Associate Fellow

Priyadarshini Vijaisri is a historian engaged in research on outcaste pasts. Her doctoral research at the Jawaharlal Nehru University was on the multiple patterns of sacred prostitution in colonial South India. She is currently engaged in ethno-historical research on village ritual traditions, especially outcaste religious specialists, focusing on identity, sexuality and caste. At present, the Dakkali project funded by the Indian Council for Historical Research, New Delhi titled “On the Margins of the Periphery: The left hand caste of Dakkalis during the early 20th century in Southern India” explores caste ideology as comprehended and articulated by those positioned at the bottom of the caste structure. Her forthcoming book In Pursuit of the Virgin Whore is an attempt to rethink the alternative ways of writing caste/outcaste histories, the caste structure and the boundaries in caste societies.