog (2021).
  8. Shriya Patnaik, “The Missing Life Stories of India’s Sex Workers”, Graduate Institute Gender Centre (2020).
  9. Swiss Network for International Studies Podcast.
  10. Davis Projects for Peace Report, “Resurrect, Restore and Revive the Dignity of Railway Station Children”.Paper Presentation for Cambridge University Politico – Intellectual History Workshop on Twentieth Century India (2021).
     

ACADEMIC EXPERIENCES
 

  • International Organisations Stipend Research Fellow at Swiss Network for International Studies (2021)
  • PhD Research Affiliate at IHEID Gender Centre (2020-2024)
  • PhD Research Affiliate at IHEID Global Migration Centre (2021-2024) 
  • Archival Research Assistant at Columbia University Rare Books and Manuscripts Library (2015-2016)
  • Research Assistant at Cornell University Future of Minority Studies Project (2010-2014)
  • Research Assistant at Cornell University Language Acquisition Lab (2011-2014)
     

OTHER WORK EXPERIENCES
 

  • Research Scholar at United Nations International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation Project (2022-Present)
  • Development Officer at The Brookings Institution – India Centre (2018-2019)
     

Fellowships, Grants and Awards
 

  • Swiss Academy of Social Sciences and Humanities Travel Grant (2023) 
  • SNSF Doc.Ch Grant, Swiss National Science Foundation (2022-2024) 
  • Swiss Government Excellence Scholarship, Federal Commission for Scholarships, Switzerland (2020-2022)
  • Graduate Institute Community Scholarship (2019-2020)
  • Swiss Network for International Studies, International Organizations Research Stipend Fellow (March-July 2021)
  • North American Oral History Association Conference Grant (2021)
  • Pierre Du Bois Foundation Travel Grant (2021)
  • Davis Projects for Peace Award (2016-2017)
  • Women’s International Leadership Award – International House, New York (2015-2016)
  • Columbia University Alliance Fellowship (2015)
  • London School of Economics Merit Scholarship (2016)
  • Cornell University Tata Scholarship (2010-2014)
  • Cornell University Anne Macintyre Litchfield History Award & Cornelis W. Dekiewet History Award (2013-2014)
     

Affiliations
 

  • IHEID Gender Centre
  • IHEID Global Migration Centre
     

Links

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