A black and white photo of Jiya, a South Asian femme-presenting person with glasses and a nose-ring, with long hair pulled to one side and over the shoulder on the left. They are wearing a winter coat and sweater underneath, and smiling.

Image Description: A black and white photo of Jiya, a South Asian femme-presenting person with glasses and a nose-ring, with long hair pulled over their left shoulder. They are wearing a winter coat and turtleneck sweater underneath, and smiling. Behind them is a stone wall.

I am a scholar who works at the intersections of colonial and postcolonial Indian history, gender and sexuality studies, disability studies, histories of the body, transnational histories of labor, migration, race, and caste, and 20th and 21st century global history.

I currently am completing my Ph.D. at Princeton University in the Department of History and Program in Gender & Sexuality Studies. My dissertation offers a conceptual history of “disability,” following various deployments of the concept through archives of late colonial and postcolonial Indian welfare. The project showcases the centrality of disability and ableism to nation-building in India, its impact on hierarchies of belonging in the new nation-state, its intersections with caste, gender, and race, and its importance in the emergence of transnational aid regimes. In focusing on welfare, my dissertation encourages critical thinking about care work, and to what extent the preferences of those being cared for are being taken into consideration.

I bring this critical commitment to care-work to my teaching and also (importantly but imperfectly) beyond the university, aiming for my academic work to sustain and be sustained by the work I do outside the classroom and archive.

I am fortunate to have my work supported by the Charlotte W. Newcombe Foundation, Centre for Black, Brown, and Queer Studies (BBQ+), and Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies.

Please feel free to reach out to me through any of the avenues below about any shared interests, questions about applying to or being in graduate school, collaborative work or organizing, or writing, conference, or teaching engagements.