Teaching
Courses
Education
- Postdoctoral Associate (Agrarian Studies), Yale University
- PhD in Social Sciences, Guwahati-2021; Postdoctoral Fellow (Swedish Research Council), North Eastern Social Research Centre, Guwahati
- MPhil in Social Sciences, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Guwahati-2015-2017
- MA in Political Science, Gauhati University-2014
- BA in Political Science, Cotton College, Gauhati University-2012
Profile
Dixita is a social scientist trained in Political Science and follows an interdisciplinary approach in her research, writings, and teaching pedagogy. She taught Political Science at B. Borooah College, Guwahati before taking up fulltime research.
Her MPhil dissertation focussed on the gender dynamics of insurgent organisations in Northeast India, particularly the oral histories of women insurgents in Assam. Her PhD explored the politics of memorialising militarisation in Assam in the 1990s and examined the symbiotic relationship between power and violence based on ethnographic narratives.
She was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the North Eastern Social Research Centre (NESRC), Guwahati between 2022-2023 where she worked in a project on food sovereignty in the Eastern Himalayas funded by the Swedish Research Council. During the project, she carried her fieldwork in Northeast India, Bangladesh, and Nepal’s Mount Everest Region.
Her first book, Seeds and Food Sovereignty: Eastern Himalayan Experiences (2023), is a co-authored, open access book written with her project team and the community. In 2024, she was appointed as a Postdoctoral Associate for the prestigious Program in Agrarian Studies at Yale University.
While teaching at NLSIU currently, she is working on a couple of writing projects and exploring her new found interest in sound bath facilitation.
Research Interests
- Insurgency in Northeast India
- Human Rights
- Gender studies
- Indigenous Food Cultures in Eastern Himalayas
- Qualitative Research Methods: Oral Histories, Interviews, and Ethnography
Publications
Peer Reviewed Journals
- “Guerrilla Farms: Practicing Food Sovereignty in Assam” (with Dolly Kikon) in Environment and
Planning D: Society and Space. https://doi.org/10.1177/02637758241288100 , October 2024 - “The ‘Secret Killings’ in Assam: Counterinsurgency and Censoring Perpetrator Information” in Journal of
Perpetrator Research, Vol.6, no.2 (July 24, 2024): 11-36 - “Suppressed silences: women as witnesses and the wounds of witnessing secret killings in Assam” Zubaan
Publishers, 2021. - “ULFA and peace negotiations” in Seminar (732), August 2020.
- “Relocating Women Insurgents in Assam: oral histories beyond a footnote” in Economic and Political
Weekly, Vol.55, no. 11 (March 14, 2020): pp.54-61. - “Between footnotes, rumours, and field notes, locating memories of extra-judicial executions from North
East India” in International Journal for Intersectional Feminist Studies 5, no.1-2 (2019). - “Living without closure: memories of counter-insurgency and secret killings in Assam” in Asian Ethnicity
(published online on 11th of July 2019). - “Between underground and over ground: narratives on the identity of women insurgents in Assam” in Asian
Ethnicity 20, no.4 (2019): 469-485.
Books
- Seeds & Food Sovereignty: Eastern Himalayan Experiences (with Joel Rodrigues, Dolly Kikon, Bengt G
Karlsson, Sanjay Barbora, Meenal Tula). 2023. Guwahati: NESRC (ISBN: 978-81-953024-9-9)
Book Chapters
- 2025. “Mapping Disability in Conflict Zone: Memories of Injury and Trajectory of Vulnerability” In
Disability and Peripherality: Perspectives and Narratives from India’s North East, edited by Pankaj
Jyoti Gogoi and Debajyoti Biswas for Springer Singapore. - 2024. “Writing in-between: research, resistance, and academic practices” with Dipti Tamang In
Silence, Voice and the In-between: Exploring a World in Flux, edited by Aliya Khalid, Georgina
Holmes and Jane Parpart for Routledge. - 2023. “Rumours, suspicions, and the making of the narrative: remembering the secret killings in
Assam.” In Blood and Tears, edited by B.Iangngap, M.Dunai, and G.Lyngdoh, 137-148. New Delhi:
Concept Publishing Company (P) Ltd. - 2021. “The pandemic and the tests of civilization: reading Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj today.” In Gandhian
Ideas and Principles, edited by Bapukan Saikia, 25-29. Guwahati: Purbayon Publication
Media Articles
- “Guerrilla Gardens: Memories and Hope in a Lemon Orchard” (with Dolly Kikon) in The India Forum, 21
July 2023. - “An Indian in Dhanmondi 32” in The Daily Star, 15 August 2022.
- “Strawberry Farms: Adopting new crops in Northeast India” (with Dolly Kikon) in Raiot on 1st June 2022.
- “Stories that have not been told” in The Telegraph on 13 May 2020.
- “Who remembers the secret killings in Assam” in Raiot on 20 March 2019.
- “Reframing female agency in insurgency: women’s voices from Assam in South Asia @ LSE BLOG on 7
March 2018. - “My Stay at ULFA’s Designated Camp” in Raiot on 12 June 2017.
Book Review
- “The movement’s indelible footprint,” Review of ULFA: The Mirage of Dawn, in Biblio, January
March 2024, pp 29-30. - “A Compendium of Water Stories: North-East India, Editors: K.K.Chatradhara and S.K. Chakraborty”
in Social Action, October-December 2023,73(4), 459-461. - “Tigers are our Brothers: Anthropology of Wildlife Conservation in Northeast India” in LSE Review of
Books,23 September 2022, https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2022/09/23/book-review-tigers
are-our-brothersanthropology-of-wildlife-conservation-in-northeast-india-by-ambika-aiyadurai/ - “Hindutva Regime in Assam: saffron in the rainbow” in Asian Ethnicity, 28 October 2021 (online),
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14631369.2021.1997333?src= - “The Kashmiri Women Demanding Answers” in The India Forum, 12 October 2021,
https://www.theindiaforum.in/article/kashmiri-women-answers - “Social Sector Development in North-East India delves into the ‘social’ in the region” in Frontline, 24
September 2021, https://frontline.thehindu.com/books/book-review-socialsector-development-in
north-east-india-edited-by-ashok-pankaj-atul-sarma-antora-borahdelves-into-the-social-in-north
eastern-india/article36287462.ece