Contributors

Sapana Doshi

PhD Candidate
Department of Geography
University of California, Berkeley

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Sapana Doshi is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Geography at the University of California, Berkeley. Her current research is on the politics of redevelopment, eviction and resettlement in Mumbai with a focus on social mobilization among displaced slum dwellers. Using ethnographic and other qualitative methods, her work examines the political economic and cultural processes through which urban environmental transformation is both enabled and contested. In particular, this research has focused on how the spatialized production of class, gender and ethnic difference shapes experiences of the changing city and produces distinct political subjectivities. Doshi has also researched and written on the history of water infrastructure development and colonial state formation in 19th century Mumbai.

Prior to graduate studies at Berkeley, Doshi spent six years working in a variety of development and social justice initiatives. Working with non-governmental organizations, she conducted applied research and implemented projects to mitigate the negative social and environmental impacts of recurring drought among small-scale farmers in rural Northeastern Brazil. In Nepal, she studied rural and peri-urban credit markets and the poverty alleviating potential of micro-finance institutions targeting women. She also worked with a grant-making foundation in Brooklyn where she evaluated and supported non-profit housing and economic development projects in low-income neighborhoods of the New York metropolitan area.