Dr Uma Pradhan

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Departmental Lecturer in South Asian Studies

Uma Pradhan is a Departmental Lecturer in South Asian Studies. Previously, she was Leverhulme Early Career Fellow (OSGA - South Asian Studies) and Junior Research Fellow (Wolfson College). Uma is also the Principal Investigator for ESRC Impact Acceleration Award (2021), GCRF funded project 'Visions of Education' (2019-2020), and Public Engagement with Research Seed funded project 'For the better future' (2019-2021). Her research focuses on power-laden dimensions of education.

 

At OSGA, she convenes the Options paper 'Education, state and society in South Asia' and the website Education.SouthAsia. She co-hosts the podcast series 'Nepal Conversations'. She also contributes to the Core course in South Asia, Research Methods, and History & Politics of South Asia. 

 

Her Leverhulme fellowship explores the contested process of everyday state-making through a study on school reconstruction projects in post-earthquake Nepal. Taking ‘reconstruction’ as an analytic space of possibility, this research investigates, firstly, the rebuilding of physical spaces and, secondly, the reconstruction of discursive spaces within which they are embedded i.e. ideas and narratives about the (failing) state education system in Nepal. Currently, she is working on a manuscript based on this research.

 

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Uma received her DPhil in International Development from University of Oxford, where she studied the cultural politics of minority language use in schools. She was awarded Dor Bahadur Bista prize 2015 and Nations and Nationalism prize 2018 for the articles based on this research. Her research is published as a monograph titled Language, Education, and the Nepali Nation (Cambridge University Press).

 

Prior to joining OSGA, she was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Department of Education Anthropology, Aarhus University, Copenhagen. Her research at Aarhus focused on understanding the ways in which public funding for the education of marginalised groups shape the relationship between state and citizens. Based on this research, she guest-edited (with Karen Valentin) a collection of articles published as a special issue in South Asia: Journal of South Asia Studies.

 

Before joining academia, Uma worked in the development sector for several years.

Publications

Monograph

Pradhan, U. 2020. Language, Education, and the Nepali Nation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

 

Edited collection

Valentin, K. and U. Pradhan, Forthcoming 2022. Anthropological Perspectives on Education in Nepal: Educational Transformations and New Avenues of Learning, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Pradhan, U. and Valentin, K.  (Guest Editors). 2019. ‘Towards a relational approach to State: understanding social and political transformation in Nepal’, special issue in South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, Vol 42, no. 5. 

 

Journal articles

Pradhan, U. and Valentin, K. 2020. 'Free education? Blurred public-private boundaries in state-run schooling in Nepal', Studies in Nepali History and Society 25(2): 277–298. (Translated 2021 in Nepali language: उमा प्रधान र कारेन भ्यालेन्टिन. निःश ुल्क शिक्षा ? राज्य-सञ्चालित विद्यालयमा पातलिएका सार्वजनिक-निजी सीमा, समाज अध्ययन १६: ४१–६३, २०७८ and Republished 2021 in (Eds) Ramesh Parajuli, Devendra Upreti, and Pratyoush Onta. School Education in Nepal. Kathmandu: Martin Chautari).

Pradhan, U. 2020. Interrogating quality: language, education, and imageries of competence in Nepal. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/03057925.2018.1559036

Pradhan, U. and Valentin, K. 2019. Introduction: Towards a relational approach to State: understanding social and political transformation in Nepal’, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, Vol 42, no. 5. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00856401.2019.1642615

Pradhan, U. 2019. Multi-ethnic citizens in a multi-ethnic state: Constructing state-citizen relations through ‘difference’ in Adivasi Janajati scholarship programmes in Nepal, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, Vol 42, no. 5. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00856401.2019.1645084

Pradhan, U., Shrestha, S. and Valentin, K. 2019. Disjunctured reciprocity: Paradoxes of community-school relationship in Nepal, Globalisation, Societies, and Education, 17:5, 561-573.  DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14767724.2019.1584032

Pradhan, U. 2018. Simultaneous identities: ethnicity and nationalism in mother tongue education in Nepal. Nations and Nationalism 25 (2): 718-738. (Nations and Nationalism Essay Prize 2018) DOI: doi.org/10.1111/nana.12463

Pradhan, U. 2017. Constructing knowledge, contesting legitimacy: knowledge-making in mother-tongue education schools in Nepal’, Ethnography and Education 12(3): 381-394. DOI: 10.1080/17457823.2017.1291358

Pradhan, U. 2016. New languages of schooling: dynamics of ethnicity and education in Nepal, HIMALAYA, The Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies 36(2): 9-21 (Dor Bahadur Bista Award 2015) https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/himalaya/vol36/iss2/6/

Pradhan, U. 2007.The child-to-child approach to community and health development in South Asia. Children, Youth and Environments, 17(1): 257-268

Pradhan, U. and I. Roy. 2006. Pluralism and civil society partnerships: perspectives from Nepal and Uttar Pradesh’, Contemporary South Asia 15(1): 55-75. DOI: 10.1080/09584930600938065

 

Book chapters

Pradhan, U. Forthcoming 2022. (Re)constructing a 'good' school: Materials, affects, and meanings of education in post-earthquake Nepal. In (Eds.)  Valentin, K. and U. Pradhan, Anthropological Perspectives on Education in Nepal: Educational Transformations and New Avenues of Learning, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Pradhan, U. Forthcoming 2022. Global visions, national students: The narratives of ‘elsewhere’ in Nepal’s education policy. In (Eds.) Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka, Susan Thieme, and Andrea Kölbel, Mobilities and Mobilisations: South Asian Universities as Transformative Social Spaces. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Pradhan, U., Deepak Thapa, Jeevan Baniya, Yangchen Gurung and Indrajit Roy, Forthcoming, 2022. The politics of social protection in Nepal: State infrastructural power and implementation of the Scholarship Programme, in Thomas Lavers (Ed.) The Politics of Distributing Social Transfers in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Pradhan, U. and Valentin, K. 2019. 'Ethnography of education and anthropological knowledge production', In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education. Ed. George Noblit. New York: Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.468 

Pradhan, U. 2019. 'From Language to Script: Constructing linguistic authority through language contact in schools in Nepal', In (Eds.) Mark Turin and Selma Sonntag, Politics of Language Contact in the Himalayas, Cambridge: Open Book Publishers (https://www.openbookpublishers.com//download/book/1073)

Pradhan, U. and Karki, S. 2019. 'Sustainable Development Goals in Nepal: Prospects and Challenges', In (Eds.) Nitya Khemka and Suraj Kumar, Social Development and the Sustainable Development Goals in South Asia, London: Routledge (https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351035262)

Pradhan, U. 2018. 'National education system in Nepal: between the ‘local’ and the ‘global’, In H. Letchamanan and D. Dhar (Ed.) Education in South Asia, London: Bloomsbury Publications (part of Education Around the World Series), pp 165-183 (https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/education-in-south-asia-and-the-indian-ocean-islands-9781350132856/)

 

Others

2021 Book Review of Childs, Geoff & Choedup, Namgyal. From a trickle to a torrent: education, migration, and social change in a Himalayan valley of Nepal, Journal of Royal Anthropological Institute 27: 701-745. (https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.13591) 

2021    The Politics of Social Protection in Nepal, ESID Working Paper 167  (co-authored with Deepak Thapa, Jeevan Baniya, Yangchen Gurung, Sanjay Mahato and Indrajit Roy)

2020    Social Assistance for Education in Nepal, Martin Chautari Research Brief, Kathmandu: Martin Chautari.

2019    Co-temporality and aftermath epistemology in the wake of the 2015 Nepal earthquakes, Blog post for ‘After the Earth’s Violent Sway’: The tangible and intangible legacies of natural disaster. School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London.

2018    Local Institutions in Nepal: A literature review. The World Bank Washington DC: The World Bank (co-authored with Indrajit Roy).

Select Publications
Teaching

2019/20. Course design and teaching, ‘Education, State, and Society in South Asia’ MPhil and MSc in Modern South Asian Studies, Oxford School of Global and Area Studies, University of Oxford. 

2018-19. Contribute to lectures and classes on MPhil/MSc in Modern South Asian Studies, Oxford School of  Global and Area Studies, University of Oxford.

2015-2019. Tutor, ‘History and Politics of South Asia’, Options course for Development Studies, Modern South Asian Studies, and Politics, Philosophy and Economics (PPE), University of Oxford.

2018/19. Tutor, ‘Anthropology of South Asia’, Options course for Anthropology and Modern South Asian Studies, University of Oxford.

2016. Course design and teaching, Six-week module on ‘State, Society and Schooling: Governing Education in South Asia’, Aarhus University (Denmark) and Kathmandu University- Martin Chautari (Nepal).

2014-2016. Graduate Teaching Assistant, MPhil in Development Studies, Department of International Development & MSc in Contemporary India, School of Interdisciplinary Area Studies, University of Oxford.

Talks

CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS

2020. For the better future: Education and unstable future-making in Nepal, South Asia Research Seminar, University of Oxford (11 Feb 2020)

2019. Alternative modes of funding ‘free’ public education in Nepal, Martin Chautari Annual Conference, Nepal (April 21–23)

2018. Education ethnography: anthropological knowledge production in education, Education and Ethnography Conference, University of Oxford. 18-20 Sept

2018. Social and political transformation in Nepal: ethnographic perspectives on state-citizen relations, Workshop co-organised with Karen Valentin (14-18 May)

2017. Nation and nationalism in mother-tongue textbooks in Nepal, Panel: Nationalism and Education in Nepal, Himalayan Studies Conference, University of Colorado Boulder, USA (September 1-4)

2017. ‘What is South Asia?” South Asia political thought seminar series, University of Oxford (November 20)

2017. Becoming ‘eligible’: documents, intermediary actors, and the state in education scholarship programmes, Panel: Public Finance Dynamics in School Education in Nepal, Himalayan Studies Conference, University of Colorado Boulder, USA (September 1-4) and Annual Kathmandu Conference on Nepal and Himalaya, Kathmandu (26-28 July)

2016. ‘Durga Kami: caste and education in Nepal’, Caste in South Asia Conference, Oxford (July 2016)

2016. ‘New languages of schooling’, Martin Chautari Research Centre, Nepal (4 March)

2015. ‘Constructing knowledge, contesting legitimacy: knowledge-making in mother-tongue education schools in Nepal’, Ethnography and Education Conference, University of Oxford, UK (September 5-8)

2014. ‘Deficit discourse in minority language education’, British Association for International and Comparative Education (BAICE) thematic group meeting, University of Leeds, UK (July 2014)

2014. ‘Learning the new Nepal: reconstituting educational space in multi-lingual schools in Nepal’ paper presented in British Association for International and Comparative Education (BAICE) Conference, University of Bath, UK (September 2014)

2014. ‘Ethnicity, equality and education in Nepal’ work in progress presented QEH DPhil Seminar Series, University of Oxford, UK (July 2014)

 

CONFERENCE AND SEMINAR ORGANISED

2020. Co-convenor (with Lokranjan Parajuli and Karen Valentin), Writing workshop for early career researchers, Martin Chautari Research Institute, Kathmandu (26-27 Feb 2020)

2018. Co-convenor (with Karen Valentin), ‘Social and political transformation in Nepal: ethnographic perspectives on state-citizen relations’ Two-day workshop at Aarhus University, Copenhagen (May 14-15, 2018)

2017. Panel Co-convenor, Navigating state institutions in the Himalayas: ethnographic perspective. Himalayan Studies Conference, University of Colorado Boulder, USA (Sept 1-4)

2016. Convenor, Wolfson Graduate Student Workshop, ‘What is South Asia?’ (May 2016) 

2015-16. Co-convenor, DPhil Seminar series, QEH, University of Oxford, 2015 – 2016 

2015. Co-convenor, Research Methods @ QEH Seminar series, QEH, University of Oxford, Hilary Term 2015

Current Projects

I am the Principal Investigator for the following research projects:

  1. Research England GCRF QR Fund - ‘Visions of education: education, state and society in South Asia (2019-2020).
  2. Public Engagement with Research Seed Fund - ‘For the better future’: an audio-visual project on education in Nepal (2019-2020).
  3. Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship - 'Reconstructing the state: rebuilding government schools in Nepal'  (2018-2021).

 

 

 

 

Research Interests
Research Disciplines:
  • Education
  • Anthropology
  • Development Studies
Research Keywords:
  • Nepal, anthropology of education, ethnicity & nationalism, minority language education, everyday state-making.
Countries:
  • Nepal, South Asia
Research Cluster:

Contact Information: 

Email: uma.pradhan(at) area.ox.ac.uk

College: Wolfson College

Office Details: 11 Bevington Road, Oxford, OX2 6LH