South Asia Studies | Faculty

Smita Jassal
Adjunct Professor, South Asia Studies, Social Anthropologist

Contact Details
stj89@yahoo.com

Course Taught
Gender and Development 

Education
Ph.D, Delhi University (1989); M.A., M. Phil, (1976, 77); B.A., Miranda House, Delhi University (1974)

Expertise
Agrarian Society and Caste, Women’s Rights to Land and Livelihood Issues, Gender and Development, Social and Cultural Change in North India

Background
Dr. Jassal is a social anthropologist who combines participatory fieldwork techniques with archival analysis. She has years of fieldwork experience in North India and is working on an ethnography of communities along the river Ganga. She has lived and worked in diverse cultures including India, U.S., Russia, Poland and Israel and has taught at the University of Delhi, the University of Warsaw, American University and George Mason University. She was Senior Fellow, Center for Women’s Development Studies, New Delhi (1995-2002), Chair of SID-WID (1991-92) and is Visiting Fellow, Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.  

Publications
Daughters of the Earth: Women and Land In Uttar Pradesh (2001).

Articles in Journal of Peasant Studies (Vol.30, no.2, Jan 2003:  Vol 7, no.3,1980)

Contributions to Indian Sociology (Vol 35, no.3, 2001)

Indian Journal of Gender Studies (Jan-June 1998)