Department of Development Studies
Simran Kohli
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Key information
Key information
- Roles
- Department of Development Studies PhD Candidate in Development Studies
- Department
- Department of Development Studies
- Qualifications
- BA (Hons) Economics (Delhi, India); MA Development Studies (Delhi, India); MPhil Development Studies (London)
- Email address
- 723407@soas.ac.uk
- Thesis title
- Navigating Margines: Understanding Sex Work and Resistance through Social Reproduction in the Indian Context.
- Internal Supervisors
- Professor Alessandra Mezzadri
Biography
Simran is a researcher specialising in feminist political economy, social reproduction, and informal labour in South Asia.
She specialises in studying the lived experiences of women engaged in stigmatised and precarious forms of labour, particularly within the informal sector, using interdisciplinary approaches grounded in feminist-Marxist theory.
Her work critically engages with questions of gender, legality, caste, and stigma, exploring how structural inequalities shape labour markets and how marginalised workers negotiate agency within them. Her broader expertise includes qualitative field research, critical policy engagement, and discourse analysis, with a commitment to centring subaltern voices in development scholarship.
Prior to beginning her doctoral research, Simran completed her MA in Development Studies and a BA in Economics, cultivating an interdisciplinary interest in political economy, informality, and feminist theory. Her work contributes to ongoing debates on reproductive labour, precarity, and the revaluation of marginalised forms of work in South Asia.
Research interests
- Sex work
- Social reproduction
- Feminist political economy
- Care economies
- Informal labour migration
