I have been a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer at the Interdisciplinary Center for Gender Studies (ICFG) since 2022. In 2024 I was promoted to advanced postdoctoral scholar and lecturer. My primary research interests are critical policy studies, gender studies, feminist theory and anti-caste theory and practice, epistemic justice and critical approaches to neoliberalism(s) and nationalism(s). Specifically, I study gender and social policies, applying poststructuralist and intersectional feminist analytical tools to the study of how policy ‘problems’ are formulated – what is included in policy proposals and what remains excluded?
I have completed my PhD at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (2016-2022). Prior to that, I earned my Master’s degree in sustainable development at HEC Paris (2014-2015) and an integrated bachelor’s and master’s degree in Software Engineering from VIT University, India. At present, I am working on two projects.
a. My postdoc project where I analyse the relationship between development aid and gender-based violence – particularly in the Indian context. The analysis is done from a feminist poststructuralist perspective.
b. The project ‘The many futures of Gender: Oral histories of feminist theory’ with the Lead Investigator Prof. Purtschert, where we interview feminist scholars from all over the world, to produce varied accounts of feminist theories, activism, praxis and worldmaking.
I am also an editor for the working paper series ‘Gender(ed) thoughts’ housed at the University of Goettingen and a co-editor for the volume ‘Doing gender studies: Producing research otherwise’ – a volume that showcases the multi-lateral co-operation between the graduate schools (gender studies) of Bern, Basel and Zurich. I am a member of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR), the Evaluation Community of India (ECOI), the Swiss Association for Gender Studies (SAGS) and the British Sociological Association (BSA).
In 2022 (July-August 2022), I was a visiting scholar at the University of Westminster’s Center for the Study of Democracy. In 2019, I received the Swiss Government Excellence scholarship for one year (2019-2020) for conducting part of my doctoral research at University of Bern. In 2018, I received the Ford Foundation and Institute of Social Sciences Trust’s grant titled ‘Small Grant for feminist research’ – for developing a policy evaluation framework using feminist theories.
I strongly advocate for intersectional, feminist, secular and anti-caste politics and have addressed this in my work (Dixit, 2023). This has also been the focus of two workshops I organised in 2023, with funding from the University of Bern, on decolonialities, postcolonialities and nationalist pasts, presents and futures. Together with Prof. Purtschert, I co-conduct the (ongoing) ‘intersectional feminist research colloquium’ – a platform for graduate scholars and early-mid career academics to present and discuss our research with a specific focus on intersectionality.
In terms of teaching, I was sole-instructor for the course ‘Power politics and poliicymaking’ (Spring 2024). I am co-instructing the course: Women’s political participation: An international overview of theory and policy (Spring 2025). I also co-instructed ‘Feminist and postcolonial critiques of neoliberalism’, together with Prof. Purtschert in the fall of 2022. I am also the co-conductor of the (ongoing and recurring) intersectional feminist research colloquium hosted together with Prof. Purtschert and have instructed the ‘gender medicine’ class held for the ethics week of medical resident training at the University hospital in Bern.
