Soma Chaudhuri
Biographic Data
| ID | 3685775 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Soma Chaudhuri |
| GIVEN NAMES | Soma |
| FAMILY NAME | Chaudhuri |
| SIGNATURE | CHAUDHURI S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Michigan State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6241-2428 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 28 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 87 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 27 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Poetic Break
Creative thinking often improves during incubation, a phase where attention shifts away from the problem, generally involving mind-wandering. This study examined whether reading poetry could be an effective incubator for creative ideation. A total of 153 participants were randomly assigned to one of the three incubation conditions: reading a poem (reading), reading and rating the poem (rating), and reading non-poetic text (control). Creativity wa…
The New Witch studies
Below, the Journal of Gender Studies editor, Feona Attwood chairs a roundtable discussion of the book with Soma Chaudhuri, Emma Quilty and Jane Ward about their books The Witch Studies Reader (Chau
Witch hunts everywhere
The time for witch studies is now. This special issue of the Journal of Gender Studies arrives at a historical juncture in which the figure of the witch, whether invoked in literal accusations lead...
Negotiating With Intersectional Consciousness
The article explores how grassroots women leaders in Gujarat, India, enact intersectional consciousness, the strategic deployment of intersecting identities, during the micropolitics of everyday advocacy. While intersectionality has been widely theorized as an analytical lens for understanding inequality, less is known about how activists do intersectional analysis to address immediate needs rather than advance broad policy reform. Drawing on 251…
The Witch Studies Reader
Evaluation of poetic creativity
Poetry is one of the most creative expressions of language, but how we evaluate the creativity of a poem is not properly characterized. The present study investigated the role of various subjective qualities – clarity, aesthetic appeal, felt valence, arousal, and surprise – in predicting the creativity judgment of English poems. Participants (N=129) were presented with a broad range of English poems; they rated each poem on six characteristics: c…
Witch Studies Reader
The Power of Brevity
Understanding how creativity is judged in brief, structured texts is essential for exploring aesthetic and emotional engagement in minimalist art forms. Haiku and Senryu, two concise poetic genres, provide a unique lens to investigate how creativity is perceived under constraints of brevity. This study examines how readers' subjective experiences of poems, their personality traits, and the structure of their semantic memory networks influence cre…
Evaluating Poetry
The comprehension and appreciation of poetry are inherently subjective, involving both creativity and aesthetic appeal. However, do these assessments of aesthetics and creativity rely on identical criteria, or do they vary depending on underlying factors? We addressed this question in this study. Participants ( N = 96) evaluated 25 English poems across nine subjective characteristics: reading fluency, vivid imagery, perceived emotions (valence an…
Caregiving and Care Receiving Among Asian Indian Immigrants in the Usa During the Covid-19 Pandemic
This study examines the intersection of wellbeing and care experienced by first-generation Asian Indian high-skilled immigrants in the USA in spaces varying from the home to the neighborhood, city, and state in sending and receiving countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. The spread of COVID-19 resulted in new stressors that affected the physical, mental, and emotional health of interviewees, but many found ways to mitigate the effects of the pan…
Defund the police
Research summary : Using qualitative interviews, this study examines how protesters with varying levels of commitment to the Black Lives Matter movement perceive the slogan defund the police. Findings indicate while a small number had reservations regarding the term, the vast majority of protesters associate defunding as a two‐step process that starts with reduction of police budgets, followed by reallocation of these resources toward much needed…
Potential opportunities and challenging realities
Protesting During a Pandemic
The study elucidates the interplay of COVID-19 and the wave of Black Lives Matter protests to assess motivation and risk taking for protest participation. We draw on protesters’ accounts to examine how police violence influenced the participants decision making to participate in the 2020 March on Washington during a pandemic that exacerbated the risks already in place from protesting the police. We found that protesters’ social position and commi…
Building Empowerment, Resisting Patriarchy
This research explores how empowerment programs impact gender-based violence and the social structures that lead to such violence in the first place. Drawing from interviews with former participants in empowerment programs that focus on building community leaders, the study examines how grassroots women lead interventions and their effects on leaders’ and survivors’ lives. We find that although most survivors had displayed some agency in independ…
I Will Be Out There Every Day Strong!” Protest Policing and Future Activism Among Ferguson and Baltimore Protesters
An established body of literature shows that people engage in protest events for a number of reasons, including grievances, collective identity, increased efficacy, and emotions. However, it is unclear what happens to individuals’ motivation toward protest participation as they experience the reality of repressive policing. This study contributes to the theoretical body of knowledge of protest policing and social movements by investigating the mi…
Monitoring Team Interviews during Fieldwork
This article contributes to methodological discussions of monitoring interviewer-administered surveys during fieldwork on wife abuse in India. Researchers collecting primary data often have to navigate unfamiliar social and cultural norms of conduct, travel to remote locations and have to obtain fluency in multiple languages to begin the process of conducting interviews. Further, conducting interviews may pose additional complications as cultural…
Undervalued Dissent
Witches, Activists, and Bureaucrats
This article contributes to methodological discussions on gatekeeping issues encountered during fieldwork on stigmatized practices. Here, negotiating gatekeeping becomes particularly relevant, as access to a research population is often mediated via institutions. The situation is further complicated given the location of research, where the researcher has to navigate unfamiliar social and cultural norms of conduct. The paper examines gatekeeping …
Rape Protests in India and the Birth of a New Repertoire
The gang rape of a young physiotherapy student on a moving bus in December of 2012, in Delhi, India, brought forward a series of countrywide protests. These protests were unique compared with prior protests in India, leading to a need to re-examine the political importance of social movements in the subcontinent. Using data from 748 newspaper reports on the demonstrations that took place from December 2012 to April 2013, this paper examines the u…
Of Virgins and Martyrs
Marriage Migration, Patriarchal Bargains, and Wife Abuse
This article contributes to the literature on wife abuse by using the patriarchal bargaining framework, which highlights the issue of agency as women strive to achieve their goals within the constraints of family and culture. Study participants were recent South Asian immigrants to the United States. Narrative analysis revealed that patriarchal constraints in natal families, culture, and expectations of benefits gained through marriage influenced…
Witches, Tea Plantations, and Lives of Migrant Laborers in India
Witches, Tea Plantations, and Lives of Migrant Laborers in India: Tempest in Teapot is a unique book that brings together a holistic theoretical approach on the subject of witchcraft accusations, specifically those taking place inside a tea workers' community in India. Using a combination of in-depth and extensive qualitative methods, and drawing on sociological, anthropological, and historical perspectives, Chaudhuri explores how adivasi (tribal…
Witches, Tea Plantations, and Lives of Migrant Laborers in India
Women as Easy Scapegoats
This article revisits a much-debated question: Why are women popular targets during witch hunts? By using in-depth interviews this article provides an answer. Women are easy targets or scapegoats for two reasons. First, it is widely believed in the community that was studied that witches do, in fact, exist, and the images of witches are always female. Second, tribal women hold lower positions than men in all social, political, and ritual matters,…
Strategic Framing Work(s)
This article shows how a social movement organization focused on microcredit loans is able to mobilize a community against its own cultural practice of witch-hunts. Successful mobilization against witch-hunts are possible when two conditions are met: first, when activists are able to tap into microcredit groups' social capacity for collective mobilization (defined by ties of mutual dependence, reciprocity, and friendship); and second, when activi…
Marriage Migration, Patriarchal Bargains, and Wife Abuse
This article contributes to the literature on wife abuse by using the patriarchal bargaining framework, which highlights the issue of agency as women strive to achieve their goals within the constraints of family and culture. Study participants were recent South Asian immigrants to the United States. Narrative analysis revealed that patriarchal constraints in natal families, culture, and expectations of benefits gained through marriage influenced…
Defund the police
Research summary : Using qualitative interviews, this study examines how protesters with varying levels of commitment to the Black Lives Matter movement perceive the slogan defund the police. Findings indicate while a small number had reservations regarding the term, the vast majority of protesters associate defunding as a two‐step process that starts with reduction of police budgets, followed by reallocation of these resources toward much needed…
I Will Be Out There Every Day Strong!” Protest Policing and Future Activism Among Ferguson and Baltimore Protesters
An established body of literature shows that people engage in protest events for a number of reasons, including grievances, collective identity, increased efficacy, and emotions. However, it is unclear what happens to individuals’ motivation toward protest participation as they experience the reality of repressive policing. This study contributes to the theoretical body of knowledge of protest policing and social movements by investigating the mi…
Becoming Full Citizens
Few studies of social movement political success investigate the strategic and tactical approaches used to achieve positive political outcomes. This work investigates a rarely studied mobilization of U.S. women in the first half of the 20th century to explore how movement organizations bring about legal change. Archival data for 15 states are examined to investigate how women won the right to sit on juries. The authors argue that jury movement ac…
Witches, Activists, and Bureaucrats
This article contributes to methodological discussions on gatekeeping issues encountered during fieldwork on stigmatized practices. Here, negotiating gatekeeping becomes particularly relevant, as access to a research population is often mediated via institutions. The situation is further complicated given the location of research, where the researcher has to navigate unfamiliar social and cultural norms of conduct. The paper examines gatekeeping …
Strategic Framing Work(s)
This article shows how a social movement organization focused on microcredit loans is able to mobilize a community against its own cultural practice of witch-hunts. Successful mobilization against witch-hunts are possible when two conditions are met: first, when activists are able to tap into microcredit groups' social capacity for collective mobilization (defined by ties of mutual dependence, reciprocity, and friendship); and second, when activi…
Rape Protests in India and the Birth of a New Repertoire
The gang rape of a young physiotherapy student on a moving bus in December of 2012, in Delhi, India, brought forward a series of countrywide protests. These protests were unique compared with prior protests in India, leading to a need to re-examine the political importance of social movements in the subcontinent. Using data from 748 newspaper reports on the demonstrations that took place from December 2012 to April 2013, this paper examines the u…
Women as Easy Scapegoats
This article revisits a much-debated question: Why are women popular targets during witch hunts? By using in-depth interviews this article provides an answer. Women are easy targets or scapegoats for two reasons. First, it is widely believed in the community that was studied that witches do, in fact, exist, and the images of witches are always female. Second, tribal women hold lower positions than men in all social, political, and ritual matters,…
Caregiving and Care Receiving Among Asian Indian Immigrants in the Usa During the Covid-19 Pandemic
This study examines the intersection of wellbeing and care experienced by first-generation Asian Indian high-skilled immigrants in the USA in spaces varying from the home to the neighborhood, city, and state in sending and receiving countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. The spread of COVID-19 resulted in new stressors that affected the physical, mental, and emotional health of interviewees, but many found ways to mitigate the effects of the pan…
Undervalued Dissent
Evaluating Poetry
The comprehension and appreciation of poetry are inherently subjective, involving both creativity and aesthetic appeal. However, do these assessments of aesthetics and creativity rely on identical criteria, or do they vary depending on underlying factors? We addressed this question in this study. Participants ( N = 96) evaluated 25 English poems across nine subjective characteristics: reading fluency, vivid imagery, perceived emotions (valence an…
Becoming Full Citizens
Few studies of social movement political success investigate the strategic and tactical approaches used to achieve positive political outcomes. This work investigates a rarely studied mobilization of U.S. women in the first half of the 20th century to explore how movement organizations bring about legal change. Archival data for 15 states are examined to investigate how women won the right to sit on juries. The authors argue that jury movement ac…
Erotic Journeys
The Fight for Property Rights
This article seeks to demonstrate how, in the movement for property rights for women in India, changes in the composition of the movement—audience, supporters, and counter actors—at various time periods in a movement's history influence the change in selection of frames. The arguments for gender equality would have been made too early for a society that had practically no rights for women (early phases), when men played the dominant role. Thus th…
Women as Easy Scapegoats
This article revisits a much-debated question: Why are women popular targets during witch hunts? By using in-depth interviews this article provides an answer. Women are easy targets or scapegoats for two reasons. First, it is widely believed in the community that was studied that witches do, in fact, exist, and the images of witches are always female. Second, tribal women hold lower positions than men in all social, political, and ritual matters,…
Strategic Framing Work(s)
This article shows how a social movement organization focused on microcredit loans is able to mobilize a community against its own cultural practice of witch-hunts. Successful mobilization against witch-hunts are possible when two conditions are met: first, when activists are able to tap into microcredit groups' social capacity for collective mobilization (defined by ties of mutual dependence, reciprocity, and friendship); and second, when activi…
Witches, Tea Plantations, and Lives of Migrant Laborers in India
Witches, Tea Plantations, and Lives of Migrant Laborers in India: Tempest in Teapot is a unique book that brings together a holistic theoretical approach on the subject of witchcraft accusations, specifically those taking place inside a tea workers' community in India. Using a combination of in-depth and extensive qualitative methods, and drawing on sociological, anthropological, and historical perspectives, Chaudhuri explores how adivasi (tribal…
Witches, Tea Plantations, and Lives of Migrant Laborers in India
Marriage Migration, Patriarchal Bargains, and Wife Abuse
This article contributes to the literature on wife abuse by using the patriarchal bargaining framework, which highlights the issue of agency as women strive to achieve their goals within the constraints of family and culture. Study participants were recent South Asian immigrants to the United States. Narrative analysis revealed that patriarchal constraints in natal families, culture, and expectations of benefits gained through marriage influenced…
Rape Protests in India and the Birth of a New Repertoire
The gang rape of a young physiotherapy student on a moving bus in December of 2012, in Delhi, India, brought forward a series of countrywide protests. These protests were unique compared with prior protests in India, leading to a need to re-examine the political importance of social movements in the subcontinent. Using data from 748 newspaper reports on the demonstrations that took place from December 2012 to April 2013, this paper examines the u…
Of Virgins and Martyrs
Witches, Activists, and Bureaucrats
This article contributes to methodological discussions on gatekeeping issues encountered during fieldwork on stigmatized practices. Here, negotiating gatekeeping becomes particularly relevant, as access to a research population is often mediated via institutions. The situation is further complicated given the location of research, where the researcher has to navigate unfamiliar social and cultural norms of conduct. The paper examines gatekeeping …
Undervalued Dissent
Building Empowerment, Resisting Patriarchy
This research explores how empowerment programs impact gender-based violence and the social structures that lead to such violence in the first place. Drawing from interviews with former participants in empowerment programs that focus on building community leaders, the study examines how grassroots women lead interventions and their effects on leaders’ and survivors’ lives. We find that although most survivors had displayed some agency in independ…
I Will Be Out There Every Day Strong!” Protest Policing and Future Activism Among Ferguson and Baltimore Protesters
An established body of literature shows that people engage in protest events for a number of reasons, including grievances, collective identity, increased efficacy, and emotions. However, it is unclear what happens to individuals’ motivation toward protest participation as they experience the reality of repressive policing. This study contributes to the theoretical body of knowledge of protest policing and social movements by investigating the mi…
Monitoring Team Interviews during Fieldwork
This article contributes to methodological discussions of monitoring interviewer-administered surveys during fieldwork on wife abuse in India. Researchers collecting primary data often have to navigate unfamiliar social and cultural norms of conduct, travel to remote locations and have to obtain fluency in multiple languages to begin the process of conducting interviews. Further, conducting interviews may pose additional complications as cultural…
Protesting During a Pandemic
The study elucidates the interplay of COVID-19 and the wave of Black Lives Matter protests to assess motivation and risk taking for protest participation. We draw on protesters’ accounts to examine how police violence influenced the participants decision making to participate in the 2020 March on Washington during a pandemic that exacerbated the risks already in place from protesting the police. We found that protesters’ social position and commi…
Defund the police
Research summary : Using qualitative interviews, this study examines how protesters with varying levels of commitment to the Black Lives Matter movement perceive the slogan defund the police. Findings indicate while a small number had reservations regarding the term, the vast majority of protesters associate defunding as a two‐step process that starts with reduction of police budgets, followed by reallocation of these resources toward much needed…
Potential opportunities and challenging realities
Caregiving and Care Receiving Among Asian Indian Immigrants in the Usa During the Covid-19 Pandemic
This study examines the intersection of wellbeing and care experienced by first-generation Asian Indian high-skilled immigrants in the USA in spaces varying from the home to the neighborhood, city, and state in sending and receiving countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. The spread of COVID-19 resulted in new stressors that affected the physical, mental, and emotional health of interviewees, but many found ways to mitigate the effects of the pan…
The Witch Studies Reader
Evaluation of poetic creativity
Poetry is one of the most creative expressions of language, but how we evaluate the creativity of a poem is not properly characterized. The present study investigated the role of various subjective qualities – clarity, aesthetic appeal, felt valence, arousal, and surprise – in predicting the creativity judgment of English poems. Participants (N=129) were presented with a broad range of English poems; they rated each poem on six characteristics: c…
Witch Studies Reader
The Power of Brevity
Understanding how creativity is judged in brief, structured texts is essential for exploring aesthetic and emotional engagement in minimalist art forms. Haiku and Senryu, two concise poetic genres, provide a unique lens to investigate how creativity is perceived under constraints of brevity. This study examines how readers' subjective experiences of poems, their personality traits, and the structure of their semantic memory networks influence cre…
Evaluating Poetry
The comprehension and appreciation of poetry are inherently subjective, involving both creativity and aesthetic appeal. However, do these assessments of aesthetics and creativity rely on identical criteria, or do they vary depending on underlying factors? We addressed this question in this study. Participants ( N = 96) evaluated 25 English poems across nine subjective characteristics: reading fluency, vivid imagery, perceived emotions (valence an…
Poetic Break
Creative thinking often improves during incubation, a phase where attention shifts away from the problem, generally involving mind-wandering. This study examined whether reading poetry could be an effective incubator for creative ideation. A total of 153 participants were randomly assigned to one of the three incubation conditions: reading a poem (reading), reading and rating the poem (rating), and reading non-poetic text (control). Creativity wa…
Political science (18 works) · Sociology (16 works) · Politics (13 works) · Law (12 works) · Law (11 works) · Psychology (11 works) · Art (8 works) · Gender Studies (7 works) · Gender Politics and Representation (6 works) · Gender Studies (6 works)