Education

Postdoctoral Fellow, CEU Democracy Institute (Global Forum for Democracy & Development), Hungary.
Postdoctoral Fellow, ‘Heritage as Placemaking: The Politics of Erasure and Solidarity in South Asia’(HAP), funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (Sweden).
PhD in Sociology, South Asian University (New Delhi).
MPhil in Sociology, South Asian University (New Delhi).

Profile

Pooja Kalita is a sociologist by training. She is currently as one of the Lead Researchers of Centre for Inclusive Societies (CIST), Media Law Forum (Sri Lanka). Besides her academic publications, she scripted two short-films and is an experienced videographer and a podcaster.

Her first children’s book ‘To Whom Does Lord Buddha Belong?’ (2026) is translated into three languages. Previously, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Central European University Democracy Institute (CEU DI), Budapest. She was also a Postdoctoral Fellow in the project – ‘Heritage as Placemaking: The Politics of Erasure and Solidarity in South Asia’(HAP), funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (Sweden). She has also designed outreach activities and have conducted ethnographic fieldwork in India, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

Research

Gender studies, Sociology of food, Urban Heritage, Everyday Democracy and Visuals in Social Sciences.

Publication

Peer-Reviewed Journals

2025: Kalita, P & Jayasena, A. ‘What Has Heritage Got to Do with it? Understanding the Built Environment of Bodh Gaya’s Foodscape’, Cultural Currents: Journal of South Asian Culture, 1.: 152-167, SAARC Cultural Centre (Sri Lanka).

2024: Kalita, P. ‘Bishakh Important Hoi (Trust is Important): Masculinities, Trust and the ‘Assamese’ Pithas’, Gastronomica, 24(1): 12-24, University of California Press.

2022: Kalita, P. ‘‘Reflecting on the Migrant Kitchen: Gender, Food and the City’, Labour and Development, 29(1): 145-155, V.V Giri National Labour Institute, New Delhi. ISSN: 0973 0419.

2020: Kalita, P.‘When We Eat-Out: Women, Desires and Public Spaces of Food Consumption’, Society and Culture in South Asia, 6(2): 1-19, SAGE.

Book and Magazine Chapters

2025: Kalita, P. ‘Tholuwa’, pp. 291-300 in Thomas, R. & Perera, S. (Eds.), Decolonial Keywords: South Asian Thoughts and Attitudes, Tulika Books (New Delhi) & Columbia University Press (New York).

2025: Kalita, P.‘Our Tholuwa Heritage: Women and their ‘knowledge’ in Urban Agriculture in Assam (India)’, pp. 67-68 in Urban Agriculture as Heritage, UA Magazine 42, RUAF with INSUAH.

2021: Kalita, P. 2021. ‘Dressing My Culture: The Mekhela-Chador, Women’s Agency and Patriarchy in Assam’, pp.101-111 in Lepcha, C. K. & Lal, U. (Eds.), Communities, Institutions and Histories of India’s Northeast. London: Routledge.

2020: Kalita, P. ‘Food is Not Just ‘Food’: Analysing Gender in the Assamese Foodscape’, pp.153-168 in Nongbri, T., Bhargava, R. (Eds.), Materiality and Visuality in North East India. Singapore: Springer.

2020: Kalita, P.‘Feminism across Borders: Art by Women from/of South Asia’, pp.1-13 in Thiruchandran, S., (Eds.), Bound by Culture: Essays on Cultural Production Signifying Gender. New Delhi: Women Unlimited.

2019: Kalita, P. Art’ of Ethnography: Feminist Ethnography and Women Artists in South Asia, pp.93-114 in Perera, S., Pathak, D.N. (Eds.), Intersections of Contemporary Art, Anthropology and Art History in South Asia. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Grant Publication

2020: Kalita, P. & Borah, P. 2023. ‘The Baghjan Tragedy: Gender and Public Spaces in the Time of a Disaster and a Pandemic’, Published by Zubaan Publishers Pvt. Ltd in collaboration with the Sasakawa Peace Foundation. (The paper was an outcome of Zubaan–Sasakawa Peace Foundation Grant, for young researchers from Northeast India).

Creative Outputs

2026, Author – To Whom Does Lord Buddha Belong?; Published by Tambapanni Acadermic Publishers under Tambapanni Tales.

2025, Co-researcher and Field Videographer of the Documentary – Katina: A Sinhala Buddhist Ritual and A Process of Placemaking Across Borders.

2022-2025, Podcast Coordinator and Host, HAP Decolonization Series.

Forthcoming Publications

2026: (Edited Volume) Kalita, P. & Perera, S. (Eds.) Between Tales and Lanes: Heritage in South Asia. Delhi: Aakar Books.