Professor Deepta Chopra is a feminist social scientist whose research interests focus on unpaid care and domestic work (UCDW), empowerment of women and girls; and the role of women’s movements in effecting policy change and countering backlash.
Deepta has written extensively on these issues and on the gendered political economy analysis of policy processes. Her research has highlighted the multi-faceted links between women’s UCDW and their paid work; built understandings of the core principles, policy categories and levers of change in order for care work to be recognized and redistributed; and privileged the voices of women and girls in examining their struggles for empowerment.
Deepta is currently leading IDS’ work on understanding and supporting women’s struggles with an emphasis on strategies against backlash. She is the PI for the Sustaining Power: Women’s Struggles against backlash in South Asia (SuPWR) programme, and also research projects within the Countering Backlash programme. She is a dynamic project leader who has developed, fund-raised for, and implemented several research projects on gendered political economy analysis of women’s struggles and programmes and policies for their empowerment; and social protection.
She has extensive experience in gendered political economy analysis and has worked intensively on the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and the Food Rights Act in India. She has worked closely with state and non-state partners in the Asia (specifically South Asia and East Asia) and Pacific region; and in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Deepta has had high impact in the policy and practice of international development, especially in relation to her work on the care economy, women led movements, and MGNREGA. She is an expert on mixed methods research – especially combining qualitative and reflective research design to bring voices of marginalized women to the fore.
Deepta is an enthusiastic and popular teacher; she was the Director of Doctoral Studies at IDS and also used to convene the MA Gender and Development programme. She currently teaches on the MA Gender and Development, the MA Governance and Development and the MA Poverty and Development, through a range of relevant lectures and supervision.
She remains open to potential PhD applicants working on issues of women’s empowerment, UCDW, power and participation, citizen engagement and governance.
Deepta has supervised the following PhD scholars to completion:
Ayesha Khan whose PhD thesis was titled ‘Feminist Actors, Political Voice and Gender Policies in Pakistan’.
Betty Akyeampong whose PhD was titled ‘Implementing social protection in competitive political settlements: a case study of the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty Programme (LEAP) in Ghana’.
Eric Kasper, whose PhD thesis was titled: ‘Nurturing Emergent Agency: Networks and Dynamics of Complex Social Change Processes in Raipur, India’.
Susana Araujo whose PhD thesis was titled ‘The Dynamics of Social Movements and Countermovements around Gender Equality in Peru’.
Mireille Widmer whose PhD thesis was titled ‘Local bosses and shadow players: A network analysis of change in the multi-level governance of security in Nepal’
Meenakshi Krishnan whose PhD thesis was titled ‘Who cares? A gendered ideational political economy analysis of policy reforms in India’s Maternity Benefit Act (1919 – 2017)’
Deepta is currently supervising the following PhD scholars:
Alexandra Obeng—Gyaaba whose PhD thesis is titled ‘Women and Political Appointment: A Study of the Local Government of Ghana’.
Maha Gaad whose PhD looks at perceptions of the empowerment of women among beneficiaries, implementing NGOs and donors of ’empowerment programmes’ in order to analyse whether or not any gaps exist in the understanding of empowerment between these groups.
Salonie Muralidhara Hiriyur whose work looks at the emerging digital economy and gig work, and how this has changed the way informal women workers are able to engage with the labour market in India.
