Shilpa Menon

Areas of Interest & Expertise

Anthropology of the state and development
Social movements
Queer, feminist, and transgender studies
Ethnographic methodology
Kerala studies

Biography

Shilpa Menon (Parthan) is an anthropologist specialising in contemporary social movements around gender and sexuality.

Shilpa received her PhD and master’s in anthropology from the University of Illinois Chicago in 2026. Her PhD research examined what it means for transgender people in Kerala to navigate newly acquired state recognition as part of a longstanding apparatus of gender and development, arguing for regionally situated perspectives on LGBTQ+ politics in India. While figuring out how to “see the state” alongside Kerala’s transgender people instead of producing a study about transgender people, Shilpa developed a deep interest in learning how to carry out collaborative and community-oriented research.

This interest in alternative modes of knowledge production and dissemination also shapes Shilpa’s work as part of the editorial team of Ala (alablog.in), an eight-year-old bilingual blog that conveys specialist knowledge on Kerala to a broader readership. She also has a master’s degree in English Studies from IIT Madras.

Publications

Academic publications

Parthan, S. (2022). ‘We are better than the women’: Understanding the popularity of female artists in contemporary Kerala. In H. M. Kamath & P. Lothspeich (Eds.), Mimetic desires: Impersonation and guising across South Asia. University of Hawai‘i Press. https://uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/mimetic-desires-impersonation-and-guising-across-south-asia/
Tom, L., & Menon, S. (2021). Living with the norm: The Nirvanam ritual in South Indian transfeminine narratives of self and transition. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 27(1), 39 – 59. https://doi.org/10.1215/10642684 – 8776848

Public writing and research

Parthan, S. (Ed.), & Gagan. (2026). Maanasikarogyatthinaayi peer support: Oru LGBTQIA+ community kaippusthakam [Mental health peer support: An LGBTQIA+ handbook]. Satrang Foundation, Keralam.
Aadhi, & Parthan, S. (Trans.). (2025). The movement for marriage equality is not mine. Kohl: A Journal for Body and Gender Research, 11(3), Queer (Non)Futures. https://kohljournal.press/movement-marriage-equality-not-mine
Parthan, S. (2022, October). Transgender drishyatha, cis feminist yaadhaasthithikatha: Chila veekshanangal [Transgender visibility, cis feminist conservatism: Some observations]. Sanghaditha Magazine, 18, 63 – 69.
Parthan, S. (2019, August 11). Speaking in tongues: The promise of Black-Dalit women’s dialogue. Cafe Dissensus Everyday. https://cafedissensus.com/2019/08/11/speaking-in-tongues-the-promise-of-black-dalit-womens-dialogue/