Radhika Govinda
Biographic Data
| ID | 303876 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Radhika Govinda |
| GIVEN NAMES | Radhika |
| FAMILY NAME | Govinda |
| SIGNATURE | GOVINDA R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Edinburgh |
| ORCID | 0009-0005-3291-3984 |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 33 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 11 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Cultivating feminist knowledge
I want to begin by sincerely thanking the journal for hosting a symposium on my book, and my interlocutors for their close reading and thoughtful engagement with it. I am also grateful for the oppo...
Doing Feminisms in the Academy
From the taxi drivers’ rear-view mirror
The Delhi Gang Rape and other public sexual violence cases have led Delhi to acquire the dubious distinction of being called India’s ‘rape capital’. This has been accompanied by an outcry for guaranteeing ‘women’s safety’ in the city. The growing incidence of violence against women in urban India, more generally, is said to point to a crisis of masculinity, where the confidence shown by women entering higher education, the workplace and the publi…
Marie-Caroline Saglio-Yatzimirsky, Dharavi, From Mega-Slum to Urban Paradigm
With a population of nearly a million and physically covering a three-square-kilometre stretch at the heart of India’s financial capital, Mumbai, Dharavi is known to the world as ‘Asia’s largest slum.’ In the last decade or so, the crowded, labyrinthine slum has drawn the attention of entrepreneurs, real estate investors and politicians, sensing the money to be made and the votes to be got. A cursory online search reveals that it has been in nati…
Introduction. Delhi’s Margins
Delhi has been known by many names, some rising to prominence as others fade: the Imperial City, dotted by historical monuments and wide tree-lined avenues; the Capital City, from where the country’s administration is run; Partition City, which provided a safe haven to Punjabi refugees; a city in a hurry to become a ‘World Class’ City. It has always also been a city of the displaced and the dispossessed, the poor and the underprivileged who have …
Didi, are you Hindu?' Politics of Secularism in Women's Activism in India
In this paper I take the women's movement as the site for unpacking some of the strains and tensions involved in practical interpretations of secularism in present-day India. Several sources within and outside the movement point out that there has been a tendency to take the existence of secularism for granted, and that the supposedly secular idioms and symbols used for mobilizing women have been drawn from Hindu religio-cultural sources. Women f…
First Our Fields, Now Our Women
This paper is about gender politics in Delhi’s urban villages in transition. It explores the gender differentiated ways in which men and women of Delhi’s urban villages have experienced the shift from peasant subsistence economy to capitalist urban economy, the implications this has had for gender relations and family dynamics and whether the shift has transformed the relations of men and women of dominant castes with those of other (lower) caste…
Mapping ‘Gender Evaluation’ in South Asia
This article reviews literature on gender, development and evaluation to map the emerging theoretical terrain of measuring change in gender relations in South Asia. It traces the separate but related trajectories of thinking on gender and development, of ‘evaluation culture’, and of conducting social science research to explore the points where these conflict and converge. It also presents an overview of the most commonly used frameworks employed…
In the Name of ‘Poor and Marginalised’? Politics of NGO Activism with Dalit Women in Rural North India
Assertion by the Dalits or ex-untouchables is one of the most significant developments in contemporary India. Dalit women have actively participated in Dalit movements and in women's and development NGOs activism. However, their voices and perspectives are said to have been marginalised by movements and NGOs alike. This article unpacks the complexities, contradictions and challenges that are produced, reproduced and subverted in NGO activism with…
Re-inventing Dalit women's identity? Dynamics of social activism and electoral politics in rural north India
Dalit or ex-untouchable women's voices and perspectives have been marginalized not only in Dalit movements but also in predominantly upper-caste Hindu-led women's movements. This paper aims at exploring the unheard voices and perspectives of Dalit women in the context of Dalit assertion in the state of Uttar Pradesh, north India. Scholarly writing examines the different facets of Dalit political assertion led by the Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar P…
The politics of the marginalised
The assertion of Dalit interests has posed new challenges for the women's movement in India, which has been criticised for its lack of engagement with Dalit women and their interests. Some women's activists have begun to respond to this critique. Yet this article argues that caste identity still determines the place that women activists – upper caste and Dalit – are given by villagers in their fieldwork and within women's organisations. The artic…
In the Name of ‘Poor and Marginalised’? Politics of NGO Activism with Dalit Women in Rural North India
Assertion by the Dalits or ex-untouchables is one of the most significant developments in contemporary India. Dalit women have actively participated in Dalit movements and in women's and development NGOs activism. However, their voices and perspectives are said to have been marginalised by movements and NGOs alike. This article unpacks the complexities, contradictions and challenges that are produced, reproduced and subverted in NGO activism with…
From the taxi drivers’ rear-view mirror
The Delhi Gang Rape and other public sexual violence cases have led Delhi to acquire the dubious distinction of being called India’s ‘rape capital’. This has been accompanied by an outcry for guaranteeing ‘women’s safety’ in the city. The growing incidence of violence against women in urban India, more generally, is said to point to a crisis of masculinity, where the confidence shown by women entering higher education, the workplace and the publi…
Re-inventing Dalit women's identity? Dynamics of social activism and electoral politics in rural north India
Dalit or ex-untouchable women's voices and perspectives have been marginalized not only in Dalit movements but also in predominantly upper-caste Hindu-led women's movements. This paper aims at exploring the unheard voices and perspectives of Dalit women in the context of Dalit assertion in the state of Uttar Pradesh, north India. Scholarly writing examines the different facets of Dalit political assertion led by the Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar P…
Didi, are you Hindu?' Politics of Secularism in Women's Activism in India
In this paper I take the women's movement as the site for unpacking some of the strains and tensions involved in practical interpretations of secularism in present-day India. Several sources within and outside the movement point out that there has been a tendency to take the existence of secularism for granted, and that the supposedly secular idioms and symbols used for mobilizing women have been drawn from Hindu religio-cultural sources. Women f…
The politics of the marginalised
The assertion of Dalit interests has posed new challenges for the women's movement in India, which has been criticised for its lack of engagement with Dalit women and their interests. Some women's activists have begun to respond to this critique. Yet this article argues that caste identity still determines the place that women activists – upper caste and Dalit – are given by villagers in their fieldwork and within women's organisations. The artic…
First Our Fields, Now Our Women
This paper is about gender politics in Delhi’s urban villages in transition. It explores the gender differentiated ways in which men and women of Delhi’s urban villages have experienced the shift from peasant subsistence economy to capitalist urban economy, the implications this has had for gender relations and family dynamics and whether the shift has transformed the relations of men and women of dominant castes with those of other (lower) caste…
The politics of the marginalised
The assertion of Dalit interests has posed new challenges for the women's movement in India, which has been criticised for its lack of engagement with Dalit women and their interests. Some women's activists have begun to respond to this critique. Yet this article argues that caste identity still determines the place that women activists – upper caste and Dalit – are given by villagers in their fieldwork and within women's organisations. The artic…
Re-inventing Dalit women's identity? Dynamics of social activism and electoral politics in rural north India
Dalit or ex-untouchable women's voices and perspectives have been marginalized not only in Dalit movements but also in predominantly upper-caste Hindu-led women's movements. This paper aims at exploring the unheard voices and perspectives of Dalit women in the context of Dalit assertion in the state of Uttar Pradesh, north India. Scholarly writing examines the different facets of Dalit political assertion led by the Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar P…
In the Name of ‘Poor and Marginalised’? Politics of NGO Activism with Dalit Women in Rural North India
Assertion by the Dalits or ex-untouchables is one of the most significant developments in contemporary India. Dalit women have actively participated in Dalit movements and in women's and development NGOs activism. However, their voices and perspectives are said to have been marginalised by movements and NGOs alike. This article unpacks the complexities, contradictions and challenges that are produced, reproduced and subverted in NGO activism with…
Mapping ‘Gender Evaluation’ in South Asia
This article reviews literature on gender, development and evaluation to map the emerging theoretical terrain of measuring change in gender relations in South Asia. It traces the separate but related trajectories of thinking on gender and development, of ‘evaluation culture’, and of conducting social science research to explore the points where these conflict and converge. It also presents an overview of the most commonly used frameworks employed…
Introduction. Delhi’s Margins
Delhi has been known by many names, some rising to prominence as others fade: the Imperial City, dotted by historical monuments and wide tree-lined avenues; the Capital City, from where the country’s administration is run; Partition City, which provided a safe haven to Punjabi refugees; a city in a hurry to become a ‘World Class’ City. It has always also been a city of the displaced and the dispossessed, the poor and the underprivileged who have …
Didi, are you Hindu?' Politics of Secularism in Women's Activism in India
In this paper I take the women's movement as the site for unpacking some of the strains and tensions involved in practical interpretations of secularism in present-day India. Several sources within and outside the movement point out that there has been a tendency to take the existence of secularism for granted, and that the supposedly secular idioms and symbols used for mobilizing women have been drawn from Hindu religio-cultural sources. Women f…
First Our Fields, Now Our Women
This paper is about gender politics in Delhi’s urban villages in transition. It explores the gender differentiated ways in which men and women of Delhi’s urban villages have experienced the shift from peasant subsistence economy to capitalist urban economy, the implications this has had for gender relations and family dynamics and whether the shift has transformed the relations of men and women of dominant castes with those of other (lower) caste…
Marie-Caroline Saglio-Yatzimirsky, Dharavi, From Mega-Slum to Urban Paradigm
With a population of nearly a million and physically covering a three-square-kilometre stretch at the heart of India’s financial capital, Mumbai, Dharavi is known to the world as ‘Asia’s largest slum.’ In the last decade or so, the crowded, labyrinthine slum has drawn the attention of entrepreneurs, real estate investors and politicians, sensing the money to be made and the votes to be got. A cursory online search reveals that it has been in nati…
From the taxi drivers’ rear-view mirror
The Delhi Gang Rape and other public sexual violence cases have led Delhi to acquire the dubious distinction of being called India’s ‘rape capital’. This has been accompanied by an outcry for guaranteeing ‘women’s safety’ in the city. The growing incidence of violence against women in urban India, more generally, is said to point to a crisis of masculinity, where the confidence shown by women entering higher education, the workplace and the publi…
Doing Feminisms in the Academy
Cultivating feminist knowledge
I want to begin by sincerely thanking the journal for hosting a symposium on my book, and my interlocutors for their close reading and thoughtful engagement with it. I am also grateful for the oppo...
Political science (9 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Gender Studies (7 works) · Gender Studies (6 works) · Law (6 works) · Geography (5 works) · Politics (5 works) · Law (4 works) · Archaeology (3 works) · Gender Politics and Representation (3 works)