Pallavi Banerjee
Pallavi Banerjee is a sociologist and associate professor in the sociology department at the University of Calgary. Banerjee is the author of the 2022 book The Opportunity Trap: High-Skilled Workers, Indian Families and the Failures of the Dependent Visa Program. Banerjee investigates the impact of H-4 (dependent) visa programs on visa holders in Indian families in America. Banerjee is also recognized for her contributions on gender theory and the global south in her chapter with Raewyn Connell, entitled "Gender Theory as Southern Theory," published in Barbara Risman, Carissa M. Froyum and William J. Scarborough (editors) The Handbook of the Sociology of Gender.[1] This 2nd edition is available in over 190 U.S. libraries [2] Additionally, she explores the relationship between immigrant women and formal labor markets in her collaborative book, Immigrant Women Workers in the Neoliberal Age. Much of Banerjee's work centers on migration, family structures and single motherhood, intersectionality, and gender.
Career
Banerjee was a student of sociology at the University of Illinois, where she earned her Ph.D. in 2012.[3] In 2013, Banerjee joined as a postdoctoral fellow at Vanderbilt University. She has held many elected positions in Sociologists for Women in Society(SWS). Currently, she is the Sister to Sister Committee at SWS co-chair and was appointed to the Programs Committee for the 2022 Winter Meetings.
Banerjee's publications include her book The Opportunity Trap (2022) and the articles, "Toll of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Primary Caregiver in Yazidi Refugee Families in Canada" (2022).[4] and Deep care: The COVID-19 pandemic and the work of marginal feminist organizing in India[5] (2022). The Opportunity Trap offers insight into the ways Indian families struggle to adapt to the United States post-migration. Banerjee specifically focuses on the model minority complex in its relation to the labor market, as well as the dynamics between employed temporary workers and their unemployed spouses. Meanwhile, Banerjee's article from Studies in Social Justice illuminates the experiences of Yazidi women as they navigate the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. And "Deep Care" spotlights marginal feminist organizing and relief work in India during the pandemic.
In 2018, Banerjee was interviewed by radio host Danielle Smith of the Danielle Smith Talk Show.[6] In this interview, Banerjee presented her views on the UN Immigration Pact. Banerjee's work has additionally appeared in print, such as The Public Radio International (2018), The Economic Times (2018), The Huffington Post (2015), The Washington Post (2014), and more.
Southern Theory
Banerjee is widely recognized for their work on Southern Theory, which they developed with Australian sociologist Raewyn Connell. Banerjee and Connell propose that gender theory studies should center around Southern Theory.[7] Banerjee and Connell define Southern Theory as a decolonial, globalist approach to studying gender and feminism, as it draws knowledge from the global south. They delineate how Southern Theory sheds light on gendered issues across the world; many of these issues, like hunger and violence, show the lasting effects of colonialism.
Amanda Gouws, author of the journal article "Theorizing Feminism from the South," draws on Banerjee and Connell's findings on Southern Theory.[8] Gouws reiterates Banerjee and Connell's point on the need for knowledge from the global south to be adopted into the mainstream of gender studies. In addition to reemphasizing this concern, Gouws touches on Banerjee and Connell's discussion of "extraversion," which refers to the tendency for southern scholars to submit their work in northern journals to receive acknowledgement.
Banerjee and Connell's article "Gender Theory as Southern Theory" is included in Barbara Risman’s handbook, The Handbook of the Sociology of Gender.[1]
Global hunger
Banerjee's additions to The Aesthetics and Politics of Global Hunger examine how people use hunger as a form of protest and performance.[9] Banerjee and co-author Ranita Ray identify binaries like "colonizer vs. colonized" and "East v. West" through their association with hunger, giving particular focus to the binary "hunger vs. human," where imperialists inflict hunger on marginalized communities as means of reducing them to a non-human status. In addition to hunger acting as a tool for dehumanization, it can also become a performative form of protest, as prominent figures like Mahatma Gandhi have exemplified.
Women in the labor market
Banerjee's chapter in Immigrant Women Workers in the Neoliberal Age, entitled "Paradoxes of Patriarchy," delves into the life of a young Pakistani woman named Sufia.[10] As Banerjee argues, many South Asian women like Sufia receive low wages from their male employers in the ethnic labor market. Throughout the chapter, Banerjee focuses on how women's social and structural roles enable male employers to take advantage of their labor.
At the same time, Banerjee also recognizes how working in ethnic enclaves might grant South Asian women authority, as it disrupts patriarchal expectations in which men work and women assume a domestic role.[11] Banerjee and co-authors Soulit Chacko and Bhumika Piya expand on the dichotomous relationship between the workplace and South Asian single mothers, where they often babysit their employer's children without receiving payment and have their social statuses erased. One of the key paradoxes Banerjee, Chacko, and Piya point out are the difficulties single women encounter when applying for citizenship.[12] Since citizenship is usually contingent on a woman's marital status, single mothers are often denied this right.
Immigration
Banerjee's dissertation, named "Constructing Dependence," demonstrates how immigration laws impede upon the lives of migrant families, as well as dependent visa holders.[13] At the start of her dissertation, Banerjee distinguishes the work Indian men receive in the United States (mainly tech jobs) from the work Indian women receive (mainly nursing). Throughout their dissertation, Banerjee underlines the issues that arise for women who are dependent H-4 visa holders, such as their inability to get paid work until their husbands earn permanent residency.[14]
Intersectionality
In their journal article "Intersectionality and Social Location in Organization Studies," Banerjee and co-author Rachel Allison call attention to the erasure of intersectionality in subfields of social sciences, mainly organizational studies.[15] Allison and Banerjee describe intersectionality as the social location individuals occupy in terms of their race, sexuality, religion, and so on.[16] Banerjee and Allison emphasize how sociologists should not consider intersectionality as a culmination of traits, but by the means through which social systems target and marginalize certain individuals. Expanding on the discourse of intersectionality and the global south, Allison and Banerjee propose that there are certain aspects of an individual's identity that sociologists cannot universalize or make "mainstream," but should rather consider within the distinct, postcolonial perspectives of non-Westerners.
Chandra Talpade Mohanty, who Allison and Banerjee reference in their article, shares a similar perspective on the globalization of intersectionality.[17] Mohanty defines intersectionality by the varying struggles and privileges different individuals face within social systems. Furthering Banerjee and Allison's discussion, Mohanty claims that the individual's relationship to systems is reliant on their location in social hierarchies of race, socioeconomic class, and so on.
Criticisms
While Banerjee and Connell have received praise for their development of Southern Theory, their observations have also been met with criticism.[18] Sociologist and academic Patricia Hill Collins acknowledges the perils of Southern Theory, where it may inadvertently place Northern Theory as its main focus. Hill Collins additionally draws attention to the ways in which Southern Theory might neglect the perspectives of people from the global south as it prioritizes the voices of notable global south scholars.
In the same journal, professor and sociologist Raka Ray conversely states how the mainstreaming of Southern Theory is necessary to sociology as a whole.[19] Ray echoes Banerjee and Connell's desire in pushing the boundaries and organization of sociology, so that the focus of research extends far beyond the global north. By accepting Southern Theory into the canon of sociological ideologies, Ray proposes that researchers can continue exploring postcolonial sociology and making it the hegemonic school of thought.
Selected bibliography
| Year | Title | Publisher |
|---|---|---|
| 2013 | Immigrant Workers in the Neoliberal Age | University of Illinois Press |
| 2014 | Constructing Dependence: Visa Regimes and Gendered Migration in Families of Indian Professional Workers | Ann Arbor MI |
| 2014 | Race, Gender & Class | Journal of Management Inquiry |
| 2017 | The Aesthetics and Politics of Global Hunger | Palgrave Macmillan |
| 2018 | Gender Theory as Southern Theory | Springer International Publishing |
| 2020 | Paradoxes of Being and Becoming South Asian Single Mothers: The Enclave Economy, Patriarchy, and Migration | Women, Gender, and Families of Color |
| 2022 | The Opportunity Trap | NYU Press |
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Risman, B. J., Froyum, C., & Scarborough, W. (Eds.). (2018). Handbook of the Sociology of Gender. Cham: Springer International Publishing. Chicago. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/978-3-319-76333-0.pdf
- ↑ "Handbook of the sociology of gender | WorldCat.org". www.worldcat.org. Retrieved 2022-12-30.
- ↑ Banerjee, Pallavi (2022). "Pallavi Banerjee — Blog". Pallavi Banerjee Info. Retrieved December 20, 2022. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ Banerjee, Pallavi; Chacko, Soulit; Korsha, Souzan (24 January 2022). "Toll of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Primary Caregiver in Yazidi Refugee Families in Canada: A Feminist Refugee Epistemological Analysis". Studies in Social Justice. 16 (1): 33–53. doi:10.26522/ssj.v16i1.2692. hdl:1880/114407. Unknown parameter
|s2cid=ignored (help) - ↑ Banerjee, Pallavi; Khandelwal, Chetna; Sanyal, Megha (2022). "Deep care: The COVID-19 pandemic and the work of marginal feminist organizing in India". Gender, Work and Organization: 1–26. doi:10.1111/gwao.12857.
|access-date=requires|url=(help) - ↑ Banerjee, Pallavi (2018). "Department of Sociology — Pallavi Banerjee". University of Calgary. Retrieved December 20, 2022. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ Banerjee, Pallavi; Connell, Raewyn (2018). "Gender Theory as Southern Theory". Handbook of the Sociology of Gender. Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research. pp. 57–68. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-76333-0_4. ISBN 978-3-319-76332-3. Search this book on
- ↑ Gouws, Amanda (26 February 2022). "Theorizing Feminism from the South: Knowledge Production through South Africa's Feminist Journal AGENDA". Journal of International Women's Studies. 23 (2): 57–71. ProQuest 2640587060.
- ↑ Banerjee, Pallavi; Ray, Ranita (2017). "Afterword: Hunger as Performance". The Aesthetics and Politics of Global Hunger. pp. 277–285. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-47485-4_12. ISBN 978-3-319-47484-7. Search this book on
- ↑ Banerjee, Pallavi (2013). "Paradoxes of Patriarchy: Contradicting Experiences of South Asian Women in Ethnic Labor Markets". Immigrant Women Workers in the Neoliberal Age. University of Illinois Press. pp. 96–116. ISBN 978-0-252-03757-3. JSTOR 10.5406/j.ctt2ttdx2.10. Search this book on
- ↑ Banerjee, Pallavi; Chacko, Soulit; Piya, Bhumika (1 April 2020). "Paradoxes of Being and Becoming South Asian Single Mothers: The Enclave Economy, Patriarchy, and Migration". Women, Gender, and Families of Color. 8 (1): 5–39. doi:10.5406/womgenfamcol.8.1.0005. Gale A641263883 Project MUSE 765792 ProQuest 2491985282. Unknown parameter
|s2cid=ignored (help) - ↑ West, Jackie, and Sophie Pilgrim. “South Asian Women in Employment: The Impact of Migration, Ethnic Origin, and the Local Economy.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 21, no. 3 (1995): 357–78. https://doi.org/10.5406/womgenfamcol.8.1.0005.
- ↑ Banerjee, Pallavi (21 February 2013). Constructing Dependence: Visa Regimes and Gendered Migration in Families of Indian Professional Workers (Thesis). ProQuest 1520314847.
- ↑ Becker, H.: Cases, causes, conjectures, stories and imagery. What Is a Case?: Exploring the Foundations of Social Inquiry. Eds Howard Becker and Charles Ragin, 205-‐207, Cambridge, U.K. Cambridge University Press.1992 https://books.google.com/books?id=vSNp2jtzCbEC&lpg=PP11&ots=emCBxEelpT&dq=Becker%2C%20H.%3A%20Cases%2C%20causes%2C%20conjectures%2C%20stories%20and%20imagery.%20What%20Is%20a%20Case%3F%3A%20Exploring%20the%20Foundations%20of%20Social%20Inquiry.%20Eds%20Howard%20Becker%20and%20Charles%20Ragin%2C%20205-%C2%AD%E2%80%90207%2C%20Cambridge%2C%20U.K.%20Cambridge%20University%20Press.1992&lr&pg=PP7#v=onepage&q&f=false
- ↑ Allison, Rachel; Banerjee, Pallavi (2014). "Intersectionality and Social Location in Organization Studies, 1990-2009". Race, Gender & Class. 21 (3/4): 67–87. JSTOR 43496985. ProQuest 1751968699.
- ↑ Holvino, E. (2008). Intersections: The simultaneity of race, gender and class in organization studies. Gender, Work &Organization, 17(3): 248-277. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0432.2008.00400.x
- ↑ Mohanty, Chandra Talpade (1984). "Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses". Boundary 2. 12/13: 333–358. doi:10.2307/302821. JSTOR 302821.
- ↑ Hill Collins, Patricia (2013). ""Critical Interventions in Western Social Theory: Reflections on Power and Southern Theory"". Decentering Social Theory. 25: 137–147 – via Google Scholar.
- ↑ Ray, Raka (2013). ""Connell and Postcolonial Sociology"". Decentering Social Theory. 25: 147–157 – via Google Scholar.
External links
- Blog by Pallavi Banerjee, listing awards and educational and career background
- Departmental profile from The University of Calgary website, stating awards and research interests
- University of Calgary profile of her partner, Dr. Pratim Sengupta
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