Upasana Goswami
Graduate Student
Summary
Upasana is a PhD student in Sociology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a graduate certificate student in Decolonial Global Studies and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies. Her previous work at the North Eastern Social Research Centre focused on gender and land rights at the intersections of tribal customary law and development programs in Northeast India (Assam and Meghalaya). Currently, she has two strands of research. Her first project explores the contentious politics of decolonization, focusing on how and why different transnational social movements lay claim to ideas and politics of indigeneity and decoloniality and how these categories/concepts travel across India and the Americas. Her second project looks at the history of sociology, particularly the imbrications of the discipline of sociology with settler colonial administration and imperial circuits. Her writing has appeared in Asian Ethnicity, The Jugaad Project, Sociology of Health & Illness, and is forthcoming in Sociological Forum.
Research Interests
Global Indigenous politics, decolonial and postcolonial theories, political sociology, social movements, land, gender, sociology of knowledge, historical sociology
Publications
Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
2022 Tula, M. & Goswami, U. Making it Work: Women, Land and Labour in West Karbi Anglong, Assam. Asian Ethnicity. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/14631369.2022.2132912
Books and Book Chapters
Goswami, U. State and the Question of Gender Rights: Contemporary Discourses around Violence Against Women in Assam. In Fernandes, W. & Barbora, S. (Eds.) Research, Reflection, and Community Engagement: NESRC’s Journey over 25 years. Guwahati: North Eastern Social Research Centre.
Fernandes, W., Dutta B., Sambyo, D., Nyori, M. & Goswami, U. In the Name of Lighting My House: Displaced for Development, Arunachal Pradesh 1947-2015. Guwahati: North Eastern Social Research Centre.
Tula, M. & Goswami, U. (2022). Intimate Inheritance: Indigenous Women, Customs and Land in Northeast India. Guwahati: North Eastern Social Research Centre.
Book Review
Goswami, U. Vijayakumar, G. At Risk: Indian Sexual Politics and the Global Aids Crisis. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 2021. 280 pp $28.00 (pbk) ISBN 9781503628052. Sociology of Health and Illness. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.13767
Public Writing
Goswami, U. and Sarma, A. Women, Work and Wine: Shifting cultures of brewing in Northeast India. The Jugaad Project.