Dr. Advaita Rajendra
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Dr. Advaita Rajendra
Assistant Professor
Public Policy & Sociology
Phone:01704-277358
Email:advaitar[at]iimsirmaur[dot]ac[dot]in
Academic Qualification: B.Tech (ECE), BIT, Mesra, PhD: Public Systems Group, IIM, Ahmedabad
Advaita Rajendra has completed her Ph.D. at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad in the Public Systems Group. She has earlier worked as a consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers Pvt. Ltd. and as a research associate at Indian Institute of Management, in Ahmedabad exploring ‘second chance programs’ with Pratham Education Foundation. Her doctoral research explores how governing mechanisms (in)visibilise waste materials, infrastructure and work. Based on ethnographic policy fieldwork in a small town in central India it critically examines the National Cleanliness Mission (Swachh Bharat Mission) and the National Urban Livelihood Mission (NULM). The work involved examining contemporary and historical policy texts and extended interactions with street level bureaucrats in local governments, and informal and formal sanitation workers. She was also recently involved in survey-based research work in collaboration with the NGO collective RCRC (Rapid Rural Community Response To COVID-19, rcrc.in). The work understands the impact of Covid-19 on rural economies, building capacities of NGOs and informing advocacy, practice and academia. Her earlier work includes the understanding of gender, caste and how they manifest in skewed sex ratios and in the reproduction of social hierarchies in government run residential schools. Her research interests lie in policy issues at the intersection of labour, social hierarchies, and the environment.
Dissertation
- Title: Governing by (in)visibilising: A case of waste and waste- work
It is an ethnographic examination of governance practices that ‘selectively (in)visibilise’ waste, waste-work and waste infrastructures through classification, relabelling, ignoring, erasures, and celebrations.
Journal Publications
- Rajendra, A. (2022). Skills in ‘unskilled’ work: A case of waste work in central India, Third World Quarterly.
- Rajendra, A. & Sarin, A. (2021). Residential education for disadvantaged girls: an alternate field? Indian Journal of Gender Studies, 28 (2).
Journal Publications (under review)
- Rajendra, A., & Sarin, A. (submitted). Framing of manual scavenging in India: A historical understanding of the policy discourse. In Brown P. (eds.) The politics and practices of re-interpretation – using interpretative methods to understand change in public administration. Journal of Public Administration.
- Rajendra, A., & Chennangodu, R. (R&R). Half of my body is working at the office and the other half is at home”: Narratives of placemaking while working from homes in rural and small-town India. Culture and Organization.
Book Chapters
- Rajendra, A., & Sarin, A. (under review). Exploring (in)visibilisation of waste-work in small-town India: A case of self-help groups In (eds) M. Zapata Campos, P. Zapata, J. Gutberlet, F. Valenzuela, A. Stowell, Re-Opening the Bin, Bristol University Press.
- Rajendra, A., & Harriss-White, B. (2023 forthcoming). The skills of ‘city-makers’: waste-work in small-town India’, In (eds) S. Schwecke, S. Maitra & S. Maitra, Crafting India’s skill ecology – Reproductions, recalibrations, and reimaginations. Sage.
- Mathur, N., Mittal, H., Rajendra, A. & Pathak, M. (2019). Ahmedabad/ GIFT. In The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Other Articles
- Rajendra, A., & Sarin, A. (2022). ‘Are you writing this down?’ When taking field notes, is being reflexive about researcher-participant distance enough?’, The Sociological Review Magazine.
- Singhal, K., Rajendra, A., & Sarin, A. (April 2021). Another wave spells more nutrition loss, The Hindu.
- Singhal, K. Rajendra, A., Sarin, A. (March 2021). Accessing government schemes in rural Bihar during Covid-19, Ideas for India.
- Gupta, I., Rajendra, A., & Sarin, A. (2020). DUET: Creating a resilient ecosystem for vulnerable populations, Ideas for India.
- Shaikh, A., & Rajendra, A. (2020). In Ahmedabad, lack of localised COVID-19 data and administrative tangle impede fight against virus, Firstpost.
- Sarin, A., & Rajendra, A. (2015). A Second Chance: Re-engaging students who have discontinued schooling, Pratham Education Foundation.
- Won the Prof. Tirath Gupta Memorial Award for Best Thesis, 2022 at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (2022).
- Received Asian Development Bank funding for travel and stay for RC21 Urban and Regional Development (2019).
- Received the Asha Khanna Trophy for securing 100% marks in Mathematics in 12th boards (2009).
Eco-social entrepreneurship, Public Policy, Data visualisation for policy making, Design thinking, Gender and caste at workplaces, Government systems, Qualitative research methods
- Asst. Professor, IIM Sirmaur (January 2023 onwards)
- Asst. Professor, O.P. Jindal Global University (October 2021 - December 2022)
- Lecturer, O.P. Jindal Global University (July 2021 - September 2021)
- Consultant, Rapid Rural Community Response (RCRC) to COVID-19 (September 2020 – Jul 2021)
- Research Associate, IIM, Ahmedabad (October 2014 – June 2015)
- Consultant, PriceWaterHouseCoopers, Mumbai (September 2013 – September 2014)
- Rajendra, A., & Chennangodu, R. (2022). Embodied knowledge systems in the creation of a piece of cloth: Re-empowering connections between creation, consumption and beyond. Gender, Work and Organization.
- Rajendra, A., & Chennangodu, R. (2021). Reconsidering coworkers and care-workers: home as a coworking space. The 12th International Conference in Critical Management Studies, BML Munjal University.
- Rajendra, A., & Sarin, A. (2021). (In)visibilizing waste and waste-work through numbers, 3rd International Conference on Public Policy (ICPP5), Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals (IBEI) and International Public Policy Association.
- Rajendra, A., & Harriss-White, B. (2021). The social life of skills in waste-work, The Social Life of Skills Workshop, The University of Melbourne.
- Rajendra, A., & Sarin, A. (2021). (In)visibilizing waste and waste-workers: a case of self-help groups, Re-opening the bin - Waste, economy, culture and society, School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenberg.
- Rajendra, A., & Sarin, A. (2021). (In)visibilisation of waste and waste work: intersections of gender, caste and organisational form, Gender, Work and Organization, University of Kent, Kent Business School and Gender, Work & Organisation.
- Rajendra, A., & Sarin, A. (2019). ‘Visibilising’ waste and waste-workers: A case of the National Cleanliness Survey, International Research Society for Public Management, Victoria University, Wellington.
- Rajendra, A., & Sarin, A. (2019). (De)valuation of waste and waste work: A story of a small town in central India. RC21 Urban and Regional Development, Delhi Contemporary, Center for Policy Research and Ambedkar University Delhi.
- Rajendra, A., & Sarin, A. (2019). Framing of manual scavenging in India: A historical understanding of the policy discourse, International Research Society for Public Management, Victoria University Wellington.
- Rajendra, A., & Sarin, A., & Mathur, N. (2017). Conceptualizing the problem of ‘unwanted’ girls and analyzing the Indian State’s response, 3rd International Conference on Public Policy (ICPP3), Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, Singapore.
- Rajendra, A., & Sarin, A. (2017). Situating residential education in the socio-cultural life of adolescent girls in India, XII International Conference on Public Policy and Management, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.