Dr Amya Agarwal (she/her)

My research lies at the intersection of gender, conflict, security and resistance with a regional focus on South Asia. In particular, I’m interested in (1) examining masculinities by employing an everyday praxis in conflicts, and (2) exploring narratives of motherhood, resistance and agency using feminist and decolonial perspectives. 

My first book Contesting Masculinities and Women’s Agency in Kashmir (2022), published by Rowman and Littlefield (now Bloomsbury Academic), entails a three year long ethnographic study (between 2013 and 2016) in the Indian administered Kashmir. Through qualitative interviews of more than 120 stakeholders in the conflict, the book explores militarised masculinities represented by both the state and the militancy, and also locates women’s agency in this local gender ecosystem. In doing so, the book moves beyond the essentialised view of masculinities (as only violent), and highlights the fluidity in the meaning of masculinities attached to the state and the non-state actors. Alongside, it broadens the understanding of women’s agency through its engagement with the construction, performance and interplay of masculinities. The book is also published in an Indian edition by Manohar publishers (2023).

More recently, I have published on effects of precarity on early career women researchers in IR; gender’s influence on civilian men and masculinities; and motherhood and resistance art in prestigious academic outlets such as International Studies Perspectives, Routledge volume (Masculinities and Queer Perspectives in Transitional Justice) and, Journal of International Relations and Development respectively.

In the past, my research proposal ‘Motherhood Narratives and Agency in Kashmir and Palestine’ submitted under the Horizon 2020 received a Seal of Excellence by the European Commission. I was also a research partner in the project ‘Sexual Violence along the War and Peace Continuum’ funded by the Swedish Research Council, UForsk, 2019–2023 and assisted with the data collection in Indian administered Jammu and Kashmir, and drafting a media piece.