School of Social and Political Science

Neerja Pathak

Job Title

PhD Student

Research interests

Research interests

My doctoral research is an ethnographic study of the first name changing practice of women post-marriage in India. In this study, I am interested in understanding what could names and naming tell us about the underlying relationalities and power entanglements of a group, especially in the South Asian context. In following and observing the different rituals of first name-change of incoming brides among the Sindhi and Marathi communities, I take a look at marriage as a dynamic network of relations that on the one hand replicate gender power hierarchies, while on the other provide a board to change it. Names are central in my research to navigate what it means for women to be called a particular name in different networks of relations as well as to carry the responsibility of the name they live by. I use name narratives of women embedded in their life experiences as a means to talk about self-making, gender, ritual, marriage, kinship and intimacies. 

Working Title to the Thesis: To be Named in Marriage: An Anthropological exploration of first name-change practice of women post-marriage in India.

 

Work

Research Fellow at Forum on Contemporary Theory, Vadodara, India.(2017-2018).

Tutor at the University of Edinburgh. (2020- )

 

Funding

Graduate School of Social and Political Science International Award 2019 ( 3 years)

Graduate School of Social and Political Science Studentship 2019 (3 years)

 

Conferences and Presentations

Pathak, N. “Is there nothing in names? A study of the first name changing ritual of women post-marriage in west India”. 2020. Centre for South Asian Studies Work-in- Progress Workshop, University of Edinburgh.

Pathak, N. “Whispered into Being: The Lena-Deni Ritual in a Sindhi Wedding”. 2021. Centre for South Asian Studies Work-in- Progress Workshop, University of Edinburgh. 

Pathak, N. “The Namer: Making of Men in the First Name Change Practice of Women Post-Marriage in India”. September 2022. South Asia Anthropology Group at University of Edinburgh. Discussed by Dr Janet Carsten, University of Edinburgh.

Pathak, N. “On Being Named: Name- change Narratives of Women Post- Marriage”. 2022 Australian Anthropology Society [online]. Discussed by Dr Piers Kelly, University of New England.

Pathak, N. “Re-naming of a Sindhi Bride and a Making of a Prosperous Future”. September 2023. South Asia Anthropology Group at SOAS London. Discussed by Dr Shalini Grover, LSE.

Pathak, N. “Why Should I change my name? Contextualising Resistance in the First Name-change Practice of Women Post- Marriage in India”. October 2023. Annual Conference on South Asia, Wisconsin – Madison. 

Pathak, N. “What is in a Name? : An Anthropology of Names”. November 2023. Talk at the Social Anthropology Society, University of Edinburgh. 

 

Teaching

2021 Sociology 1A: The Sociological Imagination: Individuals and Society SCIL08004. (UG)

2022 South Asia in the World SAST08003 (UG)

2023 Ritual and Religion SCAN10023 (UG)

Works within