Manisha Desai

Professor and Executive Director of The Center for Changing Systems of Power
Ph.D. Washington University, 1990
Manisha.Desai@stonybrook.edu

Areas of Interest

Gender and globalization, transnational feminisms, women’s human rights, global climate justice movements, and Contemporary Indian society.

CV

Bio

My research on transnational feminism and women’s human rights, gender and globalization, and contemporary Indian society has focused on theorizing with and through the language of marginalized communities as they struggle for social justice. Methodologically, I’ve explored the power dynamics that undergird knowledge production and ways in which we can co-produce knowledge that has the potential to transform unequal social relations. I employ a critical, feminist lens that seeks to decolonize knowledge production and contribute to social justice even as it problematizes those efforts.  

My current work, on women's rights, land rights, and climate justice in India and Northeastern United States seeks to understand the ways in which Dalit women farmers in India and women farmers of color in the United states bring together issues of land rights, women's economic, social, and political rights in their efforts to address climate change. As part of the Global Research and Action Network on the Eco-Social Contract at the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development I collaborate with academics, community members, and policy makers from many countries in the Global North and South to further climate justice.

Additionally, I am also working on a conceptual reframing of diversity, equity, and inclusion as justice, equity and transformation to ensure that issues of systemic racism and inequalities are addressed structurally. Committed to decolonizing knowledge production and the academy I am on the Steering Committee of the Federation of Feminist Journal Editors that is seeking to establish a feminist, knowledge commons outside commercial publishing to ensure the free circulation of feminist knowledge across borders and language barriers. 

Selected Publications

•  2022 Desai, Manisha. 2022. Going Beyond the Social: Communitarian Imaginaries as Inspirations for Rethinking the Eco-Social Contract? Geneva: UNRISD  https://www.unrisd.org/en/library/publications/going-beyond-the-social-communitarian-imaginaries-as-inspirations-for-rethinking-the-eco-social-contract .
• Desai, Manisha and Rianka Roy. 2022. Intersectional Coloniality: The Sociological  Praxis of Savitribai Phule and the Women Activists of Satya Shodhak Samaj (Truth Seeker Society). American Sociologist.
• Vo, Timothea and Manisha Desai. 2022. Immigrant and Southeast  Asian Women’s Postpartum Practices: A Meta-ethnography. Women’s Health.
• Roy, Rianka and Manisha Desai. 2022. “Krantijyoti (Revolutionary Light) and Gyanjyoti (Education Light) Savitribai Phule.” In Chico Herbison and David Dickens, edited: Neglected Theorists of Color.
• Desai, Manisha with Asmita Asaavari, Ruth Hernandez, Koyel Khan, Rianka Roy. 2021. Writing on self together: Collective Autoethnography as praxis of solidarity and  collective care during  the pandemic. Ch. 6 in In Melanie Heath, Akosua Darkwa, Josephine Beoku-Betts, and Bandana Purkayastha, edited. Global Feminist Autoethnographies During Covid-19: Displacements and Disruptions. Routledge.
• Desai,Manisha. 2020. Beyond the Global North South: Southasian Feminist Imaginaries. Special Issue of European Journal of Women’s Studies on Global South Feminism.