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Education
- PhD: 2006 University of California, Berkeley
- BA: 2000 University of California, Berkeley
Research and Teaching Areas
Gender, political economy, globalization, development, nationalism, cultural studies
Area Specialties:
India, South Africa
Biography
Smitha Radhakrishnan is an assistant professor of Sociology at Wellesley College. Her courses stem from her continued interests in the intersections between gender, class, nation, and political economy. She is currently working on a book manuscript entitled Aspiring India: Gender, Power and the Global Knowledge Economy. The book manuscript draws from her dissertation research on the new Indian middle class, which focused on information technology (IT) professionals working in Mumbai and Bangalore. Through a multi-sited ethnographic approach that also includes comparative pieces among the diaspora in the Silicon Valley and South Africa, she examines how gender and class shape a broader notion of India as an emerging nation. In her previous research, Professor Radhakrishnan has studied meanings of race, ethnicity, and femininity amongst South African Indians in Durban (South Africa), and has studied gender and development in Rajasthan and Kerala (India). Before coming to Wellesley, Professor Radhakrishnan was a Global Fellow at UCLA’s International Institute. Her recent publications have appeared in Theory and Society and in the Journal of Intercultural Studies.