Welcome to my website. I am Associate Professor of Sociology and International Affairs at the Watson School at Brown University. I have two major research interests: understanding how political movements influence the evolution, implementation, and enforcement of human rights, with special attention to women’s rights. Second, understanding the social, political, and economic conditions that sustain democracy.
My books include the award winning Capable Women, Incapable States: Negotiating Violence and Rights in India (Oxford University Press 2021) and an edited volume Unequal Contagion: Citizenship, Democracy, and the Politics of Covid-19 in India (Oxford University Press 2026) co-written with Gabrielle Kruks-Wisner.
My research is available at the American Journal of Sociology, Annual Review of Sociology, Feminist Studies, Gender & Society, Law & Social Inquiry, Signs, and Social Problems. I serve on the editorial board of the American Journal of Sociology, Law & Social Inquiry, and Sociological Theory.
Currently, I am involved in three major research projects. First, I am finishing up work on government led women’s empowerment initiatives in India. Second, I’m involved in a joint research project on women’s voting behavior in India funded by a Seed Grant at Brown University. Finally, I am conducting research with fetal personhood activists in the United States. If you are interested in learning more about these projects or participating in them, please get in touch.
Awards
Book Awards
American Sociological Association, Human Rights Section, Gordon Hirabayashi Book Award 2022
American Sociological Association, Distinguished Book Award, Honorable Mention 2022
Eastern Sociological Society, Mirra Komarovsky Book Award 2022
Law and Society Association, Herbert Jacob Book Prize, Honorable Mention 2022
Article Awards
American Sociological Association, Human Rights Section, Best Article Award 2022
American Sociological Association, Political Sociology Section, Best Article Award 2022
American Sociological Association, Sociology of Law Section, Best Article Award 2022
American Sociological Association, Crime Law and Deviance Section, James F. Short Jr. Distinguished Article Award, Honorable Mention 2022
American Sociological Association, Development Section, Best Faculty Article Award, Honorable Mention 2022
Society for the Study of Social Problems, Arlene Kaplan Daniels Paper Award, Honorable Mention 2022
Publications
Books
2026. Unequal Contagion: Citizenship, Democracy, and the Politics of COVID-19 in India, with Gabrielle Kruks-Wisner. New York: Oxford University Press.
2021. Capable Women, Incapable States: Negotiating Violence and Rights in India. New York: Oxford University Press.
Articles and Book Chapters
2025. “The Perils and Promises of Unequal Democracy: Insights from the Sociology of India,”with Rina Agarwala. Annual Review of Sociology, vol 51. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-090324-022910
2023. “Methodological Impasses: Facing Interrogation and Silence While Gathering Data on Sexual Violence in India,” with Aditi Malik. Political Science & Politics, 57(2).
2022. “Between Women and the State: Rights Brokers and Capital Accumulation in West Bengal.” Toward a Sociology of South Asia: Rethinking Politics, Labor, and Culture. Eds. Smitha Radhakrishnan and Gowri Vijayakumar. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
2021. “Incorporation: Governing Gendered Violence in a State of Disempowerment.” American Journal of Sociology, 12 (4): 852-888.
2019. “Illicit Justice: Aspirational-Strategic Subjects and the Political Economy of Domestic Violence.” Law & Social Inquiry, 44 (1): 1-24.
2016. “Desire, Rights, Entitlements: Organizational Strategies in the War on Violence.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 41 (4): 793-820.
2016. “Over the Law: Rape and the Seduction of Popular Politics.” Gender & Society, 30 (1): 80-94.
2015. “Victims to Saviors: Governmentality and the Regendering of Citizenship in India.” Gender & Society, 29 (6): 792-816.
2015. “Brothers and Others: Organizing Masculinity, Disorganizing Workers.” Social Problems, 61 (1): 22-41.
2013. “The Delhi Gang Rape: The Making of International Causes.” Feminist Studies, 39 (1): 282-292.
Other Publications and Media Appearances
2025. “Inequality and Authoritarianism in India.” Trending Globally. Watson School, Brown [podcast]
2022. “Why Police Sexual Harassment?” India in Transition. CASI, University of Pennsylvania [blog post]
2022. “Governing Gendered Violence.” Law in Action. ASA, Sociology of Law Section [blog post]
2022. “Capable Women, Incapable States.” The Great Gender Divide [podcast]
2021. “Capable Women, Incapable States.” New Books Network [podcast]
2021. “Absence in the Time of Covid 19.” Ethnographic Marginalia [blog post]
2018. “McGill Profs Back Students Call.” Canadian Broadcasting Corporation [radio broadcast]
2016. “A Call to Knowledge: Let’s Gather More Data.” Gender & Society [blog post]
2014. “Gender-based Violence: An Index of ‘Tradition’ or Social Change.” Gender & Society [blog post]
2013. “Focus on Rape in India Ignores Global Problem.” CNBC [online article]
Books
American Sociological Association, Human Rights Section, Gordon Hirabayashi Book Award 2022
American Sociological Association, Distinguished Book Award, Honorable Mention 2022
Eastern Sociological Society, Mirra Komarovsky Book Award 2022
Law and Society Association, Herbert Jacob Book Prize, Honorable Mention 2022
Gender-based violence is a heavily politicized issue in India with diverse organizations supporting women’s legal claims. Meanwhile, Indian law enforcement personnel are sexist and have limited abilities to enforce the law. In Capable Women, Incapable States I ask how women claim rights within these conditions. How do rights negotiations impact gender inequality and reframe the boundaries of legality and state authority?
Using two years of ethnographic and interview-based data with survivors, civil society groups, and law enforcement personnel, I develop a framework for understanding how collective action influences law enforcement decision making and women’s access to justice in contexts where state capacity is limited.
I found that women did not seek rights by following legal procedure. Instead, they mobilized collective threats and did the work of the state themselves. They behaved this way because organized actors train themed to do so and because law enforcement personnel responded favorably to organized pressure. Women who were threatening and hustled around, those who completed case processing duties, negotiated extra-legal settlements, and deployed violence move ahead with their claims.
Capable Women, Incapable States asks readers to consider the limits of existing theories of gender and governance, much of which are based on the histories of post-welfare state. In contexts where enforcement capacity is low and organized pressure high, women do not relate to the state as “good victims” in need of protection. Rather, to be able to interact with the state at all, they must act “capable.” The book considers how women’s “capability” holds the promise of empowerment while simultaneously threatening women’s personal security and undermining state sovereignty.
Capable Women, Incapable States is available in hardcopy, paperback, and e-book through Oxford University Press.
In Unequal Contagion, Gabrielle Kruks-Wisner (UVA, Politics) and I bring together an interdisciplinary group of scholars to analyze how political and social inequality shaped COVID-19 pandemic experiences in India, how those inequalities were intensified by state responses, and how historically rooted forms of democratic participation and social mobilization helped, in some contexts, to mitigate their effects.
Drawing on wide-ranging methods, from surveys to ethnography, chapter authors examine how centrally imposed lockdowns, disruptions to health systems, and uneven welfare provision interacted with class, caste, gender, religious, and regional inequalities. While responses varied substantially across states and localities, seemingly universal policy responses often amplified vulnerability—particularly among migrants, informal sector workers, women, and other marginalized groups—leaving many without access to livelihoods, healthcare, or protection from violence.
Chapters also trace how access to healthcare, welfare, and relief depended not only on policy design but on everyday relationships between citizens, local officials, frontline workers, and civil society organizations. Grounded in India yet widely relevant, the book advances a relational and intersectional account of governance under stress. By linking sub-national variation in pandemic policy and welfare outcomes to historically embedded patterns of social mobilization and political engagement, the book offers insights on the formulation and implementation of emergency-related public policy in other unequal democracies, revealing how social inequality and uneven citizen-state relations shape who is protected and who is left vulnerable.
Unequal Contagion is available in hardcopy, paperback, and e-book through Oxford University Press.
Recent Talks
2026. Talk: “Why might authoritarian populists care about women's empowerment?” Center for the Study of Law & Society, University of California, Berkeley
2025. Keynote Address: “Taking Democracy for Granted” Ethnography & Qualitative Research Conference, University of Trento, Italy
2025. Public Lecture: “Rights to Protection: Reframing Women’s Empowerment under Authoritarian Democracy.” Margaret Anstee Centre Annual Lecture, Cambridge University, United Kingdom
2025. Colloquium Series: “Rights to Protection: Reframing Women’s Empowerment under Authoritarian Democracy.” Department of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley, USA
2025. Distinguished Speaker Series: “Rights to Protection: Reframing Women’s Empowerment under Authoritarian Democracy.” Department of Sociology, University of Santa Barbara, USA
2025. Visiting Speaker Series. “Rights to Protection: Reframing Women’s Empowerment under Authoritarian Democracy.” Department of Sociology, Dartmouth College.
Fellowships & Grants
2026. Seed Grant, Brown University.
2024. Birkelund Grant, Brown University
2020. Internal Social Sciences & Humanities Development Grant, McGill University
2016. Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada, Insight Development Grant
2016. Fonds de Recherche du Québec (FRQSC), Établissement de Nouveaux Professeurs-Chercheurs
2015. Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council Travel Grant, McGill University
2015. Internal Social Sciences & Humanities Development Grant, McGill University
2014. New Faculty Research Start-Up Grant, McGill University
2013. Consortium for Faculty Diversity in Liberal Arts Colleges, Smith College
2011. Georgette Bennett Fellowship, New York University
2010. National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Grant
2010. Fulbright-Nehru Dissertation Research Fellowship
2009. American Institute for Indian Studies Junior Research Fellowship (declined)
2009. Pre-doctoral Research Fellowship, New York University
2009. Collaborative Research Grant, New York University
2006. Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship
2005. Henry McCracken Fellowship, New York University
SS
Contact
Poulami Roychowdhury
Watson School of International & Public Affairs
Brown University
111 Thayer Street, Providence, RI, 02912
poulami_roychowdhury@brown.edu