Natasha Behl
I am an associate professor in the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Arizona State University (ASU). I completed my Ph.D. in Political Science at University of California, Los Angeles, where my training focused on Race, Ethnicity, Politics and Comparative Politics.
As a scholar, I explain why the promise of democratic equality remains unrealized, and I identify potential ways to create more egalitarian relations in liberal democracies and the discipline of political science. This intellectual endeavor has demanded that I cross disciplinary boundaries and challenge epistemological and methodological norms in political science to understand the gendered and raced nature of politics as a practice and political science as a discipline. I use interpretive, feminist, and decolonial methods to examine what are often assumed to be neutral concepts, objective methodologies, and universal institutions, and demonstrate that these very concepts, methodologies, and institutions are gendered and raced such that they determine who enjoys democratic inclusion, who commands academic authority, and who is most vulnerable to violence.
My book, Gendered Citizenship: Understanding Gendered Violence in Democratic India, is published with Oxford University Press. The book received the American Political Science Association's 2021 Lee Ann Fujii Award for Innovation in the Interpretive Study of Political Violence. My research is published in leading journals like American Political Science Review, PS: Political Science and Politics, Feminist Formations, and Politics, Groups, and Identities. I was awarded the Outstanding Teaching Award and Outstanding Faculty Mentor Awards at ASU. I was also awarded ASU’s Excellence in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Award and Social Impact Award.
As a thought leader in social movements and democracy, I have written for The Washington Post and Economic & Political Weekly, commented on the BBC and Public Radio International, and given a TEDx Talk.
I apply my insights as Director of the Anti-Racism Council at ASU's New College, Director of the M.A. in Social Justice & Human Rights, and India Country Conditions Expert for Asylum and Refugee Cases.
As a scholar, I explain why the promise of democratic equality remains unrealized, and I identify potential ways to create more egalitarian relations in liberal democracies and the discipline of political science. This intellectual endeavor has demanded that I cross disciplinary boundaries and challenge epistemological and methodological norms in political science to understand the gendered and raced nature of politics as a practice and political science as a discipline. I use interpretive, feminist, and decolonial methods to examine what are often assumed to be neutral concepts, objective methodologies, and universal institutions, and demonstrate that these very concepts, methodologies, and institutions are gendered and raced such that they determine who enjoys democratic inclusion, who commands academic authority, and who is most vulnerable to violence.
My book, Gendered Citizenship: Understanding Gendered Violence in Democratic India, is published with Oxford University Press. The book received the American Political Science Association's 2021 Lee Ann Fujii Award for Innovation in the Interpretive Study of Political Violence. My research is published in leading journals like American Political Science Review, PS: Political Science and Politics, Feminist Formations, and Politics, Groups, and Identities. I was awarded the Outstanding Teaching Award and Outstanding Faculty Mentor Awards at ASU. I was also awarded ASU’s Excellence in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Award and Social Impact Award.
As a thought leader in social movements and democracy, I have written for The Washington Post and Economic & Political Weekly, commented on the BBC and Public Radio International, and given a TEDx Talk.
I apply my insights as Director of the Anti-Racism Council at ASU's New College, Director of the M.A. in Social Justice & Human Rights, and India Country Conditions Expert for Asylum and Refugee Cases.
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Dr. Behl's book, Gendered Citizenship, was recently published with the Oxford University Press. Learn more about her publication and the inspiration behind her work in this unique interview.
Books by Natasha Behl
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seeing, being, and writing, which, in turn, can challenge dominant understandings of the discipline as apolitical. I share my family’s experience of racial violence in a post–September 11 environment to map my movements within and across academic institutions. I further explain my motivation to write and conduct ethnographic research, and explore the embodied lived experience of producing knowledge as a middle-class South Asian woman, as a child of authorized immigrants, and as a
woman of color in political science. In mapping my movements and motivations, I reveal multiple forms of violence—racial, gendered, and epistemic—within political science, which provides some insight into the difficulty of diversifying the discipline.
science reproduces and legitimizes gender-blindness I reflect on a particularly horrific case of sexual and gender-based violence, the 2012 Delhi gang rape. This analysis is significant because it provides insight into the difficulty of understanding gendered violence in political
science and achieving gender equality within democratic societies.
Dr. Behl's book, Gendered Citizenship, was recently published with the Oxford University Press. Learn more about her publication and the inspiration behind her work in this unique interview.
seeing, being, and writing, which, in turn, can challenge dominant understandings of the discipline as apolitical. I share my family’s experience of racial violence in a post–September 11 environment to map my movements within and across academic institutions. I further explain my motivation to write and conduct ethnographic research, and explore the embodied lived experience of producing knowledge as a middle-class South Asian woman, as a child of authorized immigrants, and as a
woman of color in political science. In mapping my movements and motivations, I reveal multiple forms of violence—racial, gendered, and epistemic—within political science, which provides some insight into the difficulty of diversifying the discipline.
science reproduces and legitimizes gender-blindness I reflect on a particularly horrific case of sexual and gender-based violence, the 2012 Delhi gang rape. This analysis is significant because it provides insight into the difficulty of understanding gendered violence in political
science and achieving gender equality within democratic societies.