Rita Brara is an Indian sociologist, professor, author, and the editor of the academic journal Contributions to Indian Sociology.
She is the author of the 2006 book Shifting Landscapes: The Making and Remaking of Village Commons in India.
Education Brara has a 1990 PhD from the University of Delhi. Her thesis was Kinship in a Princely State: A Study of Malerkotla, India (1890-1990).
Career
She has taught in the University of Delhi. She is currently a visiting professor/fellow at the Institute of Economic Growth in Delhi, and Ashoka University in Sonepat. Brara is the editor, and previously was the co-editor, of the journal Contributions to Indian Sociology.
She is the author of the 2006 book Shifting Landscapes: The Making and Remaking of Village Commons in India (ISBN 9780195673012).
Selected publications Reviews for Shifting Landscapes: The Making and Remaking of Village Commons in India Brara, Rita. 2021. Introduction. In Contributions to Indian Sociology: Special Issue on Conversations on the Anthropocene and Climate Change. 55 (3) pp 307–323. 2019. ‘Feet on The Ground, Eyes on the Horizon: Anthropology of Environment and Climate Change in India’. In S. Srivastava et al. ed. Critical Themes in Indian Sociology. New Delhi: Sage. 2018. ‘Ritual at the Cutting Edge: Everyday Animal Slaughter as Practice and Symbol’. In L.Choukroune and P. Bhandari ed. Exploring Indian Modernities : Ideas and Practice. UK: Springer. 2018. ‘Courting Resilience: The National Green Tribunal, India’. UNRISD: Working Paper 2018–4. 2017. ‘The Visual Culture of Meat Shop Signs in Delhi’. In U.Skoda and B.Lettmann ed. India and its Visual Cultures: Community, Class and Gender in Symbolic Landscape. NewDelhi: Sage. 2017. ‘Courting Nature: Advances in Indian Jurisprudence’. In Can Nature Have Rights? Legal and Political Insights ed. Anna Leah Tabios Hillebrecht and María Valeria Berros. RCC Perspectives: Transformations in Environment and Society. 6: 31–36. 2016. ‘Animal Rights vs. Bullfights: The Horns of an Indian Dilemma’. Environment & Society Portal, Arcadia Spring 2016, no. 5. Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society. http://www.environmentandsociety.org/node/7426. 2015. ‘Punjabi Inscriptions of Kinship and Marriage’. In R. Chatterji ed. Wording the World: Veena Das and Scenes of Inheritance. New York: Fordham. 2014. ‘Shaping Land Rights: Tenurial Class, Lineage and Gender in Malerkotla, India’. Asian Journal of Women’s Studies20 No. 4 (2). 2013. ‘Not so Boring. Assembling and Reassembling Groundwater Tales and Technologies from Malerkotla, Punjab’. In John Wagner ed. The Social Life of Water. New York: Berghahn Books. Chapter 6. 2012. CA Forum on Public Anthropology. Comment on John R. Wagner's ‘Water as a Commons Imaginary’ Current Anthropology Vol. 53 (5) October issue. 2011. ‘Why a Cousin Becomes a Spouse: Elementary, says Levi-Strauss’. In Dipankar Gupta ed. My Favourite Levi-Strauss. Yoda Press, New Delhi. pp. 62–86. 2011. ‘Flowers and Gender in Contemporary Paris: Reflections on a Visual Study’. Working Paper Series 2011/XIII.European Studies Programme, University of Delhi.
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