Sita Mamidipudi
Biography
I am an environmental anthropologist with an interest in how climate precarities and environmental dispossession intersect with labor and political belonging. My dissertation project is based in the Little Rann of Kutch, a region along the Western coast of India usually flooded by rainwater and the sea during the four months of the monsoon, and a saline desert for the rest of the year as the water recedes. In my past, I worked as an educator and researcher in India at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences and at ANANDI India, with publications in the fields of environmental anthropology, land rights, sexual violence, access to healthcare, and feminist solidarities. At UCLA, I have helped teach undergraduate courses in cultural, linguistic and biological anthropology, on race and racism, indigeneity and gender. In India, I taught graduate courses on queer theory, development studies, global women’s movements, gender and citizenship and public health.
Publications
2024: Mamidipudi, Sita. ‘Salty Seas: Contesting Flows of Water in the Little Rann of Kutch’. In Engagements: Anthropology and Environment Society. https://aesengagement.wordpress.com/2024/06/22/salty-seas-contesting-flows/
2024: Mamidipudi, Sita. ‘Taste of Dwindling Flows: Chowdy Fish in the Little Rann of Kutch’. In Engagements: Anthropology and Environment Society. https://aesengagement.wordpress.com/2024/02/07/the-taste-of-dwindling-flows-chowdy-fish-in-the-little-rann-of-kutch-in-india/
2024: Lingam, L., Bandewar, S., Mamidipudi, S. ‘Slip between the Cup and the Lip: Glaring Gaps in the Healthcare System’s Implementation of Rape Law Reforms in Two Districts, India. In Handbook on Sex, Gender and Health: Perspectives from South Asia. SpringerNature https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-981-19-9265-0_61-1 2016: Mamidipudi, Sita, and Sejal Dand. ‘Tribal Women Organising for Land Rights in Dahod and Panchmahaals, Gujarat’. In Land, Labour and Livelihoods: Indian Women’s Perspectives. Gender, Development and Social Change. Palgrave Macmillan,
2016: Mamidipudi, Sita, and Sejal Dand. ‘Tribal Women Organising for Land Rights in Dahod and Panchmahaals, Gujarat’. In Land, Labour and Livelihoods: Indian Women’s Perspectives. Gender, Development and Social Change. Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. https://www.springerprofessional.de/en/tribal-women-organising-for-land-rights-in-dahod-and-panchmahaal/11237960
Awards & Grants
Scholar-in-Residence, Center for Study of Women, UCLA 2023
Research Scholar, Initiative for Study of Hate, UCLA 2023
Finalist, Rappaport Graduate Student Prize, Anthropology and Environment Society 2023 UCLA Sambhi Summer Graduate Student Research Fellowship Award, 2023
Robert B Edgerton Graduate Student Award, 2020-21
Graduate Summer Research Mentorship, UCLA, 2020
Department of Anthropology Summer Grant, UCLA, 2019
UCLA Sambhi Memorial Graduate Student Research Fellowship Award, 2019
Junior Research Fellowship, University Grants Commission India, 2010 – 2012
Conference Presentations
Presenter, Modern South Asia Workshop 2024 Hosted by: Yale Macmillan Center
Paper Title: Murder on the Lake: Debt, Patronage and Bonded Labor in the
Little Rann of Kutch, India
Presenter, CISA Graduate Student Conference 2024
Hosted by: Center for India and South Asia, UCLA
Paper Title: Debt and Bonded Labor in the Little Rann of Kutch, India
Presenter, Roy A Rapport Graduate Student Prize Panel (2023)
Hosted by: American Anthropological Association
Paper Title: Salty Seas: Contesting Flows of Water in the Little Rann of Kutch
Presenter, Women’s Movements and Climate Change (2023)
Hosted by: Indian Association for Women’s Studies
Paper Title: Feminist Labor Strategies and Climate Change in the Little Rann of Kutch, India
Presenter, Placing: New Engagements With the Environment (2021)
Hosted by: Envirolab, University of Pennsylvania
Paper Title: My Blood is Salty: Navigating Legitimacy in the Little Rann of Kutch’
Presenter, Land, Labour and Livelihoods: Indian Women’s Perspectives (2014) Hosted by: Tata Institute of Social Sciences and University of Melbourne Paper Title: Tribal Women Organizing for Land Rights in Dahod and Panchmahaals
Organizer, Fifth Annual Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference on South Asia at UCLA, 2020
Centre for India and South Asia, University of California, Los Angeles
Organizer, Fourth Annual Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference on South Asia
at UCLA, 2019
Centre for India and South Asia, University of California, Los Angeles
