Deepta Chopra
Biographic Data
| ID | 746507 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Deepta Chopra |
| GIVEN NAMES | Deepta |
| FAMILY NAME | Chopra |
| SIGNATURE | CHOPRA D |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Sussex |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0305-5632 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 87 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Backlash at Close Quarters: Rethinking Feminist Politics from South Asia
Backlash as a defining contemporary political condition has received considerable academic and activist attention, particularly from feminist and queer scholars studying the rollback of feminist and queer gains globally. While there is growing consensus around the urgency of theorizing and resisting backlash, there is less agreement on what precisely gender backlash is, how it works, and whether it is, in fact, a useful framework through which to…
RGS-SA-2025-6027- Invisible Work, Visible Malnutrition: A Care-ful Approach to Social Protection and Nutrition
By theorising the interlinkages between care work and nutrition, this paper constructs a framework for how care-ful social protection measures can address this nexus. It argues that the unequal distribution of care work, rooted in entrenched social norms that further invisibilise care, constitutes a significant barrier to effective social protection interventions that address malnutrition. Adopting a feminist analytical framework, the paper highl…
Breastfeeding and infant care as ‘sexed’ care work: Reconsideration of the three Rs to enable women’s rights, economic empowerment, nutrition and health
Women’s 1 lifelong health and nutrition status is intricately related to their reproductive history, including the number and spacing of their pregnancies and births, and for how long and how intensively they breastfeed their children. In turn, women’s reproductive biology is closely linked to their social roles and situation, including regarding economic disadvantage and disproportionate unpaid work. Recognizing , as well as reducing and redistr…
Becoming ‘Mother-Activists’: Deconstructing the Boundaries of the ‘ Ghar ’ and ‘ Bahir ’ in Shaheen Bagh, India
This article examines the motivations of first-time women protestors participating in the Shaheen Bagh resistance against India’s Citizenship Amendment Act. It highlights women’s experiences of protesting for their and their children’s citizenship rights, and the impact that women’s presence in this struggle has made to it. We argue the role these first-time women protestors played in protests made them express and grow their political subjectivi…
Care is not a burden’: A 7-4-7 framework of action for operationalising the Triple R
Our research on government policy responses to address the increase in women’s unpaid care and domestic work during COVID-19, across 59 countries of Asia and the Pacific, shows that less than 30 per cent of measures are care-sensitive and of these only 12 per cent are gender-differentiated. From this analysis, this paper proposes a care-integral approach to ensure gender-transformative outcomes. This approach comprises a unique three-tier framewo…
The Distances that the Covid-19 Pandemic Magnified: Research on Informality and the State
What does research on informal sector workers and the state entail in the time of Covid-19? The pandemic has limited possibilities for in-person interactions and required adaptations in research approaches. These challenges are exacerbated when the subjects of the research are informal sector workers with limited access to technology and undefined spaces of work. In this article, we argue that the Covid-19 pandemic has magnified distances: betwee…
The resistance strikes back: Women’s protest strategies against backlash in India
The Shaheen Bagh site epitomised the longest sit-in intergenerational protests in India since Independence. Especially novel about these protests was the presence and leadership of first-time Muslim women protestors. Shaheen Bagh also inspired other sit-ins across the country, including several across Delhi. Yet, nowhere except Shaheen Bagh did the struggle last as long, with the participation of as many over a continuous and significant period o…
Introduction: Contentious women's empowerment in South Asia
Questions of women's power remain a matter of heated debate globally, but take on a heightened intensity in a South Asia featuring rapid economic growth and structural transformation in recent decades. This Special Issue aims to improve understanding of how the women of South Asia are gaining and exercising power and of the obstacles and backlash they face, moving beyond discussion of women's empowerment as a matter of control over domestic econo…
Paid work, unpaid care work and women's empowerment in Nepal
Employment and work surveys in Nepal have shown a high concentration of women in certain occupations, being flexible, low paid and requiring low skill. In the far-western region (Jumla District, Karnali Zone), the Government of Nepal provides employment to women and men through a public works programme, the Karnali Employment Programme (KEP). This paper assesses the empowerment potential of the KEP and similar employment programmes, and questions…
Taking Care into Account: Leveraging India's MGNREGA for Women's Empowerment
The potential of India's Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) for women's empowerment is immense. Studies examining gender-related issues in MGNREGA have attested to the high levels of participation of women on worksites, and their positive experiences of working in MGNREGA. This article argues, however, that an exclusive focus on increased participation of women does not serve an agenda of promoting 'women's empowerme…
Demand Shortfalls or Supply-side Constraints: What Explains the Shrinking Employment Guarantee in Rajasthan, India
This article presents a political economy explanation for the dramatic decline in performance of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), India’s largest social welfare policy, in one of its highest performing states, Rajasthan. The sharp decline from 2009 to 2010 is shown to be counter-intuitive, given the active civil society engagement right from the early stages of the Act’s making and implementation. Using inform…
Introduction: Connecting Perspectives on Women's Empowerment
With the formulation of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) on gender equality and women’s empowerment, debates around empowerment of women find themselves at a critical juncture of donor preferences, programmatic and movement activity and the lived experiences of women. This introductory article summarises some of the primary debates surrounding women’s empowerment across three lines: economic empowerment and its links with poverty reduction …
Introduction to gender, development and care
Policy advocacy for women's unpaid care work: Comparing approaches and strategies in Nepal and Nigeria
This article focuses on policy advocacy programmes in Nepal and Nigeria, instigated by ActionAid International with local women's rights organisations and non-government organisations, and supported by the Institute of Development Studies, UK. These programmes aimed to challenge women's unequal responsibility for care work and to influence policymakers to understand the importance of providing services to support them. One of the main components …
The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, India: Examining Pathways towards Establishing Rights-Based Social Contracts
Interactions of ‘power’ in the making and shaping of social policy
This paper focuses on the interactions of power as analysed through the formulation story of a recently enacted social policy, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), India. It explains the various drivers that led to the passing of this policy, with a view to analysing the extent and nature of power as was played out in the making of this policy. The paper sets out the way in which social policy formulation can be understood to be a…
Democratic Governance for Social Justice: The Politics of Social Protection
This overview introduces three articles that examine some of the varying forms and dimensions of the politics of social protection policies and programmes, to give us an insight into their transformative potential. The analysis highlights the importance of the multitude of actors and their interactions that mediate the processes and outcomes of social protection programming, in both the policymaking and implementing arenas. This demands attention…
Politics of citizenship: Experiencing state–society relations from the margins
This introduction discusses the articles in this Special Issue, which are all focused on exploring the everyday interactions between marginalised individuals and groups and the state in contemporary India. In particular the articles highlight the experiences of a diverse set of marginalised groups – Muslim artisans and weavers, Dalits, Tibetan exiles and post-conflict victims in Gujarat – in order to work towards an understanding of the politics …
Marginality, Agency and Power: Experiencing the State in Contemporary India
Policy Making in India: A Dynamic Process of Statecraft
Introduction: Contentious women's empowerment in South Asia
Questions of women's power remain a matter of heated debate globally, but take on a heightened intensity in a South Asia featuring rapid economic growth and structural transformation in recent decades. This Special Issue aims to improve understanding of how the women of South Asia are gaining and exercising power and of the obstacles and backlash they face, moving beyond discussion of women's empowerment as a matter of control over domestic econo…
Interactions of ‘power’ in the making and shaping of social policy
This paper focuses on the interactions of power as analysed through the formulation story of a recently enacted social policy, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), India. It explains the various drivers that led to the passing of this policy, with a view to analysing the extent and nature of power as was played out in the making of this policy. The paper sets out the way in which social policy formulation can be understood to be a…
Marginality, Agency and Power: Experiencing the State in Contemporary India
Introduction to gender, development and care
Paid work, unpaid care work and women's empowerment in Nepal
Employment and work surveys in Nepal have shown a high concentration of women in certain occupations, being flexible, low paid and requiring low skill. In the far-western region (Jumla District, Karnali Zone), the Government of Nepal provides employment to women and men through a public works programme, the Karnali Employment Programme (KEP). This paper assesses the empowerment potential of the KEP and similar employment programmes, and questions…
The resistance strikes back: Women’s protest strategies against backlash in India
The Shaheen Bagh site epitomised the longest sit-in intergenerational protests in India since Independence. Especially novel about these protests was the presence and leadership of first-time Muslim women protestors. Shaheen Bagh also inspired other sit-ins across the country, including several across Delhi. Yet, nowhere except Shaheen Bagh did the struggle last as long, with the participation of as many over a continuous and significant period o…
The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, India: Examining Pathways towards Establishing Rights-Based Social Contracts
Policy Making in India: A Dynamic Process of Statecraft
Taking Care into Account: Leveraging India's MGNREGA for Women's Empowerment
The potential of India's Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) for women's empowerment is immense. Studies examining gender-related issues in MGNREGA have attested to the high levels of participation of women on worksites, and their positive experiences of working in MGNREGA. This article argues, however, that an exclusive focus on increased participation of women does not serve an agenda of promoting 'women's empowerme…
Politics of citizenship: Experiencing state–society relations from the margins
This introduction discusses the articles in this Special Issue, which are all focused on exploring the everyday interactions between marginalised individuals and groups and the state in contemporary India. In particular the articles highlight the experiences of a diverse set of marginalised groups – Muslim artisans and weavers, Dalits, Tibetan exiles and post-conflict victims in Gujarat – in order to work towards an understanding of the politics …
Care is not a burden’: A 7-4-7 framework of action for operationalising the Triple R
Our research on government policy responses to address the increase in women’s unpaid care and domestic work during COVID-19, across 59 countries of Asia and the Pacific, shows that less than 30 per cent of measures are care-sensitive and of these only 12 per cent are gender-differentiated. From this analysis, this paper proposes a care-integral approach to ensure gender-transformative outcomes. This approach comprises a unique three-tier framewo…
The Distances that the Covid-19 Pandemic Magnified: Research on Informality and the State
What does research on informal sector workers and the state entail in the time of Covid-19? The pandemic has limited possibilities for in-person interactions and required adaptations in research approaches. These challenges are exacerbated when the subjects of the research are informal sector workers with limited access to technology and undefined spaces of work. In this article, we argue that the Covid-19 pandemic has magnified distances: betwee…
Demand Shortfalls or Supply-side Constraints: What Explains the Shrinking Employment Guarantee in Rajasthan, India
This article presents a political economy explanation for the dramatic decline in performance of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), India’s largest social welfare policy, in one of its highest performing states, Rajasthan. The sharp decline from 2009 to 2010 is shown to be counter-intuitive, given the active civil society engagement right from the early stages of the Act’s making and implementation. Using inform…
Introduction: Connecting Perspectives on Women's Empowerment
With the formulation of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) on gender equality and women’s empowerment, debates around empowerment of women find themselves at a critical juncture of donor preferences, programmatic and movement activity and the lived experiences of women. This introductory article summarises some of the primary debates surrounding women’s empowerment across three lines: economic empowerment and its links with poverty reduction …
Policy advocacy for women's unpaid care work: Comparing approaches and strategies in Nepal and Nigeria
This article focuses on policy advocacy programmes in Nepal and Nigeria, instigated by ActionAid International with local women's rights organisations and non-government organisations, and supported by the Institute of Development Studies, UK. These programmes aimed to challenge women's unequal responsibility for care work and to influence policymakers to understand the importance of providing services to support them. One of the main components …
Interactions of ‘power’ in the making and shaping of social policy
This paper focuses on the interactions of power as analysed through the formulation story of a recently enacted social policy, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), India. It explains the various drivers that led to the passing of this policy, with a view to analysing the extent and nature of power as was played out in the making of this policy. The paper sets out the way in which social policy formulation can be understood to be a…
Democratic Governance for Social Justice: The Politics of Social Protection
This overview introduces three articles that examine some of the varying forms and dimensions of the politics of social protection policies and programmes, to give us an insight into their transformative potential. The analysis highlights the importance of the multitude of actors and their interactions that mediate the processes and outcomes of social protection programming, in both the policymaking and implementing arenas. This demands attention…
Politics of citizenship: Experiencing state–society relations from the margins
This introduction discusses the articles in this Special Issue, which are all focused on exploring the everyday interactions between marginalised individuals and groups and the state in contemporary India. In particular the articles highlight the experiences of a diverse set of marginalised groups – Muslim artisans and weavers, Dalits, Tibetan exiles and post-conflict victims in Gujarat – in order to work towards an understanding of the politics …
Marginality, Agency and Power: Experiencing the State in Contemporary India
Policy Making in India: A Dynamic Process of Statecraft
Introduction to gender, development and care
Policy advocacy for women's unpaid care work: Comparing approaches and strategies in Nepal and Nigeria
This article focuses on policy advocacy programmes in Nepal and Nigeria, instigated by ActionAid International with local women's rights organisations and non-government organisations, and supported by the Institute of Development Studies, UK. These programmes aimed to challenge women's unequal responsibility for care work and to influence policymakers to understand the importance of providing services to support them. One of the main components …
The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, India: Examining Pathways towards Establishing Rights-Based Social Contracts
Demand Shortfalls or Supply-side Constraints: What Explains the Shrinking Employment Guarantee in Rajasthan, India
This article presents a political economy explanation for the dramatic decline in performance of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), India’s largest social welfare policy, in one of its highest performing states, Rajasthan. The sharp decline from 2009 to 2010 is shown to be counter-intuitive, given the active civil society engagement right from the early stages of the Act’s making and implementation. Using inform…
Introduction: Connecting Perspectives on Women's Empowerment
With the formulation of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) on gender equality and women’s empowerment, debates around empowerment of women find themselves at a critical juncture of donor preferences, programmatic and movement activity and the lived experiences of women. This introductory article summarises some of the primary debates surrounding women’s empowerment across three lines: economic empowerment and its links with poverty reduction …
Introduction: Contentious women's empowerment in South Asia
Questions of women's power remain a matter of heated debate globally, but take on a heightened intensity in a South Asia featuring rapid economic growth and structural transformation in recent decades. This Special Issue aims to improve understanding of how the women of South Asia are gaining and exercising power and of the obstacles and backlash they face, moving beyond discussion of women's empowerment as a matter of control over domestic econo…
Paid work, unpaid care work and women's empowerment in Nepal
Employment and work surveys in Nepal have shown a high concentration of women in certain occupations, being flexible, low paid and requiring low skill. In the far-western region (Jumla District, Karnali Zone), the Government of Nepal provides employment to women and men through a public works programme, the Karnali Employment Programme (KEP). This paper assesses the empowerment potential of the KEP and similar employment programmes, and questions…
Taking Care into Account: Leveraging India's MGNREGA for Women's Empowerment
The potential of India's Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) for women's empowerment is immense. Studies examining gender-related issues in MGNREGA have attested to the high levels of participation of women on worksites, and their positive experiences of working in MGNREGA. This article argues, however, that an exclusive focus on increased participation of women does not serve an agenda of promoting 'women's empowerme…
The resistance strikes back: Women’s protest strategies against backlash in India
The Shaheen Bagh site epitomised the longest sit-in intergenerational protests in India since Independence. Especially novel about these protests was the presence and leadership of first-time Muslim women protestors. Shaheen Bagh also inspired other sit-ins across the country, including several across Delhi. Yet, nowhere except Shaheen Bagh did the struggle last as long, with the participation of as many over a continuous and significant period o…
Care is not a burden’: A 7-4-7 framework of action for operationalising the Triple R
Our research on government policy responses to address the increase in women’s unpaid care and domestic work during COVID-19, across 59 countries of Asia and the Pacific, shows that less than 30 per cent of measures are care-sensitive and of these only 12 per cent are gender-differentiated. From this analysis, this paper proposes a care-integral approach to ensure gender-transformative outcomes. This approach comprises a unique three-tier framewo…
The Distances that the Covid-19 Pandemic Magnified: Research on Informality and the State
What does research on informal sector workers and the state entail in the time of Covid-19? The pandemic has limited possibilities for in-person interactions and required adaptations in research approaches. These challenges are exacerbated when the subjects of the research are informal sector workers with limited access to technology and undefined spaces of work. In this article, we argue that the Covid-19 pandemic has magnified distances: betwee…
Breastfeeding and infant care as ‘sexed’ care work: Reconsideration of the three Rs to enable women’s rights, economic empowerment, nutrition and health
Women’s 1 lifelong health and nutrition status is intricately related to their reproductive history, including the number and spacing of their pregnancies and births, and for how long and how intensively they breastfeed their children. In turn, women’s reproductive biology is closely linked to their social roles and situation, including regarding economic disadvantage and disproportionate unpaid work. Recognizing , as well as reducing and redistr…
Becoming ‘Mother-Activists’: Deconstructing the Boundaries of the ‘ Ghar ’ and ‘ Bahir ’ in Shaheen Bagh, India
This article examines the motivations of first-time women protestors participating in the Shaheen Bagh resistance against India’s Citizenship Amendment Act. It highlights women’s experiences of protesting for their and their children’s citizenship rights, and the impact that women’s presence in this struggle has made to it. We argue the role these first-time women protestors played in protests made them express and grow their political subjectivi…
RGS-SA-2025-6027- Invisible Work, Visible Malnutrition: A Care-ful Approach to Social Protection and Nutrition
By theorising the interlinkages between care work and nutrition, this paper constructs a framework for how care-ful social protection measures can address this nexus. It argues that the unequal distribution of care work, rooted in entrenched social norms that further invisibilise care, constitutes a significant barrier to effective social protection interventions that address malnutrition. Adopting a feminist analytical framework, the paper highl…
Backlash at Close Quarters: Rethinking Feminist Politics from South Asia
Backlash as a defining contemporary political condition has received considerable academic and activist attention, particularly from feminist and queer scholars studying the rollback of feminist and queer gains globally. While there is growing consensus around the urgency of theorizing and resisting backlash, there is less agreement on what precisely gender backlash is, how it works, and whether it is, in fact, a useful framework through which to…
Political science (16 works) · Economics (14 works) · Sociology (14 works) · Law (10 works) · Economic growth (9 works) · Politics (9 works) · Engineering (7 works) · Gender Studies (7 works) · Law (7 works) · Gender Politics and Representation (6 works)