Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen
@swethaa.bsky.social
They / Them | Professor + Assoc. Dean for Research @ UCI Law
Interdisciplinary research on Legal Profession, Alterities, Queers, Souths | See - https://swethaa.com/publications
Interdisciplinary research on Legal Profession, Alterities, Queers, Souths | See - https://swethaa.com/publications
Excited to head back to the @abfresearch.bsky.social for a year www.americanbarfoundation.org/the-abf-welc...
The ABF Welcomes John M. Eason as the 2024-25 Neukom Research Chair - ABF
Eason’s research interests challenge existing models and develop new theories of community, health, race, punishment, and rural/urban processes.
www.americanbarfoundation.org
September 2, 2025 at 7:00 PM
Excited to head back to the @abfresearch.bsky.social for a year www.americanbarfoundation.org/the-abf-welc...
Reposted by Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen
With Rahul Sambaraju, I argue denial of racism and its coding in nationalism abets acts of racist violence.
Thank you to @deirdre for running this piece. And thanks to Philomena Mullen for discussions on this, and @swethaa.bsky.social Ballakrishnen for injecting the word blasé into my head:
Thank you to @deirdre for running this piece. And thanks to Philomena Mullen for discussions on this, and @swethaa.bsky.social Ballakrishnen for injecting the word blasé into my head:
Ireland’s history of humiliating the powerless has a new chapter
Downplaying the lived experience of minorities is not a new thing in Ireland - and it is allowing racism to gain traction
www.irishexaminer.com
September 2, 2025 at 1:01 PM
With Rahul Sambaraju, I argue denial of racism and its coding in nationalism abets acts of racist violence.
Thank you to @deirdre for running this piece. And thanks to Philomena Mullen for discussions on this, and @swethaa.bsky.social Ballakrishnen for injecting the word blasé into my head:
Thank you to @deirdre for running this piece. And thanks to Philomena Mullen for discussions on this, and @swethaa.bsky.social Ballakrishnen for injecting the word blasé into my head:
We might not be the people Sundaram and Kapur expected, but we are here, and the specter is upon us: what is the art history to come?
Meghaa's latest on history, contradiction, postcolony, and the re(al)births of global modernism that await us.
www.modernismmodernity.org/forums/posts...
Meghaa's latest on history, contradiction, postcolony, and the re(al)births of global modernism that await us.
www.modernismmodernity.org/forums/posts...
The Art History to Come: Vivan Sundaram’s Marxism in the Expanded Field (Geeta’s Bookshelf), 1968–2000 | Modernism / Modernity Print+
In 2000, the Indian artist Vivan Sundaram made a portrait of the critic Geeta Kapur’s bookshelf titled Marxism in the Expanded Field (MEF, fig.1). Framed and sectioned by a beaten band of tape spelling a famous line from the Communist Manifesto, “All that is solid melts into air,” and executed nearly a decade after India’s neo-liberal reforms of 1991, MEF documents a suddenly
www.modernismmodernity.org
February 27, 2025 at 11:37 PM
We might not be the people Sundaram and Kapur expected, but we are here, and the specter is upon us: what is the art history to come?
Meghaa's latest on history, contradiction, postcolony, and the re(al)births of global modernism that await us.
www.modernismmodernity.org/forums/posts...
Meghaa's latest on history, contradiction, postcolony, and the re(al)births of global modernism that await us.
www.modernismmodernity.org/forums/posts...
Reposted by Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen
Hello, Bluesky! 👋 We’re new here. At the American Bar Foundation (ABF), we conduct research at the intersection of law and society. Let’s connect and dive into today’s most pressing issues.
Learn more about our work here: www.americanbarfoundation.org
Learn more about our work here: www.americanbarfoundation.org
American Bar Foundation - Research Advancing Justice
The American Bar Foundation is a leading research institute. Our faculty produces interdisciplinary research to advance justice and the understanding of law.
www.americanbarfoundation.org
January 24, 2025 at 7:49 PM
Hello, Bluesky! 👋 We’re new here. At the American Bar Foundation (ABF), we conduct research at the intersection of law and society. Let’s connect and dive into today’s most pressing issues.
Learn more about our work here: www.americanbarfoundation.org
Learn more about our work here: www.americanbarfoundation.org
Reposted by Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen
With their new “Law and the Interloper” workshop series, longtime friends @swethaa.bsky.social and @suryaroy.bsky.social will “queer” law and society research by centering a multitude of marginalized perspectives.
Read more here! bit.ly/3Bpn5Io
#QueerTheory #LawAndSociety #LSAGrants
Read more here! bit.ly/3Bpn5Io
#QueerTheory #LawAndSociety #LSAGrants
December 19, 2024 at 4:54 PM
With their new “Law and the Interloper” workshop series, longtime friends @swethaa.bsky.social and @suryaroy.bsky.social will “queer” law and society research by centering a multitude of marginalized perspectives.
Read more here! bit.ly/3Bpn5Io
#QueerTheory #LawAndSociety #LSAGrants
Read more here! bit.ly/3Bpn5Io
#QueerTheory #LawAndSociety #LSAGrants
In this chat w/ @lawandsociety.bsky.social , @suryaroy.bsky.social and I talk about the plans we have for our post-LSA'25 workshop, long-term friendships as method, and the space of the interloper to consider law and society research. (Thanks, Crissonna for the engagement!)
With their new “Law and the Interloper” workshop series, longtime friends @swethaa.bsky.social and @suryaroy.bsky.social will “queer” law and society research by centering a multitude of marginalized perspectives.
Read more here! bit.ly/3Bpn5Io
#QueerTheory #LawAndSociety #LSAGrants
Read more here! bit.ly/3Bpn5Io
#QueerTheory #LawAndSociety #LSAGrants
December 20, 2024 at 7:05 AM
In this chat w/ @lawandsociety.bsky.social , @suryaroy.bsky.social and I talk about the plans we have for our post-LSA'25 workshop, long-term friendships as method, and the space of the interloper to consider law and society research. (Thanks, Crissonna for the engagement!)
Reposted by Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen
I'm delighted to share this new publication which is the editorial introduction to a special issue: "Mobilising Queer Joy: Establishing Queer Joy Studies." Please share (the joy) and help us spread word of this new area of study. @queerjoylab.bsky.social journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
December 12, 2024 at 7:35 PM
I'm delighted to share this new publication which is the editorial introduction to a special issue: "Mobilising Queer Joy: Establishing Queer Joy Studies." Please share (the joy) and help us spread word of this new area of study. @queerjoylab.bsky.social journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Reposted by Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen
Sometimes, but only sometimes, two wrongs can make a right. Based on an erroneous definition of transgender in a prior case, which was then codified, the Kerala High Court has found that intersex children cannot be subjected to surgeries based on parental consent alone.
lawandsexuality.com
lawandsexuality.com
Law and Sexuality
Bi-monthly Updates on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Cases in India
lawandsexuality.com
December 14, 2024 at 2:44 PM
Sometimes, but only sometimes, two wrongs can make a right. Based on an erroneous definition of transgender in a prior case, which was then codified, the Kerala High Court has found that intersex children cannot be subjected to surgeries based on parental consent alone.
lawandsexuality.com
lawandsexuality.com
Reposted by Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen
On behalf of dozens of students, faculty, staff, community leaders, and partner organizations who comprise the Environmental Law Program @ucirvine.bsky.social School of Law, we are pleased to share our 2024 Annual Report. Here's to a momentous year ahead!
myemail.constantcontact.com/Environmenta...
myemail.constantcontact.com/Environmenta...
December 13, 2024 at 9:33 PM
On behalf of dozens of students, faculty, staff, community leaders, and partner organizations who comprise the Environmental Law Program @ucirvine.bsky.social School of Law, we are pleased to share our 2024 Annual Report. Here's to a momentous year ahead!
myemail.constantcontact.com/Environmenta...
myemail.constantcontact.com/Environmenta...
Maryam Khan's latest on postcolonial state-making in South Asia and the unstable middles and alternative political possibilities that subsist in these contexts. Masterful complication of the "East-West symbiosis" in the Pakistani constitutional case. www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EHC4...
Patterns of Power in Constitutional Design: East-West Symbiosis in United Pakistan
Using an analytical framework of a ‘symbiosis’ between East Bengal and West Pakistan, this article centres the two-wing configuration of united Pakistan as a key element in shaping political contes...
www.tandfonline.com
December 13, 2024 at 2:25 AM
Maryam Khan's latest on postcolonial state-making in South Asia and the unstable middles and alternative political possibilities that subsist in these contexts. Masterful complication of the "East-West symbiosis" in the Pakistani constitutional case. www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EHC4...
Path dependencies of scholar activist / activist scholars, intergenerational cleavages in conversation and movements, and the grace to sit with inconvenient facts when working with causes close to our heart. Brilliant start to Day 2 of this HKU + @lawandsociety.bsky.social conference.
December 13, 2024 at 1:55 AM
Path dependencies of scholar activist / activist scholars, intergenerational cleavages in conversation and movements, and the grace to sit with inconvenient facts when working with causes close to our heart. Brilliant start to Day 2 of this HKU + @lawandsociety.bsky.social conference.
Grateful to Cynthia Farid, Yugank Goyal and Sergio Latorre for bringing together this community @ HKU to discuss scholar-activism and the nuanced majority world logics of knowledge production and collaboration.
December 12, 2024 at 7:31 AM
Grateful to Cynthia Farid, Yugank Goyal and Sergio Latorre for bringing together this community @ HKU to discuss scholar-activism and the nuanced majority world logics of knowledge production and collaboration.
Reposted by Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen
Big thanks to TSR for supporting @snehaannavarapu.bsky.social and me in organising the symposium — 'Movement in (Ethnographic) Method: Space, Time and Theory'. Call for participants will be out soon! Also, do not miss the promising keynote lectures by Nayanika Mathur and @asiyaislam.bsky.social
Big ideas: four teams focusing on subjects ranging from #azadi and imaginaries of liberation to social engineering after #techlash have received funding for 2025 events via the latest Sociological Review Seminar Series grant round.
Read about the winners: buff.ly/4f7jz36
Read about the winners: buff.ly/4f7jz36
December 11, 2024 at 7:11 AM
Big thanks to TSR for supporting @snehaannavarapu.bsky.social and me in organising the symposium — 'Movement in (Ethnographic) Method: Space, Time and Theory'. Call for participants will be out soon! Also, do not miss the promising keynote lectures by Nayanika Mathur and @asiyaislam.bsky.social
Thanks to everyone who came to this today. The questions helped me reassess my own prefigurative priors re: methods and vulnerability.
For those who missed it, the conversation drew from this (open source!) chapter in the Massoud+Chua book re: sociolegal methods - www.cambridge.org/core/books/o...
For those who missed it, the conversation drew from this (open source!) chapter in the Massoud+Chua book re: sociolegal methods - www.cambridge.org/core/books/o...
December 11, 2024 at 7:06 PM
Thanks to everyone who came to this today. The questions helped me reassess my own prefigurative priors re: methods and vulnerability.
For those who missed it, the conversation drew from this (open source!) chapter in the Massoud+Chua book re: sociolegal methods - www.cambridge.org/core/books/o...
For those who missed it, the conversation drew from this (open source!) chapter in the Massoud+Chua book re: sociolegal methods - www.cambridge.org/core/books/o...
Reposted by Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen
What does #LawAndSociety scholarship look like when approached from marginalized perspectives on the “periphery”? Join the conversation—apply for Law and the Interloper: #QueerTheory in Global Law and Society Scholarship by 12/15! adobe.ly/3Uqi1cN
@swethaa.bsky.social @suryaroy.bsky.social
@swethaa.bsky.social @suryaroy.bsky.social
December 10, 2024 at 8:45 PM
What does #LawAndSociety scholarship look like when approached from marginalized perspectives on the “periphery”? Join the conversation—apply for Law and the Interloper: #QueerTheory in Global Law and Society Scholarship by 12/15! adobe.ly/3Uqi1cN
@swethaa.bsky.social @suryaroy.bsky.social
@swethaa.bsky.social @suryaroy.bsky.social
Had a truly generative time at the ABF thinking in community about my next project on queerness and everyday macro-(non)aggressions. Thank you to all who came and engaged with such generosity. 🥲
Next stop: NYC to talk about how this relates to law, humor and identity w/these awesome humans:
Next stop: NYC to talk about how this relates to law, humor and identity w/these awesome humans:
December 5, 2024 at 2:04 PM
Had a truly generative time at the ABF thinking in community about my next project on queerness and everyday macro-(non)aggressions. Thank you to all who came and engaged with such generosity. 🥲
Next stop: NYC to talk about how this relates to law, humor and identity w/these awesome humans:
Next stop: NYC to talk about how this relates to law, humor and identity w/these awesome humans:
"Taking Kurdish queer struggles seriously can similarly “unflatten” our analyses of social and political dynamics at a local level"
Hi all! Just wanted to share that I’ve contributed a piece to the South Atlantic Quarterly’s latest issue, “Decolonising Kurdish Studies.” It’s about Kurdish Queer Studies - you can read it here:
"On the (Im)possibility of the Kurdish Queer"
read.dukeupress.edu/south-atlant... @dukepress.bsky.social
"On the (Im)possibility of the Kurdish Queer"
read.dukeupress.edu/south-atlant... @dukepress.bsky.social
On the (Im)possibility of the Kurdish Queer | South Atlantic Quarterly | Duke University Press
read.dukeupress.edu
December 2, 2024 at 10:36 PM
"Taking Kurdish queer struggles seriously can similarly “unflatten” our analyses of social and political dynamics at a local level"
Reposted by Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen
Moving this from X to here - reminder that Black feminist theory summer institute applications are open. Details here: gendersexualityfeminist.duke.edu/black-femini...
November 15, 2024 at 1:30 PM
Moving this from X to here - reminder that Black feminist theory summer institute applications are open. Details here: gendersexualityfeminist.duke.edu/black-femini...
Reposted by Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen
For those of us who think about the institutional life of women's/gender/sexuality studies, this is interesting (and, I think, sad) news: news.ucsc.edu/2024/11/femi...
After 50 successful years, Feminist Studies faculty vote to disestablish the formal department, making way for more wide-ranging feminist scholarship across campus
Feminist Studies faculty and staff are committed to helping current students enrolled in the department's programs earn their degrees
news.ucsc.edu
November 26, 2024 at 11:56 AM
For those of us who think about the institutional life of women's/gender/sexuality studies, this is interesting (and, I think, sad) news: news.ucsc.edu/2024/11/femi...
Reposted by Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen
Advanced doctoral students, early career faculty, and recent J.D.s: Doing work in legal history, broadly defined? Apply for the 2025 Hurst Institute in Legal History, a two week workshop and seminar in June. Deadline 1/15/25. More info: www.law.wisc.edu/hurst-instit...
December 1, 2024 at 8:31 PM
Advanced doctoral students, early career faculty, and recent J.D.s: Doing work in legal history, broadly defined? Apply for the 2025 Hurst Institute in Legal History, a two week workshop and seminar in June. Deadline 1/15/25. More info: www.law.wisc.edu/hurst-instit...
Reposted by Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen
How have issue linkages featured in the framing of a transnational labour mobility regime?
TWAIL-ing the Global Compact for Migration, I attempt to answer this question.
Read the full article on @TWAILReview here bit.ly/4htIboW
TWAIL-ing the Global Compact for Migration, I attempt to answer this question.
Read the full article on @TWAILReview here bit.ly/4htIboW
November 13, 2024 at 2:29 AM
How have issue linkages featured in the framing of a transnational labour mobility regime?
TWAIL-ing the Global Compact for Migration, I attempt to answer this question.
Read the full article on @TWAILReview here bit.ly/4htIboW
TWAIL-ing the Global Compact for Migration, I attempt to answer this question.
Read the full article on @TWAILReview here bit.ly/4htIboW
Reposted by Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen
In the Zong case the court heard how people had been thrown overboard to drown for an insurance claim. "The judges took their decisions on a technical point of evidence...nobody concerned in the case made any objection to slavery as a matter of principle."
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/403...
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/403...
Why lawyers were as culpable as any slaver
The focus on individual traders like Colston means lawyers are out of sight—but they facilitated the trade
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk
November 29, 2024 at 11:26 AM
In the Zong case the court heard how people had been thrown overboard to drown for an insurance claim. "The judges took their decisions on a technical point of evidence...nobody concerned in the case made any objection to slavery as a matter of principle."
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/403...
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/403...
Reposted by Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen
Workshop applications are still open for “Law and the Interloper: Queer Theory in Critical Global Law and Society Scholarship”!
Apply before December 15th: adobe.ly/3Uqi1cN
@swethaa.bsky.social @suryaroy.bsky.social
#QueerTheory #LawAndSociety #AccessToJustice
Apply before December 15th: adobe.ly/3Uqi1cN
@swethaa.bsky.social @suryaroy.bsky.social
#QueerTheory #LawAndSociety #AccessToJustice
November 27, 2024 at 8:24 PM
Workshop applications are still open for “Law and the Interloper: Queer Theory in Critical Global Law and Society Scholarship”!
Apply before December 15th: adobe.ly/3Uqi1cN
@swethaa.bsky.social @suryaroy.bsky.social
#QueerTheory #LawAndSociety #AccessToJustice
Apply before December 15th: adobe.ly/3Uqi1cN
@swethaa.bsky.social @suryaroy.bsky.social
#QueerTheory #LawAndSociety #AccessToJustice
Reposted by Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen
Hello, legal ed scholars! Here's my starter pack of folks studying legal education (broadly defined). Happy to add to it.
go.bsky.app/JdGzRAP
go.bsky.app/JdGzRAP
November 22, 2024 at 3:02 PM
Hello, legal ed scholars! Here's my starter pack of folks studying legal education (broadly defined). Happy to add to it.
go.bsky.app/JdGzRAP
go.bsky.app/JdGzRAP