My dissertation research and first book project The Closed and the Open Prison: The Shifting Horizon of Carceral Reform  explores themes of carcerality, care and the family in postcolonial India.  It brings an ethnographic and transnational perspective to debates on prison reform and abolition raised in Black Feminism, critical carceral studies and the anthropology of the state. 

Situated in a capital city in north India, I study state projects in community- involved prison reform ranging from ad-hoc prisoner counseling programs with citizen collectives to the popularization of open prisons. Open prisons are mix-gendered institutions where prisoners can live with their families without material barriers preventing escape, and seek livelihoods in the surrounding community. 

Each of these initiatives prescribe prisoner rehabilitation as a return to the family- which is envisioned as a catalyst for moral transformation from prisoner to reformed citizen.  This return is difficult in practice as a large section of prisoners’ offenses are situated in conflicts within the family on matters of marriage, land, and property.

Project Support

Social Science Research Council (2021)

Related Publication

The Closed and the Open Prison: Contested Imaginaries and the Limits of Openness

My second research project will look at how questions of security bear upon movements to build safe cities. My interests lie in how campaigns for women’s safety institute youth-targeted surveillance programs oriented which combine conventional policing with moral counseling.