Sujatha Subramanian, PhD
Research Platform Center Interdisciplinary Gender Studies Innsbruck (CGI)
University of Innsbruck
Ágnes-Heller-Haus, 5th floor, Room 05N030
Innrain 52a
A-6020 Innsbruck
+43 512 507 39867
Sujatha.Subramanian@uibk.ac.at
Project staff member (she/her) SINCRONY HORIZON Project
Languages: English (Native), Hindi (Native), Malayalam (Fluent)
About me
Sujatha Subramanian is a postdoctoral researcher with the project titled “Intersectional inclusion in deliberation and participation with youth (SINCRONY)” funded by the European Commission (HorizonEurope).
Sujatha has a PhD in Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies from The Ohio State University, USA. Her doctoral dissertation, titled “Carceral Care? Juvenile justice institutions in India and girls’ protection under Brahmanical patriarchy,” studies the experiences of the multiply-marginalized girls who are confined by the Indian state in juvenile institutions in the name of their care and protection.
Sujatha also has a master of Philosophy in Women’s Studies and an M.A. in Media and Cultural Studies from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.
As a lecturer and a graduate teaching assistant with the Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at The Ohio State University, Sujatha has taught introductory and upper-level courses to undergraduate students. Her teaching philosophy is informed by feminist, anti-caste, decolonial, and anti-racist visions that emphasize the liberatory potential of knowledge creation.
Sujatha is one of the four members of the Detention Solidarity, an online space that critically engages with structures and experiences of the carceral state in India. She has worked with non-profit organizations in India, such as Sahapedia and Partners for Urban Knowledge, Action and Research (PUKAR) collaborating with diverse communities and creating platforms for knowledge creation and dissemination. Sujatha has also worked in editorial positions with NEOS: A Publication of the Anthropology of Children and Youth Interest Group and the Critical Childhood and Youth Studies Collective.
Research focus
- Transnational and Decolonial Feminist Theory
- Childhood and Youth Studies
- South Asian Studies
- Anti-Caste Theory and Feminist Critiques of Caste Patriarchy
- Feminist Perspectives on Carcerality and Justice
- Feminist Media Studies
- Feminist Geography
Memberships
- National Women’s Studies Association
- Indian Association of Women’s Studies
- Asian Law and Society Association
- The Childhood Law & Policy Network
Publications
2022
Subramanian, S. & Sharma, R. Towards an Anti-Caste and Feminist Vision of Transformative Justice: Analyzing Social Media Activism Against Sexual Violence. Women’s Studies in Communication 45 (4), 465-481.
Gajjala R., Ford, S., Kumar, V., Subramanian, S. Online (Indian/South Asian) Digital Protest Publics negotiating #POC #BIPOC and #anticaste. In S., MacDonald, M., MacArthur, M., Radzikowska & B., Wiens (Eds.) Networked Feminisms: Activist Assemblies and Digital Practices (pp.145-161). Lexington Press.
2019
Subramanian, S. “(Dis)Respectable Selfies: Honour, Surveillance and the Undisciplined Girl” In Aneja, A. (Ed.) Women’s and Gender Studies in India: Crossings (pp. 247-257). Routledge.
2017
Subramanian, S. Of Real Identities: Expressions of Femininities and Sexualities in Online Spaces. SubVersions, 3 (2), 1-21.
2015
Subramanian, S. From the Streets to the Web: Looking at Feminist Activism on Social Media. Review of Women’s Studies, Economic and Political Weekly, 50 (17), 7178.
2021
Subramanian, S. Icons and Archive of the Protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the National Register of Citizens. Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, 37 (2), 127-135.
2020
Subramanian, S. Bahujan girls’ anti-caste activism on TikTok. Feminist Media Studies 21(1). 154-156.
2019
Subramanian, S. Is Hindutva Masculinity on Social Media Producing A Culture of Violence Against Women and Muslims? Economic and Political Weekly Engage, 54 (15).
2018
Subramanian, S. Women from Outside: Review of Selfing the City: Single Women Migrants and Their Lives in Kolkata. Economic and Political Weekly, 53 (19), 25-28.
2022
Subramanian, S. Critical Thought in the Time of Digital Technology: The Case of Feminist and Anticaste Activism on Social Media. World Humanities Report. Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (CHCI).
2023
Shchurko, T., Sosnovskaya, O., Mamedov, G., Subramanian, S., & Suchland, J. (2023, January 28). Geographies of Solidarity: Protests in Belarus through a Transnational Feminist Perspective. Feminist Translocalities.
2017
Subramanian, S. (2017, November 12). #MeToo: Challenging boundaries between online and offline. Daily News and Analysis.
Subramanian, S. (2017, May 29). Why are there so few women on the Internet in India? Hindustan Times.
Subramanian, S. (Host). (2017, April 14). Translating the Transnational (Episode Four) [Audio podcast episode]. In Human Rights in Transit: Humanities & Arts Discovery Theme Project. The Ohio State University.
2015
Subramanian, S. (2015, July 1). Being Fake, Being Online: Young Women’s Self Expressions through Multiple Profiles on Social Media. TARSHI (Talking About Reproductive and Sexual Health Issues).
Subramanian, S. (2015, June 15). Why I Decided to Study Feminist Activism on Social Media. GENDERIT.ORG.
2014
Subramanian, S. (2014, October 1). The Dirty Picture. TARSHI (Talking About Reproductive and Sexual Health Issues).
Subramanian, S. (2014, April 14). Doing Digital Humanities: Reflections on a project on Online Feminism in India. The Centre for Internet & Society.
2012
Subramanian, S. (2012, May 8). For the sake of free speech. The Hindu.
2021
Lodhi, A. (2021). Constraints, Confrontations and Community: Women’s Unique and Evolving Social Media Experience. The Daily Q.
2019
Gajjala, R. (2019). Conversation with Ms. Sujatha Subramanian. Cyberdiva’s Podcast.
Talks and Lectures
2024
Plenary Lecture on Researching Brahmanical Patriarchy: Recognizing Caste and Its Intersections with Gender. International Conference on Gendered Societies- Multidimensional Perspectives and Changing Patterns, East Calcutta Girls' College, Kolkata.
2023
Round table on Decolonizing Equity-Diversity-Inclusion Discourses and the Neoliberal University: Lessons from South Asia. Annual Conference on South Asia, University of Wisconsin- Madison.
Caste and Carcerality: Brahmanical Patriarchy as the Foundation of Indian Justice System. The Prajnya Trust.
2022
Interrogating Intersectionality: Is there a Diasporic Feminist Perspective. London College of Communication.
#ViralPotentials: How South Asian Women Use TikTok. MIT Center for International Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Digital Activism in Practice. University of Waterloo, SSHRC-CRSH and the Games Institute.
Geographies of Solidarity: Protests in Belarus through a Transnational Feminist Perspective. The Center for Slavic and East European and Eurasian Studies and the Department of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, The Ohio State University.
2021
Carceral Feminism and Gender-Based Violence. One Future Collective - FemJustice Program.
2020
Girls in the Indian Juvenile Justice System. Webinar on Gender, Migration and Youth Justice in the Global South, The Critical Childhoods and Youth Studies Collective.
The Anti-CAA Protests from the Lens of Caste and Gender. University of Oxford.
2024
Gender and Decoloniality. Course: (De)coloniality - Concepts and Current Debates from an Interdisciplinary Perspective. University of Innsbruck.
2023
Caste and Carcerality in India’s Child Protection Systems. Course: Culture and Society. Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.
2021
Introduction to Transnational Feminism. Course: WS 2000 - Introduction to Women's Studies: Perspectives on Gender, Class and Ethnicity. Bowling Green State University.
2021
The Policing of Protest. "Abolition Is..." Teach In. The Ohio State University.
2018
Education and Transnational Development Discourses: Girls from the Global South. Girls of Color: Resistance & the Politics of Empowerment Symposium. The Ohio State University.
Conferences, Workshops and Seminars
2023
When Global Governance Intersects with Caste: Studying the Punishment of Girls in India’s Juvenile Justice System. 4th International Conference of SAFI on Punishment, Paris.
Care or Control?: Therapeutic Interventions Around Multiply-Marginalized Girls in India’s Juvenile Justice System. XVII National Conference of Indian Association of Women’s Studies, Trivandrum.
Panel on Studying Up the State in South Asia: Methodological Reflections. American Association of Geographers, Online.
2022
Desire, Detention, and Disruptions: Girls’ Negotiation of Researcher-Participant Relations in Juvenile Detention. Spaces In-Between: Relational Methodologies of Gender, Race, Caste, and Age. National Women’s Studies Association Annual Conference, Minneapolis.
2021
Protesting Children, Protecting Children: Looking at Children’s Protests at Shaheen Bagh. In the Wake of Shaheen Bagh: Historicizing Women’s Political Agency, Ethics of Care, and Protest for a Transnational Feminist Digital Archive. National Women’s Studies Association, Online.
Detention as Protection: Girls’ Experiences of Child Protection Laws in Delhi. RGS-IBG Annual International Conference, Online.
Conceptualizing Notions of Justice: An Intersectional Analysis of Social Media Responses to Popular Cases of Sexual Violence in India. International Communication Association, Online.
The Consenting Adult and Love Jihad. Seminar on Chronological Age. American Historical Association, Online.
2019
The Creation of an Anti-Caste Archive on Social Media. The Arts, Knowledge and Critique in the Digital Age in India. Digital Humanities Conference: Sahapedia and IIT Hyderabad, Hyderabad.
2018
Of Respectable and Safe Selfies: Exploring Girls’ Negotiations with Desire, Risk and Violence. American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, New Orleans.
2017
Educated, Empowered, Essentialized?: Locating Girls within Development Discourses. National Women’s Studies Association, Maryland.
Negotiating Discomfort: Researching Girls within the Adult Feminist Academia. Feminist Geography 2017: Insides & Outsides of Feminism. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
2015
Our Selfies, Our Selves: Young Women’s Reflections on their Engagement with Selfies. Materiality of Cultures: Methods and Practices. The Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi.
2014
Exploring the Self(ie): Understanding Subjectivity of Young Girls through Practices of Self- Representation in Social Media. Mediatised India 2.0, Frames of Reference, School of Media and Cultural Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences. Mumbai.
Honour and Shame: Reconceptualising the State Response to Rape from a Caste Patriarchy Perspective Pluralities: Caste, Inclusion and Intersectionalities, Indian Association for Women’s Studies. Guwahati.
Young Feminists and Social Media: Conceptualising Alternative Spaces of Activism. Young Women: Resisting Violence and Exploring Legacies, Indian Association for Women’s Studies. Guwahati.
2013
The Dirty Picture: Interrogating Sexuality and Subversion in a Postfeminist Bollywood. Seeing through the Screen, Frames of Reference, School of Media and Cultural Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences. Mumbai.
A Site of Her Own: Gendered Violence in Cyberspace. National Conference on “Media Ethics and Social Responsibility”, St Joseph’s College. Bangalore.
2012
Post-Feminist Embodiment: Exploring Violence in Cyberspace. Violence/Erasure/Memory, Frames of Reference, School of Media and Cultural Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences. Mumbai.
2023
Discussant, Inaugural Lecture by Prof. Ashwini Tambe. Girl, (Un)Interrupted: Identity, Experience, Agency, and Representation. University of Delhi, Delhi.
2021
Discussant, Book Launch of Children and NGOs in India: Development as Storytelling and Performance. Critical Childhood and Youth Studies Collective, Online.
2012
Panel: Literature and Reflections on Violence. Frames of Reference, School of Media and Cultural Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.
2011
Panel: Rethinking Sexualities: Mythical and Fictional Narratives. Frames of Reference, School of Media and Cultural Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.
2023
Presenter, Workshop on Rethinking Girl Power. Girl, (Un)Interrupted: Identity, Experience, Agency, and Representation. University of Delhi, Delhi.
2019
Presenter, Feminist and Queer Urban Geographies. Critical Geography South Asia (CGSA) Workshop. Indian Institute of Science, Education and Research, Mohali.
2017
11th Annual Feminist Theory Workshop. Duke University, Durham.
Teaching
2022 - 2023
Lecturer, Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, The Ohio State University
Courses Taught:
- A World of Genders (online synchronous),
- Girlhood (online synchronous),
- Reading Women Writers (online synchronous),
- Women of Color and Social Activism (in person),
- Sexualities and Citizenship (online synchronous),
- Gender, Sex and Power (in person)
2017 - 2022
Graduate Teaching Associate, Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, The Ohio State University
Courses Taught:
- Gender, Sex and Power (in person, online synchronous, online asynchronous modes),
- Girlhood (online synchronous and asynchronous)
Fellowships, Grants and Awards
2023
- Research Grant for Project on Debrahminising Gender, Mavelinadu
2016 - 2022
- Distinguished University Fellowship, The Ohio State University Graduate School
2021
- Alumni Grants for Graduate Research and Scholarship, The Ohio State University
2020
- Alumni Grants for Graduate Research and Scholarship, The Ohio State University
- Arts and Humanities Graduate Research Small Grants, The Ohio State University
2019
- Elizabeth D. Gee Grants for Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies Research, The Ohio State University
2018
- Coca-Cola Critical Difference for Women Research Grant, The Ohio State University
- Common Differences Writing Award, Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, The Ohio State University
- Domestic Travel Award, The Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, The Ohio State University
2017
- Common Differences Writing Award, Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, The Ohio State University
- Domestic Travel Award, Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, The Ohio State University
- Travel Grant, National Women’s Studies Association
- Research Grant, South Asian Studies Initiative, The Ohio State University