Khushboo Jain

Research interests:

  • Spatial sociology
  • Feminist theory and politics
  • Home and homelessness, migration studies
  • Childhood studies, street children research
  • Ethnography
  • Indian sociology

 

2021 – PhD (Sociology), thesis titled Home-making on the Streets of Delhi under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Silke Steets, Institut fur Soziologie, Friedrich-Alexander-Universitat Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany
2022 Research Assistant (Apr – Sept), DFG Research Training Group – The Sentimental in Literature, Culture, and Politics, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg
2018 Research Associate, Marseille (France), for Principal Investigator Dr. Jonah Steinberg (Department of Anthropology, University of Vermont, Burlington, USA), for the US National Science Foundation-funded study Social and Geographic Marginality in Contemporary Urban Spaces
2014 – 2019 All India Working Group for Rights of Children in Contact with Railways (AIWG-RCCR) research on Life World and Agency of Children in Contact with Railways, funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, India
2009 – 2012 Senior Research Associate, India, for Principal Investigator Dr. Jonah Steinberg (Department of Anthropology, University of Vermont, Burlington, USA), for the US National Science Foundation-funded study The Rite of Running Away: Street Children’s Experiences in North India
2008 Research Assistant to Prof Tulsi Patel (Department of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi) on a research project Rising Caesarean Section Births: A Study of Medical Personnel
2006 – 2009 M.Phil. (Sociology), dissertation titled Locating Women’s Empowerment in Maoist Movement in Nepal under the supervision of Dr. Rabindra Ray, Department of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi
2003 – 2005 M.A. (Sociology), Annamalai University, Tamil Nadu
1999 – 2002 B.Com., University of Delhi, Delhi

Winter semester 2024:

  • Block seminar “A Passage to India: A Land of Continuities, Change and Contradictions” (Hochschule, Fulda)

Summer semester 2024:

  • Seminar “A Passage to India: A Land of Continuities, Change and Contradictions” (Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Institute of Sociology, Bachelor of Sociology)
  • Seminar “Breaking Stereotypes: Voices of Contemporary Indian Women” (Volkshochschule, Erlangen)

Winter semester 2023/24:

  • Seminar “Beyond Traditions: Stories, Struggles and Uprisings of Women in Contemporary India ” (Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Institute of Sociology, Bachelor of Sociology)

Winter semester 2022/23:

  • Seminars “Reimagining Home ” and “ Introduction to Contemporary Feminist Theory” (Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Institute of Sociology, Bachelor of Sociology)

  • Jain, Khushboo, Book review of Housing, Homelessness, and Social Policy in the Urban North, edited by Julia Christensen, Sally Carraher, Travis Hedwig, and Steven Arnfjord. Radical Housing Journal. Vol. 6. No. 2. October 2024. pp. 269-272. DOI: 10.54825/XBZL5263.
  • Jain, Khushboo, Street-dwellers or Homeless? A Conundrum for Policy and Practice. In Handout zur Veranstaltung „Sind wir auf dem Holzweg?” Obdachlosigkeit anders denken. October 12, 2024. Berlin – Teepeeland.
  • Jain, Khushboo, “Negated Agency, Silenced Voice and the Continued Negotiations in the Spaces Within”. In Latika Vashist and Jyoti Dogra Sood (ed.) Rethinking Law and Violence. Delhi: Oxford University Press. 2020. pp 311-339
  • Jain, Khushboo, “The Unseen Tales: of the Streets, its Cultures and Women Treading the Two”. In Selvy Thiruchandran (ed.) Bound by Culture: Essays on Cultural Production Signifying Gender. Delhi: Women Unlimited. 2020. pp 110-125
  • Research report “Life World and Agency of Children in Contact with Railways”, with Dr. Bharti Sharma, Deep Purkayastha, Dunu Roy, G Kollashany, Kavita Ratna, Shwetank Mishra. Published by All India Working Group for Rights of Children in Contact with Railways (AIWG -RCCR). January 2019.
  • Fact finding report “In the Name of Arresting Crime” on treatment of children during detention/arrest in bastis of Bhopal, with Asha Mishra, Bharti Sharma, Kalpana Mehta, Maharukh Adenwalla and Prashant Dubey. Muskaan (Bhopal, India). 2015.
  • Jain, Khushboo, “Whose Voice Counts? The need for constant introspection in intervention”. Discussion paper on child labor. Published by The Concerned for Working Children (Karnataka, India). 2015.

(Selected)
  • (2024) Paper titled ‘Activism Under Fire: Navigating Risks and Building Solidarity’ presented at the ATGENDER Conference – Gender Studies and The Precarious Labour of Making a Difference, Utrecht (Netherlands), September 27-29.
  • (2024) Presented a paper titled ‘Beyond the normative: Home-making on the streets of Delhi’ at The Common City Conference, Uppsala (Sweden), 11-13 Sept.
  • (2024) Wolokon 24 ‘Fragile Behausungen: Prekäres Wohnen & Wohnungslosigkeit in Zeiten Multipler Krisen Fragile Housing – Precarious Housing and Homelessness in Times of Multiple Crises’, February 22 – 24, 2024, at Technische Hochschule Georg Simon Ohm, Nürnberg. Organised two ad-hoc groups. In the ad-hoc group Problematizing the Problem of Homelessness, presented a paper titled ‘Diluting housing rights to shelter: the politics of homelessness in India’. In the ad-hoc group Home-unmaking: Interdisciplinary Conceptualizations of Home and Homelessness in Spaces of Housing Precarity, presented a paper ‘Reimagining Home: Perspectives on Street-Dwelling’.
  • (2024) Presented a paper titled ‘Reimagining Home’ at the conference Practices of Imagination – Placings of Imaginaries from February 8 – 10, 2024 at Eichstätt, Germany
  • (2023) Presented two papers, ‘Home-making on the streets of Delhi’ and ‘Research with street dwelling children and youth: the (methodological) tension between research ethics and prevailing laws of the country’ at the 3rd International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Spatial Methods for Urban Sustainability (SMUS Conference) held on-site at the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (IIT Roorkee, India) from February 20 – 26, 2023.
  • (2022) Paper titled ‘Home-making on the Streets Amidst the Politics of Evictions’ presented online at the 2nd International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Spatial Methods for Urban Sustainability (SMUS Conference), Brazil from September 8-10, 2022
  • (2018) Paper titled ‘Understanding Young Person’s Aspirations and Preparedness: Railway-connected Children in India and Their Life Worlds’ presented at Alfred Deakin Institute ‘Youth Futures Connection and Mobility In The Asia Pacific Conference’ 2018, 15 – 16 November 2018, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia.
  • (2018) Presented two papers titled ‘Not leaving till the Passenger Trains Ply: Children and Young People in the Railway Space and their Jerky Transition to Adulthood’ and ‘Of Battles Won and Lost – New Age Child and Urban Policies: Offering Protection or Drowning Agency’, at RGS IBG Annual International Conference 2018, Cardiff University, UK, 28-31 August 2018.
  • (2017) Paper titled ‘The Unseen Tales of Streets, its Cultures and Women Treading the Two’ presented at the South Asian Conference 2017 Cultural Productions from a Gender Perspective, 24-25 November 2017, Women’s Education and Research Centre, Colombo, Sri Lanka.