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 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 transnational archives of late colonial and postcolonial welfare. Beginning my transnational history from the complex position that India occupied and occupies in the geopolitics of the Global South, the project showcases the centrality of disability and ableism to nation-building, its impact on hierarchies of belonging in the new 20th century world order, its intersections with caste, gender, and race, and its importance in the emergence of global developmental and 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.

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