My training is in Sociology and Development Studies, and my key areas of interest are labour, development, social inequality and gender. I primarily work at the intersection of the sociology and social history of labour, with a focus on public sector industry in India.

My doctoral dissertation examined the dynamics of labour politics in a public sector industrial township in Mumbai in the context of both trade union and non-union worker collectives. The study traced both the emergence of a layered public sphere in the industrial neighbourhood as well as the diverse meanings and implications of collective action in the organised sector. I have continued to do field work at this site for about eight years now, and am slowly expanding my inquiry into conditions of contractualisation within the Indian public sector. I am building on my recent field work on contractualisation and the labour process to analyse its impact on labour mobilisation.

A renewed interest in the social history of labour has opened up new directions of enquiry, partly due to my increasing awareness of the inextricable linkages between town and country in studying the lives of workers. I currently seek to understand this with a particular focus on migration networks and intermediaries within the construction sector.

I also have an interest in rural labour with a particular focus on gender and caste, and am involved in projects that explore these dimensions. An over all interest in public policy in India with respect to its social history and the manner of its response to social cleavages informs all of these thematic inquiries.