Prabha Kotiswaran
![[candidate photo]](picture.jpg)
S.J.D. 2006
Dissertation
Dangerous Sex, Invisible Labor and Other Stories of the Lumpen Proletariat : Rethinking The Regulation of Sex Work
My dissertation research undertakes a fundamental revaluation of the theoretical debates on sex work and trafficking in light of the claims of the Indian sex workers’ movement that sex work be treated as a form of labor and sex workers as workers in the informal economy. Based on an ethnographic study of the sex industry in two Indian cities and situated at the intersection of debates within criminal law, family law and labor law, my dissertation attempts to reintroduce a politics of redistribution to feminist legal theory, while radically rethinking the relationship between law and social movements in post-colonial India.
Fields of Research and Supervisors
- Law and Social Movements, with Professor Martha Minow, Harvard Law School, Overall Faculty Supervisor
- Social Theory, with Professor Duncan Kennedy, Harvard Law School, Overall Faculty Supervisor
- Colonial Legal History, with Professor Mahmood Mamdani, Department of Anthropology, Columbia University
- South Asian History and Post Colonial Theory, with Professor Nicholas B. Dirks, Department of Anthropology, Columbia University
Additional Research Interests
- Feminist Legal Theory
- Labor Law
- International Human Rights Law
Education
- Harvard Law School, S.J.D. Candidate 2000-Present
- Harvard Law School, LL.M. 1996
- National Law School of India University, Bangalore, India, B.A., LL.B. (Hons.), 1995
Appointments and Fellowships
- Harvard Law School, 2004-2005, Byse Fellow, Byse Workshop on Social Movements and the Law: A Post Colonial Critique
- Hauser Center for the Study of Non Profit Organizations, John F. Kennedy School of Government, 2003-2005, Hauser Doctoral Fellow
Representative Publications
- Dangerous Sex, Invisible Labor and Other Stories of the Lumpen Proletariat, in edited volume titled Sexuality and the Law : Feminist Engagements (forthcoming 2007)
- Agency Gone Astray? Sex Work, the Sex Workers’ Movement and the Invitation to Discipline, in edited volume on Indian constitutional law (forthcoming 2005)
- Wives and Others: The Legal Regulation of Economies in Sexual Labor, in edited volume on family law (forthcoming 2005)
- Preparing for Civil Disobedience: Indian Sex Workers and the Law, 21 B.C. THIRD WORLD L.J. 161 (SPRING 2001)
Additional Information
- Languages: English, Hindi, Tamil