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Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA

Master of Social Work (M.S.W.), Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai

Bachelor of Law (LL.B.) Indian Law Society's Law College, Pune University

Graduate Certificate in Women and Gender Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA

Prof. (Dr.) Pallavi Gupta

Associate Professor and Co-Director of the Ph.D Programme at Jindal Global Law School | Director, Centre for Women's Rights

Email pallavi.gupta@jgu.edu.in
Connect with me
ORCID ID 0000-0002-9369-072X
Key Expertise Political economy of cleanliness, care, labour, infrastructure and the law, labour laws, socio-legal and ethnographic methods, legal and political geography, CEDAW and international human rights law.

Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA

Master of Social Work (M.S.W.), Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai

Bachelor of Law (LL.B.) Indian Law Society's Law College, Pune University

Graduate Certificate in Women and Gender Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA

Biography

Pallavi Gupta is an interdisciplinary socio-legal scholar with a PhD from the University of North Carolina, an LLB from Indian Law Society’s Law College, Masters in Social Work, from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, and nearly two decades of combined experience in socio-legal research, human rights advocacy, and university teaching in India and the United States.

Her research examines how constitutional guarantees, labour law, and administrative regulations are experienced unevenly by workers and communities marked by caste, gender, class, and disability. In her research, she examines the intersections of gender, caste, labour, space, and waste within urban public infrastructure. She draws on ethnographic fieldwork with sanitation and transport workers, alongside doctrinal and jurisprudential analysis. Her work has been published in the Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Antipode, Political Geography, and Economic and Political Weekly, to name a few.

Pallavi is a member of the Indian Women Studies Association, and a founding member of Desirable Futures and Against Colonial Grounds, two writing collectives through which she engages with questions of justice, infrastructure, and collective futures. In 2025, she served as Chair of the Feminist Geographies Specialty Group (FGSG) board, American Association of Geographers.

Before joining JGLS, she was faculty at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa. During this time, she also served as an Executive Committee Member of the Center for South Asian Studies at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa. Her university-level teaching spans large lecture courses of over 400 students, and small seminars. 

Pallavi has worked for a decade with feminist organizations in India on issues of non-discrimination, law, and social justice. In this capacity, she designed curriculum and delivered numerous training programs targeting diverse demographic groups, including college students, professionals, civil society organizations, young lawyers, government agencies, and corporate houses. Alongside advocacy work, she undertook research on a wide range of issues, including CEDAW and its compliance in the Indian context, the rights of women, persons with disabilities, indigenous communities, and children.
 

Family Law 1

Advanced Doctoral Seminar From Concept to Craft: Turning Theory into Effective Writing

2025 Political Geography Specialty Group's Mamadouh Outstanding Research Award, for "Geographies of Waiting: Politics, Methods, and Praxis , A Case Study of Indian Railway Stations," at the Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting (AAG) 2025

2023 Doctoral Advancement Award, Office of the Chancellor for Diversity and Student Success, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,Graduate School

2022 Melinda Meade Graduate Student Fellowship, Department of Geography, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

2019 Carolina Women's Center Graduate Student Dissertation Research Award

2005 Legal Aid Student of the Year, Indian Law Society (ILS) Law College, Pune

Institute for Citizens and Scholars' Woodrow Wilson Women's Studies Dissertation Fellowship, 2022

Society for Woman Geographers Evelyn Pruitt Dissertation Research Fellowship, 2020

Humanities Professional Pathway Fellowship, College of Arts & Sciences, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA , and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, 2019

Reviewer, Business and Society

Reviewer, Social and Cultural Geography

Reviewer, American Indian Quarterly

Reviewer, American Historical Association

Reviewer, Asia Pacific Issues

Book proposal reviewer, Springer

Indian Association of Women's Studies

American Association of Geographers

Desirable Futures Collective

Association for Asian Studies

Centre for Women's Rights

Gupta, Pallavi. "The Quotidian Lives of Cleaning Workers: The Entanglement of Racial Capitalism, Caste, Class, and Patriarchy in Clean India and Clean Railways." In Racism by Context, Oxford Intersections. Oxford University Press.

Kandikuppa, Sandeep, and Pallavi Gupta. "Livelihood (In)security and Climate Change: Bridging Global Vision and Local Concerns." In Security Challenges in Contemporary Indo-Pacific. World Scientific Publishing.

Paper presentation at the 4th Global Carework Summit: Histories and Futures of Care, Duke University, June 5–7, 2025.

In the wake of sewage deaths: Law’s Temporality and Infrastructure. Paper presentation at the American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, 28 March 2025, Detroit.

Gupta, Pallavi. "Life Beyond Waste: Work and Infrastructure in Urban Pakistan." Antipode Online.

Gupta, Pallavi. "Temporal Geographies of Premature Death: Caste, Law, and Infrastructure in Swachh Bharat." Political Geography 113: 103158.

Kandikuppa, Sandeep, and Pallavi Gupta. "Letter to the Unknown Indian Kisan." ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies 23(2): 136–140.

Gergan, Mabel, Pallavi Gupta, Lara Lookabaugh, Caitilin McMillan, Sara Smith, and Pavithra Vasudevan (equal editorship). "Desirable Futures: Write Me a Letter." ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies 23(2): 91–106.

Gergan, Mabel, Pallavi Gupta, Lara Lookabaugh, Caitilin McMillan, Carlos Serrano, Sara Smith, and Pavithra Vasudevan (equal editorship). "Desirable Futures: Time as Possibility, Practice, Politics." Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 42(1): 3–16.

Making Clean Railway Station: Urban informality and Smart urbanism. Paper presentation at Beyond Smart City Transitions (?): Thinking Through Structural Violence and Possible Radical Futures, 18 October 2024, Torino, Italy (online).

Rethinking Objects: Material Culture, Labor, and Waste. Paper presentation at Material Culture and Geography 1: Objects, Markets, and Waste, 17 April 2024, Association of American Geographers, Hawaiʻi.

Rethinking Caste in Urban Public Infrastructure in India. Paper presentation for the Critical Caste Studies Panel, Association for Asian Studies Conference, Seattle, 16 March.

Gupta, Pallavi. "Geographies of Waiting: Politics, Methods and Praxis. A Case Study of Indian Railways." The Annals of the American Association of Geographers 113(9): 2068–2083.

Gupta, Pallavi and Sandeep Kandikuppa. "‘Clean’ Infrastructures and the Politics of Cleanliness: A Case Study of Railway Stations in India." Urban Matters, November.

Cleaning workers in Indian Railway Stations and Covid-19. Paper presentation at COVID-19, Cities and Inequality session, Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers, 26 March.

Gupta, Pallavi and Kandikuppa, Sandeep. "‘Clean’ Infrastructures and the Politics of Cleanliness: A Case Study of Railway Stations in India." Urban Matters, November 2023.

Gupta, Pallavi. "Broomscapes: Racial Capitalism, Waste, and Caste in Indian Railway Stations." Ethnic and Racial Studies 45(2): 235–256.

Curley, Andrew, Pallavi Gupta, Lara Lookabaugh, Christopher Neubert, and Sara Smith (equal authorship). "Decolonisation Is a Political Project: Overcoming Impasses between Indigenous Sovereignty and Abolition." Antipode 54(4): 1043–1062.

Gupta, Pallavi. "Broomscapes: Racial Capitalism, Waste, and Caste in Indian Railway Stations." In Rethinking Difference in India Through Racialization: Caste, Tribe, and Hindu Nationalism in Transnational Perspective. Taylor & Francis.

Paper presentation for Gender Issues in Public Transport session at the PUTSPACE Conference, Brussels, Belgium, 20–22 April.

Smart Cities, Clean Cities, and the Invisible Cleaning Workers: A Case Study of Railway Stations in India. Paper presentation at Infrastructures of Urban Life Yet-to-Come, Association for Asian Studies Conference, Honolulu, Hawaii, 24–27 March.

Caste, Capitalism, and Clean Railway Stations. Paper presentation at the In and Out of South Asia: Race, Capitalism, and Mobility conference, Center for South Asian Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 25–26 February.

Gupta, Pallavi. "What’s the Use? On the Uses of Use, by Sara Ahmed." International Feminist Journal of Politics.

Gupta, Pallavi, and Jasber Singh. "Race in Post-Racial Europe: An Intersectional Analysis." Gender, Place & Culture 1–5.

Kandikuppa, Sandeep and Gupta, Pallavi. "The Indian Farmer Makes Her Voice Heard." Asia Pacific Issues, November 2022.

Kandikuppa, Sandeep and Gupta, Pallavi. "Where Do India’s Farmers Go from Here?" The Diplomat, 8 April 2022.

Gupta, Pallavi, Nikhat Fatima, and Sandeep Kandikuppa. "Sexual Harassment at the Workplace Act: Providing Redress or Maintaining Status Quo?" Social Change 51(2): 246–257.

Paper presentation at the Expansive Transnational Feminism sub-group, National Women’s Studies Association Annual Conference, 15 October.

Muslim Women in Akhand Bharat: Hindu Majoritarianism and the Geopolitics of Saving. Paper presentation, panel on ‘Minorities in South Asia: Contesting Bordering Processes,’ RGS-IBG Annual International Conference, 2 September.

Racial Capitalism and Difference: Examining Caste, Gender, and Labor in India Railways. Paper presentation, Racial Capitalism, Everyday Life and the City session, RC-21 Sensing the City Conference, 16 July.

Sewage Deaths: Law, Labor, and the Politics of Difference. Poster presentation at the University of Notth Carolina, Water and Health Conference, 7 October.

Gupta, Pallavi. "Thinking Beyond the State, by Marc Abélès, translated by Phillip Rousseau and Marie-Claude Haince." The Canadian Geographer / Le Géographe canadien 65(4).

Gupta, Pallavi, Banu Gökarıksel, and Sara Smith. "The Politics of Saving Muslim Women in India: Gendered Geolegality, Security, and Territorialization in India." Political Geography 83: 1–10.

Kandikuppa, Sandeep, and Pallavi Gupta. "Capitalist Agriculture and the Creation of the Circular Migrant – Understanding COVID-19’s Impact on Internal Migrants in India." Human Geography 14(1): 128–132.

Broomscapes: Locating Caste, Materiality, and Space in Indian Railways. Panel: Encounters in/as Space, conference Rethinking Difference in India: Racialization in Transnational Perspective, American University, School of International Service, Washington DC, April 2019.

Gupta, Pallavi, and S. Raghavan. "Feminist Approaches to Evaluation: Institutional Histories, Participatory Evaluation, and Gender Analysis." In Voices and Values: The Politics of Feminist Evaluation, edited by Ratna Sudarshan and Rajib Nandi, 40–75. Zubaan Publication.

Limits of Multiculturalism: Constitutional Secularism and the Myth of ‘Saving Muslim Women.’ Paper presentation at the 16th Development Dialogue, Social Justice amidst the Convergence of Crises: Repoliticizing Inequalities, International Institute of Social Studies, The Netherlands, 1–2 November.

Gupta, Pallavi. "A Tale of Two Discriminations: A Commentary on The Political Economy of Women’s Human Rights." Blog Post, Women’s Learning Partnership.

Gupta, Pallavi. "Child Marriage and the Age of Consent Conundrum." The Indian Journal of Social Work 76(3): 425–442.

Critical Role of an Evaluator in Feminist Evaluation. Panel on Equity Focused and Gender Responsive Evaluations from India, Sri Lanka Evaluation Association, Colombo, 16 September 2015.

Interrogating Child Marriage and the Age of Consent Conundrum. XIV Indian Association for Women Studies (IAWS) Conference, Guwahati, 6 February 2014.

Gupta, Pallavi. "Sexual Harassment at Workplace: Law and Praxis." Women’s Link 19(1): 21–28.

Gupta, Pallavi. "Many Hills to Surmount – Interface of Gender and Disability." In Social Exclusion and Rights of Persons with Disabilities, edited by N. Vasanthi and S. Thomas, 101–109. Centre for Women and the Law, National Law School of India University, Bangalore.

A Sign of Regressive Times: Violence Against Women Unabated in Andhra Pradesh. Presented during the India visit of UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, its Causes and Consequences, Ms. Rashida Manjoo, April 2013.

Gupta, Pallavi. "Feminist Counselling and Domestic Violence." Indian Association for Women Studies Newsletter, Special Issue, 3(1): 41.

Gupta, Pallavi. "Child Marriages and the Law, Contemporary Concerns." Economic and Political Weekly 47(43): 49–55.

Kannabiran, Kalpana, S. Gundimeda, Pallavi Gupta, and Lakshmi Vivek. "Legal Clinics and Adivasi Rights." Economic and Political Weekly 47(10): 21–24.

Gupta, Pallavi, and Lakshmi Vivek. Report of the National Seminar on Law and Literature. Hyderabad: CACIR and Council for Social Development, February.

CEDAW and Indigenous Women’s Rights. Paper presented at the Study Workshop for the APWLD Asia-Pacific Regional NGO Consultation with the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women and the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedom of Indigenous People, October 2008, New Delhi.

Exploring Issues of Adolescent Girls – From a Feminist Perspective. . Paper presented at Sub-theme 3: Rethinking Feminist Methodologies in Contemporary Research, XII Indian Association for Women Studies Conference, “Feminism and the Transformation of Knowledges: Processes and Institutions,” Lucknow, February 2008.
Email pallavi.gupta@jgu.edu.in
ORCID ID 0000-0002-9369-072X
Key Expertise Political economy of cleanliness, care, labour, infrastructure and the law, labour laws, socio-legal and ethnographic methods, legal and political geography, CEDAW and international human rights law.