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Shriya Patnaik is a PhD researcher at the Department of International History and Politics, where her research has been supported by the Swiss Government Excellence Scholarship, Swiss National Science Foundation Doc.Ch Fellowship, and the IHEID Community Scholarship. She has pursued her Bachelor’s in History from Cornell University (Magna cum Laude Honours) in 2014, and has subsequently pursued a Double Masters’ in International History with a focus on Gender Studies from the Columbia University-London School of Economics Dual Degree MA-MSc program (with a Distinction) in 2017. In her undergraduate years, she has been part of a Study Abroad Exchange program at Oxford University’s Mansfield College, where she undertook tutorials in History and Political Science. During her academic trajectory so far, she has been closely involved in conducting archival and qualitative research for various university’s data driven projects such as The Cornell Language Acquisition Lab, The Cornell Future of Minority Studies Project, LSE Women’s Library, and Columbia’s Rare Book and Manuscripts Library. Besides her scholarly interests, she has also worked in the public policy and NGO sectors on gender and human rights projects across India, the United States and the United Kingdom, and these experiences have played a crucial role in shaping her research focus on women’s rights and minority rights initiatives at a transnational scale. In terms of her linguistic abilities, she is fully-proficient in English, Hindi and Oriya, has medium-proficiency in Sanskrit, and beginner-level proficiency in French. Shriya is also a PhD affiliate with the Geneva Graduate Institute’s Gender Centre and the Global Migration Centre.

Recent Publications

1. Shriya Patnaik, “Tracing Historical Disruptions in the Sex Worker Rights Movement in Late Colonial and Postcolonial India through Testimonies from within the Community.” Book Chapter in Catherine Phipps (eds) Histories of Sex Work Around the World (London: Routledge, 2024): pp. 188-213. (https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003386612).
2. Shriya Patnaik, “Mutating Modalities of Performative Culture and Social Regulation in Conceptualizing Alternative Histories of Tawaifs across Colonial and Postcolonial India.” Book Chapter in Anurima Banerji, Royona Mitra and Jasmine Johnson (eds) Oxford Handbook of Dance Praxis (New York: Oxford University Press, 2024, forthcoming).
3. Shriya Patnaik, “Marginalizing the Matriarchal, Minority Subject: A Study of the Policing and Disenfranchisement of Performative, Matriarchal Communities in Colonial India.” Book Chapter in R. Srinivasan (eds) Borders: Physical, Social and Cultural (New Delhi: HOW Academics, 2023): pp. 111-141. ISSN 978-93-95522-94-6.
4. Shriya Patnaik, “Exploring the Contested and Controversial Nature of the Sex Industry in India: Experiential Encounters by Sex-Workers from the Periphery.” Book Chapter in Abhiruchi Ojha and Pramod Jaiswal (eds) South Asian Women and International Relations (Singapore: Springer-Palgrave Macmillan, 2023): https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9426-5_15
5. Shriya Patnaik, “Sex-workers Defying Patriarchy and Challenging State Reform and Rehabilitation Projects in India: Voices from the Margins.” Feminist Encounters: A Journal of Critical Studies in Culture and Politics Vol 7, Special Issue on Gender Activism in India, 7:1 (2023): https://doi.org/10.20897/femenc/12883
6. Shriya Patnaik, “Marginalizing the Matriarchal, Minority Subject: A Critical Analysis of Human Rights and Women’s Reform Projects in Colonial and Postcolonial India through the Case-Study of the ‘Mahari-Devadasi’.” Electronic Journal of Social and Strategic Studies Vol 2, Special Issue 1 (2021). (DOI: 10.47362/EJSSS.2021.2105)
7. Shriya Patnaik, “The Invisible Voices of India’s Informal Sector Sex Workers.” LSE South Asia Centre Blog (2021): https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/southasia/2021/03/22/the-invisible-voices-of-indias-informal-sector-sex-workers/?fbclid=IwAR3Z3Zr4yirSxGjAxrAj7bh-7g3cSgvX0QTXDNNZSuIs_Mbq11pX79Vw2tI
8. Shriya Patnaik, “The Lost Life Stories of Mahari-Devadasis in Postcolonial India (1947-2015).” Borderlines (2021): https://www.borderlines-cssaame.org/posts/2021/5/24/the-lost-life-stories-of-mahari-devadasis-in-postcolonial-india?fbclid=IwAR2XgDC9WpEwaG1fj2Ohj_KvqmNVIrEMb5SYaPsHhgrtEI16LU5zTlgFv0M
9. Shriya Patnaik, “The Missing Life Stories of India’s Sex Workers.” Graduate Institute Gender Centre (2020): https://www.graduateinstitute.ch/communications/news/missing-life-stories-indias-sex-workers?fbclid=IwAR1EBjCvP1f5NlSei-4iFhpcvHa4gXs2w-iphGuxaCORnAYrPRlJxv42vG0
10. Swiss Network of International Studies Podcast (2021): https://snis.ch/awards/the-minority-question-a-critical-analysis-of-gender-human-rights-and-womens-reform-projects-in-colonial-and-postcolonial-india-through-the-figure-of-the-mahari-devadasi/?fbclid=IwAR03dCGPYW9TjbImJCoUSpAWRKLj46wB1N1GxkKHwyLDysgkh5PMAHtswbI

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Country Focus

Expertise by Geography

Asia, British Isles, India, United Kingdom

Expertise by Chronology

19th century, Early Modern, Modern, 20th century, 21st century

Expertise by Topic

Colonialism, Emancipation, Gender, Human Rights, Labor, Law, Libraries & Archives, Local & Regional, Public History, Sexuality, Sexual Violence, Urban History, Women