Solidarities and Student Activism with Gaurav Pathania
In this episode, Professor Gaurav Pathania talks about what an activist university looks like. We speak about how caste cannot be subtracted from student politics and the potential that student activism has for the anti-caste struggle. We talk about caste in the diaspora - its subtle and not-so-subtle manifestations, and the ever-growing anti-caste alliance in the US. We try to reflect on what queering solidarities mean and how it can be used to counter systems of intersectional oppression. We talk about how mental health is political and end the conversation with Gaurav’s vision for Dalit Scholarship.
Gaurav Pathania is currently an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Peacebuilding in the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP) at Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) in Virginia. His first book, “The University as a Site of Resistance: Identity and Student Politics” (Oxford University Press, 2018), conceptualizes student resistance in higher education in India.
He also runs a Global Initiative for Equity and Justice and collaborates with anti-caste, race, and feminist scholars working in the area of higher education and social justice. She is an anti-caste poet, writer, and community builder. His poetry received a national award and has been published in popular and academic publications.