Kaveri
Areas of Interest & Expertise
- Statelessness, refugee studies, and forced migration
- Refugee and migration governance and policy
- Politics of humanitarianism and protection
- Citizenship, exclusion and human rights
- State and everyday governance
- Qualitative research methods
Biography
Kaveri is an interdisciplinary social scientist whose work lies at the intersection of statelessness and refugee studies, forced migration, citizenship, and the anthropology of the state, with a regional focus on South and Southeast Asia. Her research is grounded in ethnographic and qualitative methodologies and engages with questions of sovereignty, legality, and everyday governance as they are lived and negotiated by displaced and stateless populations.
She holds an MPhil and a PhD from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai. Her doctoral research draws on multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork with Rohingya refugees in India to examine the production of statelessness and refugeehood through legal regimes, bureaucratic infrastructures, and everyday state practices. Conceptualising statelessness not as a juridical absence but as a structurally produced condition, her work foregrounds lived experiences of displacement, precarity, and survival, while offering a critical account of citizenship exclusion and the limits of humanitarian protection. She earned her master’s degree in social work from the Department of Social Work, University of Delhi, and her bachelor’s degree from the University of Delhi.
Prior to joining Azim Premji University, Ranchi, she served as Assistant Professor at the School of Liberal Arts and Humanities, Woxsen University, Hyderabad. She has also been involved in research and action-oriented projects on forced migration, child protection, and gender-based violence with organisations including UNHCR – BOSCO, UNFPA Odisha, the Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group, Centre for Early Childhood Education, Ambedkar University, Delhi, and Bachpan Bachao Andolan.
Publications
Peer-reviewed journal articles
- Kaveri. (2017). Being stateless and the plight of Rohingyas. Peace Review: Journal of Social Justice, 29(1), 31 – 39. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10402659.2017.1272295
- Kaveri, & Rajan, S. I. (2023). The politics of statelessness, refugeehood, and humanitarianism of the Rohingyas. Frontiers in Human Dynamics, 4, 921461. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fhumd.2022.921461/full
Chapters in edited books
- Kaveri. (2020). The politics of marginalization and statelessness of the Rohingyas in India. In N. Chowdhory & B. Mohanty (Eds.), Citizenship, nationalism and refugeehood of Rohingyas in Southern Asia (pp. 71 – 95). Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978 – 981-15 – 2168-3_4
- Kaveri. (2022). Statelessness-citizenship continuum: The Rohingya’s quest for belonging and surviving. In S. Irudaya Rajan (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of refugees in India. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003246800
- Kaveri, & Mukhopadhyay, S. (2023). Understanding climate change and its impact on Myanmar: Perspectives on migration, migrants, and legal framework. In A. Ranjan, R. Karat, & P. Deka (Eds.), Environment, climate change and migration in South Asia. Routledge India.
- Kaveri. (2025). Stateless Rohingyas in India: Life in protracted refugeehood. In S. I. Rajan (Ed.), The Palgrave handbook of Indian migrants to Southeast Asia. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978 – 981-96 – 4204-5_28
Co-authored articles on news websites
- Ranjan, A., & Kaveri. (2020, November 10). Myanmar polls: Here’s why the Rohingya have no reason to celebrate Suu Kyi’s victory. The Wire. https://thewire.in/south-asia/myanmar-election-aung-san-rohingyas-military
- Ranjan, A., & Kaveri. (2026, February 18). Ballots without democracy in Myanmar. The Wire. https://thewire.in/south-asia/ballots-without-democracy-in-myanmar
Commentaries
- Kaveri. (2019, September 17). Politics of statelessness and citizenship: Lives in the shadows. Café Dissensus. https://cafedissensus.com/2019/09/17/politics-of-statelessness-and-citizenship-rohingya-lives-in-the-shadows/
- Kaveri. (2024). Redefining the politics of humanitarian protection: Towards a locally integrated approach. Asian Confluence. https://www.asianconfluence.org/publication-details-full/redefining-the-politics-of-humanitarian-protection-towards-a-locally-integrated-approach
Reports and interviews
- Kaveri. (2015). Myanmar on road to future. International Council on Social Welfare. http://www.icsw.org/images/docs/Regions/sasia/news/2015/2015 – 12-SouthAsiaNewsletter.pdf
- Syed Irfan Mhd. (Host). (n.d.). Interview with Kaveri on Rohingya crisis [Audio podcast]. Spotify. https://open.spotify.com/episode/04Zh3YxitUiZ9pRQ1HvVTf?nd=1&dlsi=95b38e19ddea4cfd
- Kaveri, & Phillip, I. (2024). A study of housing and livelihood issues of migrant labourers in Delhi and Kolkata. FrontPage. Kolkata. ISBN 978−93−81043−63−9
Under publication / Ongoing projects
- Kaveri. (2026). Statelessness struggles: Unravelling the global challenge and Rohingya’s enduring plight (ed.). Routledge India.