Congratulations to Bhavani Kunjulakshmi, a Bahujan (anti-caste) queer feminist activist and writer from Kerala, who has just been awarded a John & Pat Hume fellowship, ranked first across the Faculty of Social Sciences.
Bhavani is a recent Master’s graduate from University College London. She has written for gal-dem, Feminism in India and The Swaddle. She has also hosted the Feminichi Podcast. She was a FreshEd Flux fellow in 2021, as a part of which she wrote and produced the episode ‘Can you hear the subaltern speak?’.
Her PhD research will involve participatory action research with subaltern activists (from Dalit, Bahujan, Adivasi and other anti-caste communities) and LGBTQIA+ feminist activists in Kerala, exploring the oral history of their movements, how they understand their movements today and how they understand the key strategic problems for the future. Bhavani’s given name is Soja Subhagar.