Dr. Komal Chauhan

Biography

Komal Chauhan is a Research Officer at the Department of Methodology at the London School of Economics, working on the Leverhulme Trust-funded project 'Reputation Reproduction Social Inequality' (Rep2SI). She received her PhD in Sociology from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. Her doctoral research involved an in-depth analysis of labor relations involving lower-caste women in sugarcane farming in North India. Komal has served as a DAAD visiting PhD research scholar at the Centre for Modern Indian Studies at the University of Göttingen, Germany. Her research interests lie at the intersection of political economy and socio-cultural studies, particularly focusing on agrarian change, debt bondage, and labor relations in rural India. Her PhD thesis develops a nuanced approach to understanding the mechanisms behind the construction of everyday vulnerability among Dalit women agricultural laborers influenced by patriarchal restrictions and debt bondage in the context of neoliberal credit conditions in the countryside. She explores both individual and collective resistance strategies employed by Dalit women against capitalist exploitation and the institutions designed to uphold caste patriarchy. She has conducted extensive ethnographic research, including 11 months in rural India between 2019-2020. Currently, Komal is undergoing training in social network analysis as part of the ongoing Rep2SI project.

Research Interests