Dr Swathi Shivanand

Assistant Professor

Dr. Swathi Shivanand is Assistant Professor of Social Sciences at DLHS, MAHE-Blru. She is an interdisciplinary historian with research interests in post-independence development trajectories of contemporary India, with specific focus on gender, labour, urban and the region. In keeping with her interest in public history and communication, Dr. Shivanand’s latest collaborative work in 2025, funded by the India Foundation for the Arts, has involved the creation of an open-access archival website of one of Bengaluru’s garment worker unions. She has also co-curated an exhibition ‘Stitching Lives: Garment Work and Activism in Bengaluru’ which has had three shows in various parts of Bengaluru. As part of her post-doctoral research consultancy with University of Minnesota, Dr. Shivanand has contributed five chapters to a public-facing volume ‘Chronicles of a Global City: Speculative Lives and Unsettled Futures in Bengaluru’, published in 2024 Before joining academia, Dr. Shivanand has worked with reputed civil society organisations such as the Alternative Law Forum, policy think-tanks such as Centre for Policy Research and Indian Institute of Human Settlements and newspaper organisations such as The Hindu. Her academic trajectory includes a PhD in Modern Indian History from the Centre for Historical Studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, MPhil in Social Sciences from the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta and MA in Development Studies from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. She has published in journals such as Urbanisation and Economic and Political Weekly and in popular publications such as The Wire, Scroll, and Newsminute and The India Forum. At DLHS, she has developed and taught courses in global and Indian historiography, modern and contemporary India, South Asia, political economy of media in India, environmental humanities and research methodology.