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SOUTH ASIAN UNIVERSITY

A University Established by SAARC Nations

SOUTH ASIAN UNIVERSITY

A University established by SAARC Nations

Juanita Kakoty

Assistant Professor
PhD (Department of Political Science, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi in 2025)

Contact Details

juanita(at)sau.int
South Asian University, Rajpur Road, Maidan Garhi, New Delhi - 110068
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Profile

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at South Asian University, where I teach undergraduate and post-graduate students. I have worked in the interstices of academia and industry for over 15 years, contributing to policy advocacy, teacher training manuals, research, and documentation. My research is situated in the interstices of sociology, political science, gender studies, and public policy. I have engaged with sexual abuse prevention academically and at the level of policy advocacy for over six years. My academic writings have appeared in various journals and books, and I was the associate editor of the peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary journal 'ANTYAJAA: Indian Journal of Women and Social Change' (SAGE, ISSN: 24556327) during 2015-2018. I pursue interdisciplinary research methods and am particularly interested in the hermeneutics of text and language within the framework of symbolic interactionism.  

I am also a fiction writer with sociological imagination. My short stories have appeared in Himal Southasian, Kitaab, The Assam Tribune and other publications. ‘Beating Loneliness' was shortlisted for the Book Review Literary Trust Short Story Competition in 2020 and eventually appeared in the anthology The Thief's Funeral (2024), published by Aleph Book Company. ‘Love, virtually’ made it to the longlist of the Himal Southasian Short Story competition in 2013; and ‘How Achchan Miyan Lost His Mind’ was longlisted for the DNA-Out of Print Short Story Contest in 2017, which later appeared as Himal Southasian's first podcast retitled as 'Where is Arsalan Miyan?'. Besides, I have written over 100 features stories on people and culture which have appeared in Deccan Herald, Thomson Reuters News Foundation, The Assam Tribune, and across other sites.

Qualifications

  • Ph.D. from the Department of Political Science, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi in 2025.
  • M.Phil. in Sociology from the Center for the Study of Social Systems, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi in 2005.
  • M.A. in Sociology from  the Center for the Study of Social Systems, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi in 2003.
  • B.A. in Sociology from Hindu College, University of Delhi, in 2001.

Research Interests

  • Theoretical and methodological issues in the social sciences
  • Gender-based violence and prevention
  • Social constructionism and the interpretation of texts
  • Storytelling in South Asia
  • Alternative and Indigenous Epistemologies of Healing

Previous Projects

  • I played a key role in securing the collaborative project between the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Sussex, United Kingdom, and the Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies (CSDMS) in India. It was primarily centered on knowledge-sharing networks and decentralized information services for international development, specifically Eldis. March 2011 – March 2012.
  • I was part of Euro-India SPIRIT, a European Commission-funded project under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), which brought together a diverse consortium of European and Indian organizations to map ICT activities, run stakeholder surveys, and build long-term cooperative bridges. Dec 2009 – Dec 2011.
  • I was part of the research team that conducted the study titled ‘Assessing the Status of Lower-Income Group Working Women in NOIDA and Faridabad,’ published in August 2007 by the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), which evaluates how rapid urban industrialization affects vulnerable female laborers. The assessment focused heavily on women migrating into the National Capital Region (NCR) to work in the informal economy, particularly as domestic helpers, garment factory workers, and construction laborers.
  • Process Audit of Pratham’s Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), West Bengal, as part of Google Foundation's study. October 2007.

Recent Publications

  • ‘Ontologising Prostitution in India: At the Intersection of Policy, Activism and Advocacy’ forthcoming in Society and Culture in South Asia (a Scopus-indexed, Q2 journal).
  • ‘The Perna Women: Vulnerabilities, Opportunities and Work,’ in peer-reviewed journal ANTYAJAA: Indian Journal of Women and Social Change, Volume 3, Issue 2, 163-180, SAGE: New Delhi, 2018. (indexed in Google Scholar)
  • ‘Hina Jilani on her Satyagraha for Women’s Rights in Pakistan,’ in peer-reviewed journal ANTYAJAA: Indian Journal of Women and Social Change, 1(2), 246-253, SAGE: New Delhi, 2017. (indexed in Google Scholar)
  • ‘Rachel Moran: Journey of a Prostitution Survivor to a Women’s Liberation Leader,’ in peer-reviewed journal ANTYAJAA: Indian Journal of Women and Social Change, Volume 1, Issue 1, 122-127, SAGE: New Delhi, 2016. (indexed in Google Scholar)
  • ‘Linking Child Marriage and Prostitution: The Last Girl’ in Samita Sen and Anindita Ghosh (ed.), Love, Labour and Law: Early and Child Marriage in India. ISBN 978-93-81345-62-7. New Delhi: SAGE, 2021. (indexed in Google Scholar)
  • ‘Participation In and Access to The Public “Sacred” Space: Sisterhood and the Naamghar in Assam,’ in Nandana Dutta (ed.), Communities of Women in Assam: Being, Doing and Thinking Together. ISBN 9780815396093. New York: Routledge, 2016. (indexed in Google Scholar)
  • ‘Prostitution as Slavery: Intersectionalities of Caste, Class, Age, and Gender’ in Debajit Goswami and Manoj Kumar Haldar (ed.), Caste, Social Formation and Political Mobilization. ISBN 78-93-82112-82-2. Kolkata: Netaji Subhas Open University, June 2022.
  • 'Ethnic identity and nationalism with special reference to Assam.’ In Dilip Gogoi (ed.), Contemporary concerns, essays by young minds: Cotton Conclave. ISBN 81-89003-26-7. Anwesha, 2008.

Recent Books

Recent Book Reviews

  • ‘Stories of the Making of a Region: Assam from a Hoary Past to the Present,’ review of Shehnab Sahin’s Colour My Grave Purple and Other Stories in the UGC-Care indexed The Book Review, Vol. 50, No. 4, May 2026.
  • ‘Ontologizing Prostitution and its Multilayered Complexities,’ review of Vibhuti Ramachandran’s Immoral Traffic: An Ethnography of Law, NGOs, and the Governance of Prostitution in India,’ in the UGC-Care indexed The Book Review, Feb 2026, Vol. 50, No. 2.
  • ‘Myriad Ways of Seeing,’ review of Dev Nath Pathak’s To Be Or Not To Be Sociological, in the UGC-Care indexed The Book Review, vol. 49, No. 5, May 2025.
  • ‘Situating Women in the Debate of Tibetan Nation-Building and Nationalism in Exile,’ review of Amrita Saikia’ Gender, Nation, And Nationalism: Perspectives Of Tibetan Women In Exile in the UGC-Care indexed The Book Review, vol. 49, No. 4, April 2025.

Fellowships

  • Junior Research Fellowship (JRF), University Grants Commission (UGC), Ministry of Education, Government of India. 2003-2005.
  • Senior Research Fellowship (SRF), University Grants Commission (UGC), Ministry of Education, Government of India. 2005-2008.

Awards & Honours

  • Nominated Member, Departmental Advisory Board, Gender Studies, National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), New Delhi. 2021–2024.
  • Visitor, Information Programme of the Federal Republic of Germany, 10–17 July 2016 — Nominated by the German Consulate Kolkata and selected by the Federal Foreign Office, Berlin.

Last Updated : 02 Sep 2026