9/12/2019: Meena Dhanda on the Philosophical Foundations of Anti-Casteism

Meena Dhanda is Professor of Philosophy and Cultural Politics at the University of Wolverhampton. She is an advocate of socially engaged philosophy. Her research focus is on understanding injustices, prejudices and misrepresentations suffered by powerless groups, which she pursues through transdisciplinary studies, specifically connecting caste, class, gender and race. Her work includes: The Negotiation of Personal Identity and Reservations for Women, besides papers in international journals, book chapters and reference works.

She holds a doctorate from Oxford University, where she was a Commonwealth Scholar and a Rhodes Junior Research Fellow. As PI, she has led three transdisciplinary research projects: 1) for the University of Wolverhampton (Black and Minority Ethnic Students’ Experience), 2) for the Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship (Caste Aside: Dalit Punjabi Identity and Experience) and 3) for the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) (Caste in Britain) leading a consortium of experts from SOAS, Manchester Metropolitan, Goldsmiths, Middlesex and Wolverhampton. Her two EHRC reports (Dhanda et al 2014a and Dhanda et al 2014b) were used by the UK Government Equalities Office in its public consultation on how caste discrimination must be legally addressed in Britain.

Professor Meena Dhanda is an executive member of SWIP UK and the BPA. She is placed on Amnesty International’s Suffragette Spirit Map of Britain (2018) in recognition of her long-standing commitment to anti-discrimination research and practice.

This podcast is an audio recording of Professor Dhanda's talk - 'Philosophical Foundations of Anti-Casteism' - at the Aristotelian Society on 9 December 2019. The recording was produced by the Backdoor Broadcasting Company.