Simanti Dasgupta

• Ph.D., New School for Social Research, New York City, 2009
• M.Phil., Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, 1997
• M.A., Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, 1995
• B.A. (Honors), Presidency College, University of Calcutta, 1993

Simanti Dasgupta is a professor of anthropology. She is a legal and medical anthropologist whose research is based in South Asia, specifically, India.

Her recent book, Prophylactic Rights: Sex Work, HIV/AIDS and Anti-Trafficking in Sonagachi, India (Cambridge, 2024), explores the sex worker labor subjectivity formation at the intersection of HIV/AIDS and anti-trafficking surveillance. It is based on her ethnographic research with Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee, a sex workers’ organization, since 2011.

She previously authored BITS of Belonging: Information Technology, Water and Neoliberal Governance in India (Temple, 2015), which examined the emerging neoliberal politics in urban India at the intersection of Information Technology and water privatization. 

• Liberal Arts Scholarship Catalyst Grant, University of Dayton, 2025-26
• Research Fellow, International Institute for Asian Studies, The Netherlands, 2021-22
• Liberal Arts Scholarship Catalyst Grant, University of Dayton, 2019-20.
• Liberal Arts Scholarship Catalyst Grant, University of Dayton, 2018-19.
• National Endowment for the Humanities, Humanities Connections Planning Grant, Collaborator, 2018-19.
• Fellow, Human Rights Center, University of Dayton, 2015-present.
• Research Council SEED Grant, University of Dayton, June-August 2012 and June-August 2013, June-August 2014.
• Peter McGrath Human Rights Fellowship, University of Dayton 2012-13.
• National Science Foundation, Dissertation Improvement Grant, Science and Technology Studies Program, 2004-05.
• American Institute of Indian Studies, University of Chicago, Junior Research Fellowship, 2004-05.

Books

Dasgupta, Simanti. 2024. Prophylactic Rights: Sex Work, HIV/AIDS, and Anti-trafficking in India. Cambridge University Press.

Dasgupta, Simanti. 2015. BITS of Belonging: Information Technology, Water and Neoliberal Governance India. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Dasgupta, Simanti. 2024. ‘Sex Work, Anti-Trafficking and Mobility’ Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol 53. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-anthro-041422-024442

Hussain, Salman and Dasgupta, Simanti. 2023. “Built Lives: Khwajasaras, Jouno-Karmis and the Politics of Non-normative Kinship and Citizenship in South Asia Feminist Anthropology, First published May 30, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1002/fea2.12118

Dasgupta, Simanti. 2019. “Of Raids and Returns: Sex Work Movement, Police Oppression, and the Politics of the Ordinary in Sonagachi, India.” Anti-Trafficking Review, 12:127-39. Watch the GAATW video below.

Dasgupta, Simanti. 2017. “Contagious Contestations: Sex Work, Medicine, Law in Colonial and Postcolonial Sonagachhi.” In Subjects, Citizens and Law: Colonial and Postcolonial India edited by C. Gunnel and S. Dasgupta pp. 60-77. New Delhi and London: Routledge.

Dasgupta, Simanti. 2014. “Sovereign Silence: Immoral Trafficking (Prevention) Act and Sex Work in Sonagachhi.” PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review, Vol. 37 (1):109–125.

Dasgupta, Simanti. 2012. “Rethinking Participation: Water, Development and Democracy in Neo-Liberal Bangalore.” Journal of South Asian Studies, 35 (3):520-545.

Dasgupta, Simanti. 2008. “Success, Market, Ethics: Information Technology and the Shifting Politics of Governance and Citizenship in the Indian Silicon Plateau.” Cultural Dynamics, 20 (3): 213-244.

Commentaries and Interviews

Laskar, Bishaka and Dagupta, Simanti. 2026. "The Voice of the Sex Worker is Critical to Legal Change." The Wire, August 4. https://thewire.in/law/the-voice-of-the-sex-worker-is-critical-to-legal-change

Dasgupta, Simanti. Commentary Hussain, S. 2024. "Uneven Counting: The Legal Economy of Death and Compassion in Pakistan." Current Anthropology (https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/729570)

Dasgupta, Simanti. 2020. "Looking Back, Looking Forward - the UN Trafficking Protocol at 20, Ep. 3: Sex workers in Sonagachi." Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women, Nov. 12, 2020. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4-bt07ua8M

Dasgupta, Simanti. 2018. “Indian Bill to ‘protect’ trafficking victims will make sex workers less safe.” The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/indian-bill-to-protect-trafficking-victims-will-make-sex-workers-less-safe-104535

Dasgupta, Simanti. 2018. “The Labor of ‘Risky’ Bodies: Sex Work, HIV/AIDS and the Politics of Well-being in Sonagachhi.” Anthropology News, Health and Well-Being Series.

Dasgupta, Simanti. 2016. Interview with Simanti Dasgupta, BITS of Belonging: Information Technology, Water and Neoliberal Governance in India”. New Books Network. Available at http://newbooksnetwork.com/simanti-dasgupta-bits-of-belonging-information-technology-water-and-neoliberal-governance-in-india-temple-up-2015/.

Dasgupta, Simanti.2015. “Amnesty Proposal to Decriminalize Sex Work: Contents and Discontents” opendemocracy: free thinking for the world. Available at https://www.opendemocracy.net/beyondslavery/simanti-dasgupta/amnesty’s-proposal-to-decriminalise-sex-work-contents-and-discontents

Dasgupta, Simanti. 2014. “HIV/AIDS, policing sex work and public health in India: an interview with Simanti Dasgupta” Association for Political and Legal Anthropology, July 30 2014. Available at http://aplaorg.org/2014/07/30/hiv-aids-policing-immortality-and-testing-an-interview-with-simanti-dasgupta/