Associate Professor

Shivani Kapoor is a political scientist who works on questions of caste, senses and labour from an interdisciplinary perspective. She is interested in understanding how the experience and reproduction of caste is mediated through the senses. Her work examines the olfactory experience of caste in the leather industry in India and attempts to decode the relationships between objects, pollution and labour by tracing sensory exchanges and politics within the caste discourse. She is also interested in questions of representation, voice, and the formation of self and community identities through writing and its circulation, especially in the form of Dalit autobiographical literature in Hindi. Amongst the other directions which her research follows, she is particularly invested in studying vocational and technical education in colonial and postcolonial India and in questions of science and technology, especially in its engagement with bodies and identities.

Prior to joining CSDS, she has taught at O.P. Jindal Global University, Shiv Nadar University, Ambedkar University, Delhi and the University of Delhi.

Email: shivani@csds.in

Select Publications (Click to Read)

The Violence of Odors: Sensory Politics of Caste in a Leather Tannery.

The Smell of Caste: Leatherwork and Scientific Knowledge in Colonial India.

Rewriting Life: Caste, Body and Time in Tulsi Ram's Murdahiya.

Words that Smell – Caste and Odors in Hindi Dalit Autobiographies.