'The Field and Fieldworker': An Introduction to Feminist Science Studies

Feminist Science Studies is a field of study that has grown in India over the last three decades. The field has built slow and steady conversations within feminism and also within the social sciences. An important constituency in the field has naturally been the STEM community. Based on her own experiences of shaping the field in India, the speaker walks us through the major contours of this field. She links questions of low participation of women and other marginal groups in science to foundational questions of the nature and culture of science. The speaker  draws upon the discipline of sociology to frame her observations, analyses and reflections.

About the Speaker:
Gita Chadha is Visiting Professor, Azim Premji University, Bangalore. She holds the Obaid Siddiqui Chair at NCBS, Bangalore for 2023-24. She was formerly a faculty member at the Department of Sociology, University of Mumbai, India. She has a doctorate in sociology and has taught at undergraduate colleges at the Mumbai University and on the International Programme of the University of London in Mumbai. She was the Chairperson of the Women’s Development Centre, University of Mumbai from 2016 to 2020.

Gita has developed frameworks for feminist archiving at the Research Centre for Women’s Studies, SNDT Women’s University, Mumbai, India. She has designed and taught a first of its kind course in Feminist Science Studies at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai, India. She has designed innovative pedagogic initiatives for integrating science and social science teaching. Gita is a member of several Board of Studies including SGODS, IGNOU and RCWS, SNDT University.

Gita has published several articles on science criticism. Her research interests lie in science studies, feminist theories and post colonial studies. She has co-edited a volume called Zero Point Bombay. Her two volumes on Feminists and Science are co-edited with Sumi Krishna and are published by Stree Samya, Kolkata and SAGE. Her volume Re-Imagining Sociology in India: Feminist Perspectives co-edited with M.T. Joseph has been published by Routledge. She has edited a special issue of the Contributions to Indian Sociology entitled Feminisms and Sociologies: Insertions, Intersections and Integrations. With Asha Achuthan, she has edited a special issue of the Review of Women’s Studies of the Economic and Political Weekly entitled Feminist Science Studies: Intersectional Narratives of Persons in Gender-Marginal Locations in Science .For EPW Engage , she has co-edited with Rukmini Sen a set of articles entitled Feminist Dilemmas: Moving beyond the List-Statement Binary.Recently she edited a Special issue of EPW Engage on Gender and COVID 19: Perspectives from the Margins. Her recent volume Mapping Scientific Method: Disciplinary Narrations is co-edited with Renny Thomas and published by Routledge. She has just completed curating and editing a series of essays called Pathaan, Meri Jann: Memoirs, Reflections, Analyses for Doing Sociology. She has been the Reviews Editor of Sambhashan, the Journal of University of Mumbai and is on the editorial team of Confluence, Indian Academy of Sciences and Catalyst.

Gita has also collaborated with women artists and poets in building common understandings of feminist art practices in India. She writes regularly on these issues. 

Gita lives in Bangalore.