I am an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at Dartmouth College. My research lies at the intersection of feminist and urban geography. I focus on gendered dimensions of urban and national belonging in South Asia in relation to globalization, nationalism, and environmental change to offer grounded interpretations of contemporary development projects in South Asia.
I received my Ph.D. in Geography and Women’s Studies from the Pennsylvania State University, an M.Arch. from Penn State, and a B.Arch. from Mumbai University (Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture). Prior to starting graduate school, I worked as an architect and urban researcher in Mumbai, Bangalore, and Bern.
At Dartmouth, I am part of the Postdoctoral Fellow Collective for the Consortium of Studies in Race, Migration, and Sexuality. I teach courses on Gender and Development, and Women in Asian Cities.
Awards and Fellowships [selected]
2018-20
Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship
Dartmouth College
2018-19
Seminar Series Award
Urban Studies Foundation
2018
E. Willard Miller Award in Geography, PhD paper (2nd)
Pennsylvania State University
2017
Glenda Laws Graduate Student Paper Award
Geographic Perspectives on Women, American Association of Geographers
2016-17
Sara Woods Outstanding Graduate Student Award
Department of Women’s Studies, Pennsylvania State University
2015
National Fellowship
Society of Woman Geographers
2015
Achieving Women Award
Commission for Women, Pennsylvania State University
2015
Susan Hanson Dissertation Proposal Award
Geographic Perspectives on Women, American Association of Geographers
2015
Laura Richardson Whitaker Memorial Fund
Department of Women’s Studies, Pennsylvania State University
2015
Nancy Brown Service Award
Department of Geography, Pennsylvania State University
2014
Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship
Social Science Research Council
2011-12
University Graduate Fellowship
Pennsylvania State University
Education
2018
PhD in Geography and Women’s Studies
Pennsylvania State University
2015
Visiting Scholar
Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai
2013
Master's in Architecture
Pennsylvania State University
2010
Bachelor's in Architecture
Mumbai University
(Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture)
2009
Summer Exchange Program
Bern University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland
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Publications
My research program focuses on gendered dimensions of urban belonging in South Asia in relation to globalization, nationalism, and environmental change. I draw on my multidisciplinary training in geography, women’s, gender and sexuality studies, and architecture to analyze spatial dynamics at the intersection of urban life and urban environments.
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Peer-reviewed articles and book chapters
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7. 2020. Parikh, A. Urban as palimpsest: neoliberal environments, fishing livelihoods, and toxic landscapes in Mumbai, India. GeoHumanities.
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6. 2019. Parikh, A. Insider-outsider as process: drawing as reflexive feminist methodology during fieldwork. cultural geographies.
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5. 2019. Parikh, A. & Miller, C. Holy cow! Beef ban, political technologies, and Brahminical supremacy in India. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, 18(4): 835-874.
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4. 2019. Parikh, A. Liminality of women's leisure in Mumbai, India. Environment and Planning C.
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3. 2019. Parikh, A. Inroads for the outsourced: Call center graveyard shifts and the impacts of women on the nocturnal streets of Mumbai, India. Suffragette City. Routledge.
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2. 2018. Parikh, A. Politics of presence: women’s safety and respectability at night in Mumbai, India. Gender, Place & Culture, 25(5), 695-710.
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1. 2013. Parikh, A. Jane in the call center. Critical Planning Journal, 20, 119-130.
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Other publications (not peer-reviewed)
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Parikh, A. (2013). Gendered household expectations: neoliberal policies, graveyard shifts, and women's responsibilities in Mumbai, India. In The Routledge Companion to Modernity, Space and Gender, 367-379.
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Parikh, A., Henrique, K., & Aslankan, A. (co-editors). (2013). Conference Proceedings: Nature of spatial practices.
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Shetty, P., Gupte, R., Parikh, A., Patel, P., Mehta, R. (2011) Design manual: addressing climate change with low cost green housing. World Bank Report.
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Shetty, P., Gupte, R., Patil, R., Parikh, A., Sabnis, N., Menezes, B. (2007) Housing typologies in Mumbai. Urban Age, London School of Economics.
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Book reviews
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Parikh, A. (2018). Review of In the public’s interest: evictions, citizenship, and inequality in contemporary Delhi by G. Bhan. H-Citizenship at H-Net Reviews.
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Parikh, A. (2017). Review of Transnational labour migration, remittances and the changing family in Asia edited by L. Hoang and B. Yeoh. Progress in Development Studies.
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Parikh, A. (2016). Review of The Art of Making do in Naples by Jason Pine. Space & Polity 20 (3).
Teaching
Since 2010, I have taught in geography, women’s studies, and architecture departments at the University of Mumbai, the Pennsylvania State University, and Dartmouth College. In these institutions, I have served as lead instructor in residential and online settings for introductory and upper-level courses. My interdisciplinary teaching emphasizes the spatiality of power and how it plays out at the various scales of the personal, institutional, and across global settings. I design multi-method assignments to encourage data triangulation in knowledge production and engaged learning to immerse students in their immediate contexts.
Courses taught
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Dartmouth College
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Pennsylvania State University
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Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture
Global Urbanism
GEOG 26
GEOG 80
GEOG 85
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WMNST 100
GEOG 20
ARCH 100
Women, Gender and Development
Women in Asian Cities
Environment and Identity in South Asia
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Introduction to Women's Studies
Introduction to Human Geography
Architecture and Ideas
Mentorship
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Dartmouth College
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2019 Isabella Chao
2019 Arjun Srinivasan
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Pennsylvania State University
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2017 Stephanie Keyaka
2017 Clara Miller
2016 Yuying Ren
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Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture
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2015 Smriti Bhaya
2015 Ritu Pethani
2012 Vidhi Advani
2012 Sheena Mascarenhas
Presentations [selected]
Invited Public Talks
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2020 [upcoming]
Urban as Palimpsest: Neoliberal Environments, Fishing Livelihoods, and Toxic Landscapes
GeoSpectives Series Speaker, Department of Geography, McGill University
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2019
Academia and Activism (panelist)
Dartmouth College
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2019
International Issues: Personal Perspectives (moderator)
India-Pakistan Panel, Dartmouth College
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2018
Feminism and Urbanization in South Asia
Asian American Living, Dartmouth College
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2018
Politics of presence: safety and respectability for women at night in Mumbai, India
Coffee Hour Series Speaker, Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Pennsylvania State University
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2016
What I eat, who I am: what’s at stake with India’s beef ban?
Grad Lightning Talks, Department of Geography, Pennsylvania State University
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2014
Disparate Trajectories: Comparing Urban River Projects in Lahore and Ahmedabad
Centre for Policy Research and Centre for Social Sciences and Humanities, New Delhi: 52nd Urban Workshop
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2011
City in Literature: Mumbai
Encounters Series, Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture
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Guest Lectures for Courses
2019
Leisure and the service economy
Introduction to International Development, Dartmouth College
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2019
Urban palimpsest and human-centered development
Geography of International Development, University of Colorado Boulder
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2017
Political Economy of India’s Modernization
ARCH 520: Architectural Theory, Penn State
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2016
Feminist Political Economy
WMNST 301: Global Feminism, Penn State
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2016
Nationalist Modernization in India
ARCH 520: Architectural Theory, Penn State
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2015
Political Economy and Outsourcing
GEOG 20: Introduction to Human Geography, Penn State
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2015
Postcolonial Modernism in India
ARCH 312: South Asian Modernism, Penn State
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2014
History of Urbanism in Mumbai
GEOG 128: Urban Geography, Penn State
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2014
Visual Geopolitics
GEOG 124: Cultural Geography, Penn State
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2014
Vernacular Architecture in India
ARCH 520: Architectural Theory, Penn State
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Conference Presentations
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2019
Aesthetic environmentalism, capitalist value, and detritus in Mumbai, India
Urban Climates Workshop, Dartmouth College
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2019
Hard boundaries, soft edges: gendered negotiations of shifting urban ecologies in Mumbai, India
GenUrb Conference, York University, Toronto
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2019
Urban as Palimpsest: Neoliberal Environments, Fishing Livelihoods and Toxic Landscapes in Mumbai, India
Urban Climates Workshop, University of Cambridge
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2019
Erasures in 'sustainable' development: gendered negotiations of shifting urban edges in Mumbai, India
American Association of Geographers (AAG), Washington DC
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2018
Leisure as liminal: interstices and boundary-making in social reproduction of Mumbai’s urbanism
AAG, New Orleans
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2018
Engaging Southern Theory (panelist)
AAG, New Orleans
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2017
Appearance of authority: role of attire in accessing public space in Mumbai, India
AAG, Boston
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2017
Quiet Social Movements (panelist)
AAG, Boston
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2017
Modernity, Space and Gender (panelist)
AAG, Boston
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2017
Society of Woman Geographers Fellows
AAG, Boston
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2017
Of Crocodiles and Garbage Dumps: Greenwashing and Erasures in Mumbai’s ‘Sustainable’ Development
Urban Affairs Association Conference, Minneapolis
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2016
Scholar-Activism or Scholar/Activism? (panelist)
Critical Geography Conference, Lexington
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2016
Graveyard shifts in outsourced call centers: navigating and shaping of night landscapes by female call center workers in Mumbai, India
AAG, San Francisco
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2016
The politics and ethics of vulnerability: exploring methodologies for rights and justice-based research and praxis (panelist)
AAG, San Francisco
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2016
Saffronizing Fascism? Economy, Culture and Environment in India (panelist)
AAG, San Francisco
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2016
Ignoring perceptions, heightening risk: examining paradoxes of urban safety policies for women working the night shift in Mumbai, India
Suffragette City Conference, Charleston
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2016
Insider-Outsider as Process
Women’s Studies Graduate Organization Conference, Penn State
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2014
Neoliberal Islands: Gated spaces, permeable boundaries and urban hygiene in Mumbai, 1990-2013
AAG, Tampa
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2014
Transnational Feminist Research Introspections
Women’s Studies Graduate Organization Conference, Penn State
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2014
Feminist geopolitical readings of coffee table books
Critical Geography Conference, Boulder
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2013
Jane in the Call Center at Women in Labor: Gendering (Re)Production
20th Annual Susan B. Anthony Institute for Gender and Women’s Studies, University of Rochester
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Conference and Conference Sessions Organization
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2020 [upcoming]
Sessions: Intersections of Feminist and Urban Political Ecology
AAG, Denver (co-organizing with Yaffa Truelove, Rosalind Fredericks, Rachael Mattson)
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2020 [upcoming]
Session: South Asia and its Diaspora: Nationalism, Belonging, and Identity
AAG, Denver (co-organizing with Christabel Devadoss)
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2019
Seminar series on “Urban Climates: Power, Development, and Environment in South Asia”
co-organized with Nida Rehman with workshops at the AAG, University of Cambridge, and at Dartmouth College
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2019
Session: Creative Critical Geographies
AAG, Washington DC (co-organized with Eden Kinkaid)
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2018
Session: Urbanism and Marginality in the Global South
AAG, New Orleans
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2017
Conference: Envisioning the Future of Critical Geographies
Department of Geography, Penn State
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2014
Conference: Transnational Feminism
Department of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Penn State
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2013
Conference: Nature of Spatial Practices
Department of Architecture, Penn State
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Workshop Facilitator
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2018
Negotiating Fieldwork
Professional Development Workshop Series, Department of Geography, Penn State
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2018
Basics of Adobe InDesign and Adobe Illustrator
GEOG 301: Thinking Geographically, Penn State
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2017
Basics of Adobe InDesign and Adobe Illustrator
GEOG 301: Thinking Geographically, Penn State
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2016
Basics of Adobe InDesign and Adobe Illustrator
GEOG 301: Thinking Geographically, Penn State
Service
Reviewer
External
University Service (Dartmouth)
University Service (Penn State)
Department Service (Penn State)
Community Service (State College)
2011 State College Food Bank