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Carmel Christy

University of Connecticut, Human Rights Institute, Post-Doc

University of Delhi, Journalism, Faculty Member

Leiden University, International Institute for Asian Studies, Affiliated Fellow

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I completed my doctoral dissertation from the Department of Communication, University of Hyderabad and postdoctoral from University of California, Santa Cruz as a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Fellow. In addition to my expertise in media studies and city spaces, I am also interested in research questions that explore the interconnections of caste, space, body, gender and sexuality. Currently, I am working on my project on Kochi that analyses the vitality of city spaces by looking at the narratives of city dwellers. Please feel free to message me for a copy of any of my publications.

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Books by Carmel Christy

The Politics of Sexuality and Caste.pdf

Kerala Modernity, 2015

The Dalit Question Is One That the Government Wants to Tame Under Draconian Laws

Sabarimala temple: How the Indian media fell into the trap of caste and gender stereotypes

Sexuality and Public Space in India: Reading the Visible

Drafts by Carmel Christy

Protests reshaping cities: Islanders defending the shores in Kochi

Many protests against displacement caused by development, as well as against dams and mining comp... more Many protests against displacement caused by development, as well as against dams and mining companies destroying the environment and habitat, have been waged by the affected marginalised people. One such ongoing protest is the struggle to protect the seashores from further pollution and also to protect the livelihood of the shore communities at Puthuvype, an island in Kochi.

Universities as Spaces of Disaffection

Institutions of higher education are supposedly endowed with the responsibility of producing dist... more Institutions of higher education are supposedly endowed with the responsibility of producing distinctions in modern society. In recent debates on caste discrimination in elite higher educational institutions, this responsibility of producing distinction is inverted. That is, these spaces produce non-synchronic forms of discrimination which are inherited rather than acquired.

Papers by Carmel Christy

Women protestors from the islands in Kochi: environmental justice in South Asia

City, Feb 13, 2024

The island cluster in the South Indian port city of Kochi has been the site of immense developmen... more The island cluster in the South Indian port city of Kochi has been the site of immense development activities since the 2000s. Thickly populated by shore communities and other caste-oppressed groups, the islanders struggled and mobilised themselves against development projects which threatened their livelihood and marine ecology. One such protest against the Liquefied Petroleum Gas terminal of the Indian Oil Corporation in Puthuvype, a scenic island off the Arabian sea, went on for over a decade. The protestors, including large numbers of women, sustained their struggle despite the state repression in various forms and thereby inserted the need for environmentally and locally conscious development as a necessary step towards social justice. An analysis of this protest signposts the need to acknowledge environmental injustice towards marginalised communities, including shore communities, to deliberate about locally nuanced and relevant development for sustainable eco-futures in South Asia.

Women protestors from the islands in Kochi: environmental justice in South Asia

City, 2024

The island cluster in the South Indian port city of Kochi has been the site of immense developmen... more The island cluster in the South Indian port city of Kochi has been the site of immense development activities since the 2000s. Thickly populated by shore communities and other caste-oppressed groups, the islanders struggled and mobilised themselves against development projects which threatened their livelihood and marine ecology. One such protest against the Liquefied Petroleum Gas terminal of the Indian Oil Corporation in Puthuvype, a scenic island off the Arabian sea, went on for over a decade. The protestors, including large numbers of women, sustained their struggle despite the state repression in various forms and thereby inserted the need for environmentally and locally conscious development as a necessary step towards social justice. An analysis of this protest signposts the need to acknowledge environmental injustice towards marginalised communities, including shore communities, to deliberate about locally nuanced and relevant development for sustainable eco-futures in South Asia.

Cities for the Many not the Few [Audio podcast episode]

The sociological review, Jan 27, 2023

Making Way for Ships: Displacement, Religion and Urban Space-Making in India’s Southwest Littoral

South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies

This article foregrounds the interlinkages between the urban space-making of Kochi, religion and ... more This article foregrounds the interlinkages between the urban space-making of Kochi, religion and the displacement of shore communities in the decades after the Independence of India in 1947. I analyse the happenings and narratives around post-Independent India’s development initiatives as a site to understand space, land and sea as crucial resources in relation to the development of the city and the displacement of the shore communities. Specifically, I examine how the establishment of the Cochin Shipyard, a public-sector company which builds and repairs ships, is entangled with displacement and religion in the development history of Kochi, a comparatively small port city on the south-western coast of the Indian subcontinent. I also trace the refiguring of the displaced people’s land as the place of ‘revengeful ghosts’ in vernacular literature, which, I argue, shows anxieties about the unjust treatment of the evicted communities. I use a diverse range of sources including newspaper reports, biographical notes, ethnographic accounts, myths and literature to recreate this forgotten chapter in the development of Kochi.

Making Way for Ships: Displacement, Religion and Urban Space-Making in India’s Southwest Littoral

South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 2022

This article foregrounds the interlinkages between the urban space-making of Kochi, religion and ... more This article foregrounds the interlinkages between the urban space-making of Kochi, religion and the displacement of shore communities in the decades after the Independence of India in 1947. I analyse the happenings and narratives around post-Independent India’s development initiatives as a site to understand space, land and sea as crucial resources in relation to the development of the city and the displacement of the shore communities. Specifically, I examine how the establishment of the Cochin Shipyard, a public-sector company which builds and repairs ships, is entangled with displacement and religion in the development history of Kochi, a comparatively small port city on the south-western coast of the Indian subcontinent. I also trace the refiguring of the displaced people’s land as the place of ‘revengeful ghosts’ in vernacular literature, which, I argue, shows anxieties about the unjust treatment of the evicted communities. I use a diverse range of sources including newspaper reports, biographical notes, ethnographic accounts, myths and literature to recreate this forgotten chapter in the development of Kochi.

The City and the Sex Worker Reading Caste and Gender in Life Writings

archives-ouvertes.fr/FMSH-WP http://wpfmsh.hypotheses.org Les Working Papers et les Position Pape... more archives-ouvertes.fr/FMSH-WP http://wpfmsh.hypotheses.org Les Working Papers et les Position Papers de la Fondation Maison des sciences de l'homme ont pour objectif la diffusion ouverte des travaux en train de se faire dans le cadre des diverses activités scientifiques de la Fondation : Le Collège d'études mondiales, Bourses Fernand Braudel-IFER, Programmes scientifiques, hébergement à la Maison Suger, Séminaires et Centres associés, Directeurs d'études associés... Les opinions exprimées dans cet article n'engagent que leur auteur et ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions institutionnelles de la Fondation MSH. The Working Papers and Position Papers of the FMSH are produced in the course of the scientific activities of the FMSH: the chairs of the Institute for Global Studies, Fernand Braudel-IFER grants, the Foundation's scientific programmes, or the scholars hosted at the Maison Suger or as associate research directors. Working Papers may also be produced in partnership with affiliated institutions. The views expressed in this paper are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect institutional positions from the Foundation MSH.

Caste and sexual politics

Sexuality and Public Space in India

Sexuality and Public Space in India

Sexuality and Public Space in India

Chithralekha: An Icon of Resistance

The road gets narrower as you go to Chithralekha's grandmother's house where she used to live at ... more The road gets narrower as you go to Chithralekha's grandmother's house where she used to live at the rear end of the village in Edat, Kannur in Kerala. The road ends at her house and there is no way to go further. Dalit houses at the end of the village is not an exception in India. 1 Villages are designed in such a way that the upper-castes do not need to cross Dalit houses as they pass. It was not just about the possibility of them seeing or touching Dalits. It was also about a well-designed ecological and geographical exclusion. Houses are arranged in such a manner that wind blows from where upper-caste houses are situated to the Dalit houses. The idea was that upper-castes should not get polluted by the wind that has breezed over lower castes. The caste order decided not just access to the material and cultural resources, but also to the flows of nature. It is in such a place where caste decides even the nature you can access that Chithralekha, a Dalit woman, decides to drive her autorickshaw on public roads in 2004. Her entry to the public roads which is in principle shared by all invites the wrath of the people from castes above hers and other guardians of the caste order. Ayyankali's fight against the casteist order more than a century ago did result in accessing public roads for Dalits in Kerala. 2 If the public roads have become accessible to all and the right to work is ensured, how will one explain attacks against Chithralekha?

The City and the Sex Worker: Reading Caste and Gender in Life Writings

FMSH-WP-2021-148, 2021

This paper explores the concept of city space as it plays out in the narrative of a sex worker. T... more This paper explores the concept of city space as
it plays out in the narrative of a sex worker. The
paper conceives the idea of “city” as shaped
through people’s experiences which points at how
it is a lived space rather than being inert or fixed.
Lived experience provide depth to the city which
reproduce it as a dynamic space where relationships
are negotiated, hierarchies are maintained. The
life narratives analyzed in this paper is that of
Nalini Jameela, a sex worker from Kerala, the
southernmost state of India.

Research after COVID-19: The Crises of the Body and the Mind

Existing polarizations of caste, religion, gender and class also shape the repercussions of the c... more Existing polarizations of caste, religion, gender and class also shape the repercussions of the current crisis in many ways. The switch to online education has amplified the manifestations of caste, gender and class divisions among students. On June 1, 2020, a 14-year-old Dalit girl student committed suicide in Kerala because her family could not afford a smart phone for her to attend online classes. There are many incidents of domestic violence against women reported during the lockdown. Full Article The worldwide COVID-19 crisis is posing unforeseen hurdles for the academic community just as in many other sectors. A colleague discussed with me how he was not able to access the archives for the last four months, which was much needed for his study on media history. Another colleague in fashion communication explained how online resources are not enough for academic work on something like applied photography as it requires time spent in studio settings. The need to protect our bodies and lives in these times made it necessary for us to restrict our research to our senses of seeing and hearing digitally. In several social science disciplines such as Anthropology, fieldwork is central to research. What does the transition to the digitized field, in the place of an evolving uncontrolled living field, mean conceptually for social science research? The unfeasibility of conducting research in real life settings leaves the researcher with the option of collecting materials through mediated means such as telephonic and online interviews, surveys, etc. In media studies, accessible materials are confined to contemporary representative practices other than online methods. Numerous possibilities that may arise from being in the field are currently out of bounds for now. Limited methods for gathering materials also reduce analytical possibilities. For instance, analytical frameworks which uses embodied affects in the field as central to their research are difficult to conceive due to restrictions on actually being in the field with people.

Janu and Saleena Narrating Life: Subjects and Spaces

Dalit Text: Aesthetics and Politics Re-imagined, 2019

This article explores the interconnected ways through which land and caste work together to repro... more

indian-universities-are-places-where- savarnas-get-affection-and-dalit-bahujans Why Indian Universities Are Places Where Savarnas Get Affection and Dalit-Bahujans Experience Distance

by P. Thirumal and Carmel Christy

Dalit Bahujan students relentlessly dream and struggle to experience an intellectual ambience in ... more Dalit Bahujan students relentlessly dream and struggle to experience an intellectual ambience in elite institutions sans caste prejudice to recreate their " being " in radically new ways in a society that otherwise seems to be forgetting what resistance with conscience can deliver in reimagining life and politics afresh. The controversy surrounding the death of the research scholar Muthukrishnan on 13 March 2017 at the hallowed Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru Univeristy, New Delhi left the progressive and the well-meaning fraternity at JNU and elsewhere pretty speechless. If one were to decontextualise the issue and focus on the immense cultural power that an academic aristocracy displays in the day-today life of students coming from marginalised sections, then one should not just limit the discussion to the external conditions (of unacceptable political and economic regime) that powerfully shape the life of elite institutions. One has to turn the gaze within in order to throw some light on these deeply disturbing experiences. Mandal Commission's Efforts The intrusion of Dalit-Bahujan students into the portals of elite institutions has been made possible not by the magnanimity of the learned savarna elite who have managed these institutions for many decades but by the use of force made possible by a rustic political class in the form of Mandal Commission report. Liberal, upper-caste academics hold the view that it is not in the nature of higher educational institutions to de-elitise itself and that process spells doom for education itself. The entry of Dalit Bahujans as students and teachers into higher educational spaces has flagged off the demand for diversity and not a monopoly in the realm of producing and disseminating knowledge. This demand for diversity is suggestive of a certain need for a loosening of elite control over these institutional spaces. Until now, this knowledge bearing aristocracy has exercised an unbridled autonomy in imagining and shaping the socially distanced horizon of these cultural institutions. This socially distanced character of knowledge produced in reputed public universities reeks of a solipsistic brahmanic quest for knowledge. It is possible that an experience of distance and disaffection in elite educational institutions bothered scholars like Rohith Vemula, Muthukrishnan and others. These individuals refused to accept the deeply pathological negation of their identity and embodied presence in university spaces. The critique against the elite institutions is not that they are disembodied and impersonal, but that they display a brahminical form of embodiment tothat disallows other bodies and minds to breathe and experience happiness and pleasure from inhabiting the concrete space of the university.

The Politics of Sexuality and Caste.pdf

Kerala Modernity, 2015

The Dalit Question Is One That the Government Wants to Tame Under Draconian Laws

Sabarimala temple: How the Indian media fell into the trap of caste and gender stereotypes

Sexuality and Public Space in India: Reading the Visible

Protests reshaping cities: Islanders defending the shores in Kochi

Many protests against displacement caused by development, as well as against dams and mining comp... more Many protests against displacement caused by development, as well as against dams and mining companies destroying the environment and habitat, have been waged by the affected marginalised people. One such ongoing protest is the struggle to protect the seashores from further pollution and also to protect the livelihood of the shore communities at Puthuvype, an island in Kochi.

Universities as Spaces of Disaffection

Institutions of higher education are supposedly endowed with the responsibility of producing dist... more Institutions of higher education are supposedly endowed with the responsibility of producing distinctions in modern society. In recent debates on caste discrimination in elite higher educational institutions, this responsibility of producing distinction is inverted. That is, these spaces produce non-synchronic forms of discrimination which are inherited rather than acquired.

Women protestors from the islands in Kochi: environmental justice in South Asia

City, Feb 13, 2024

The island cluster in the South Indian port city of Kochi has been the site of immense developmen... more The island cluster in the South Indian port city of Kochi has been the site of immense development activities since the 2000s. Thickly populated by shore communities and other caste-oppressed groups, the islanders struggled and mobilised themselves against development projects which threatened their livelihood and marine ecology. One such protest against the Liquefied Petroleum Gas terminal of the Indian Oil Corporation in Puthuvype, a scenic island off the Arabian sea, went on for over a decade. The protestors, including large numbers of women, sustained their struggle despite the state repression in various forms and thereby inserted the need for environmentally and locally conscious development as a necessary step towards social justice. An analysis of this protest signposts the need to acknowledge environmental injustice towards marginalised communities, including shore communities, to deliberate about locally nuanced and relevant development for sustainable eco-futures in South Asia.

Women protestors from the islands in Kochi: environmental justice in South Asia

City, 2024

The island cluster in the South Indian port city of Kochi has been the site of immense developmen... more The island cluster in the South Indian port city of Kochi has been the site of immense development activities since the 2000s. Thickly populated by shore communities and other caste-oppressed groups, the islanders struggled and mobilised themselves against development projects which threatened their livelihood and marine ecology. One such protest against the Liquefied Petroleum Gas terminal of the Indian Oil Corporation in Puthuvype, a scenic island off the Arabian sea, went on for over a decade. The protestors, including large numbers of women, sustained their struggle despite the state repression in various forms and thereby inserted the need for environmentally and locally conscious development as a necessary step towards social justice. An analysis of this protest signposts the need to acknowledge environmental injustice towards marginalised communities, including shore communities, to deliberate about locally nuanced and relevant development for sustainable eco-futures in South Asia.

Cities for the Many not the Few [Audio podcast episode]

The sociological review, Jan 27, 2023

Making Way for Ships: Displacement, Religion and Urban Space-Making in India’s Southwest Littoral

South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies

This article foregrounds the interlinkages between the urban space-making of Kochi, religion and ... more This article foregrounds the interlinkages between the urban space-making of Kochi, religion and the displacement of shore communities in the decades after the Independence of India in 1947. I analyse the happenings and narratives around post-Independent India’s development initiatives as a site to understand space, land and sea as crucial resources in relation to the development of the city and the displacement of the shore communities. Specifically, I examine how the establishment of the Cochin Shipyard, a public-sector company which builds and repairs ships, is entangled with displacement and religion in the development history of Kochi, a comparatively small port city on the south-western coast of the Indian subcontinent. I also trace the refiguring of the displaced people’s land as the place of ‘revengeful ghosts’ in vernacular literature, which, I argue, shows anxieties about the unjust treatment of the evicted communities. I use a diverse range of sources including newspaper reports, biographical notes, ethnographic accounts, myths and literature to recreate this forgotten chapter in the development of Kochi.

Making Way for Ships: Displacement, Religion and Urban Space-Making in India’s Southwest Littoral

South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 2022

This article foregrounds the interlinkages between the urban space-making of Kochi, religion and ... more This article foregrounds the interlinkages between the urban space-making of Kochi, religion and the displacement of shore communities in the decades after the Independence of India in 1947. I analyse the happenings and narratives around post-Independent India’s development initiatives as a site to understand space, land and sea as crucial resources in relation to the development of the city and the displacement of the shore communities. Specifically, I examine how the establishment of the Cochin Shipyard, a public-sector company which builds and repairs ships, is entangled with displacement and religion in the development history of Kochi, a comparatively small port city on the south-western coast of the Indian subcontinent. I also trace the refiguring of the displaced people’s land as the place of ‘revengeful ghosts’ in vernacular literature, which, I argue, shows anxieties about the unjust treatment of the evicted communities. I use a diverse range of sources including newspaper reports, biographical notes, ethnographic accounts, myths and literature to recreate this forgotten chapter in the development of Kochi.

The City and the Sex Worker Reading Caste and Gender in Life Writings

archives-ouvertes.fr/FMSH-WP http://wpfmsh.hypotheses.org Les Working Papers et les Position Pape... more archives-ouvertes.fr/FMSH-WP http://wpfmsh.hypotheses.org Les Working Papers et les Position Papers de la Fondation Maison des sciences de l'homme ont pour objectif la diffusion ouverte des travaux en train de se faire dans le cadre des diverses activités scientifiques de la Fondation : Le Collège d'études mondiales, Bourses Fernand Braudel-IFER, Programmes scientifiques, hébergement à la Maison Suger, Séminaires et Centres associés, Directeurs d'études associés... Les opinions exprimées dans cet article n'engagent que leur auteur et ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions institutionnelles de la Fondation MSH. The Working Papers and Position Papers of the FMSH are produced in the course of the scientific activities of the FMSH: the chairs of the Institute for Global Studies, Fernand Braudel-IFER grants, the Foundation's scientific programmes, or the scholars hosted at the Maison Suger or as associate research directors. Working Papers may also be produced in partnership with affiliated institutions. The views expressed in this paper are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect institutional positions from the Foundation MSH.

Caste and sexual politics

Sexuality and Public Space in India

Sexuality and Public Space in India

Sexuality and Public Space in India

Chithralekha: An Icon of Resistance

The road gets narrower as you go to Chithralekha's grandmother's house where she used to live at ... more The road gets narrower as you go to Chithralekha's grandmother's house where she used to live at the rear end of the village in Edat, Kannur in Kerala. The road ends at her house and there is no way to go further. Dalit houses at the end of the village is not an exception in India. 1 Villages are designed in such a way that the upper-castes do not need to cross Dalit houses as they pass. It was not just about the possibility of them seeing or touching Dalits. It was also about a well-designed ecological and geographical exclusion. Houses are arranged in such a manner that wind blows from where upper-caste houses are situated to the Dalit houses. The idea was that upper-castes should not get polluted by the wind that has breezed over lower castes. The caste order decided not just access to the material and cultural resources, but also to the flows of nature. It is in such a place where caste decides even the nature you can access that Chithralekha, a Dalit woman, decides to drive her autorickshaw on public roads in 2004. Her entry to the public roads which is in principle shared by all invites the wrath of the people from castes above hers and other guardians of the caste order. Ayyankali's fight against the casteist order more than a century ago did result in accessing public roads for Dalits in Kerala. 2 If the public roads have become accessible to all and the right to work is ensured, how will one explain attacks against Chithralekha?

The City and the Sex Worker: Reading Caste and Gender in Life Writings

FMSH-WP-2021-148, 2021

This paper explores the concept of city space as it plays out in the narrative of a sex worker. T... more This paper explores the concept of city space as
it plays out in the narrative of a sex worker. The
paper conceives the idea of “city” as shaped
through people’s experiences which points at how
it is a lived space rather than being inert or fixed.
Lived experience provide depth to the city which
reproduce it as a dynamic space where relationships
are negotiated, hierarchies are maintained. The
life narratives analyzed in this paper is that of
Nalini Jameela, a sex worker from Kerala, the
southernmost state of India.

Research after COVID-19: The Crises of the Body and the Mind

Existing polarizations of caste, religion, gender and class also shape the repercussions of the c... more Existing polarizations of caste, religion, gender and class also shape the repercussions of the current crisis in many ways. The switch to online education has amplified the manifestations of caste, gender and class divisions among students. On June 1, 2020, a 14-year-old Dalit girl student committed suicide in Kerala because her family could not afford a smart phone for her to attend online classes. There are many incidents of domestic violence against women reported during the lockdown. Full Article The worldwide COVID-19 crisis is posing unforeseen hurdles for the academic community just as in many other sectors. A colleague discussed with me how he was not able to access the archives for the last four months, which was much needed for his study on media history. Another colleague in fashion communication explained how online resources are not enough for academic work on something like applied photography as it requires time spent in studio settings. The need to protect our bodies and lives in these times made it necessary for us to restrict our research to our senses of seeing and hearing digitally. In several social science disciplines such as Anthropology, fieldwork is central to research. What does the transition to the digitized field, in the place of an evolving uncontrolled living field, mean conceptually for social science research? The unfeasibility of conducting research in real life settings leaves the researcher with the option of collecting materials through mediated means such as telephonic and online interviews, surveys, etc. In media studies, accessible materials are confined to contemporary representative practices other than online methods. Numerous possibilities that may arise from being in the field are currently out of bounds for now. Limited methods for gathering materials also reduce analytical possibilities. For instance, analytical frameworks which uses embodied affects in the field as central to their research are difficult to conceive due to restrictions on actually being in the field with people.

Janu and Saleena Narrating Life: Subjects and Spaces

Dalit Text: Aesthetics and Politics Re-imagined, 2019

This article explores the interconnected ways through which land and caste work together to repro... more

indian-universities-are-places-where- savarnas-get-affection-and-dalit-bahujans Why Indian Universities Are Places Where Savarnas Get Affection and Dalit-Bahujans Experience Distance

by P. Thirumal and Carmel Christy

Dalit Bahujan students relentlessly dream and struggle to experience an intellectual ambience in ... more Dalit Bahujan students relentlessly dream and struggle to experience an intellectual ambience in elite institutions sans caste prejudice to recreate their " being " in radically new ways in a society that otherwise seems to be forgetting what resistance with conscience can deliver in reimagining life and politics afresh. The controversy surrounding the death of the research scholar Muthukrishnan on 13 March 2017 at the hallowed Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru Univeristy, New Delhi left the progressive and the well-meaning fraternity at JNU and elsewhere pretty speechless. If one were to decontextualise the issue and focus on the immense cultural power that an academic aristocracy displays in the day-today life of students coming from marginalised sections, then one should not just limit the discussion to the external conditions (of unacceptable political and economic regime) that powerfully shape the life of elite institutions. One has to turn the gaze within in order to throw some light on these deeply disturbing experiences. Mandal Commission's Efforts The intrusion of Dalit-Bahujan students into the portals of elite institutions has been made possible not by the magnanimity of the learned savarna elite who have managed these institutions for many decades but by the use of force made possible by a rustic political class in the form of Mandal Commission report. Liberal, upper-caste academics hold the view that it is not in the nature of higher educational institutions to de-elitise itself and that process spells doom for education itself. The entry of Dalit Bahujans as students and teachers into higher educational spaces has flagged off the demand for diversity and not a monopoly in the realm of producing and disseminating knowledge. This demand for diversity is suggestive of a certain need for a loosening of elite control over these institutional spaces. Until now, this knowledge bearing aristocracy has exercised an unbridled autonomy in imagining and shaping the socially distanced horizon of these cultural institutions. This socially distanced character of knowledge produced in reputed public universities reeks of a solipsistic brahmanic quest for knowledge. It is possible that an experience of distance and disaffection in elite educational institutions bothered scholars like Rohith Vemula, Muthukrishnan and others. These individuals refused to accept the deeply pathological negation of their identity and embodied presence in university spaces. The critique against the elite institutions is not that they are disembodied and impersonal, but that they display a brahminical form of embodiment tothat disallows other bodies and minds to breathe and experience happiness and pleasure from inhabiting the concrete space of the university.