Biography
Dr. Chaudhuri's work spans three areas in sociology (development, gender and social movements), linked by her common interest on violence against women (VAW). Broadly her research explores how structural and institutional level gender inequalities further disadvantage women in the grassroots through the use of violence. Further, she is interested in understanding how non-governmental-organizations (NGO) that work towards reducing gender inequalities, mobilize community women against their own religious ... and cultural practices that create such inequalities in the first place. Previously, she has worked on a number of projects in United States and India, including on witchcraft accusations, domestic violence among south Asian immigrants, women’s movements on jury and property rights, SlutWalks, and movements against rape in India. Dr. Chaudhuri's current project, explores how women participants in various empowerment programs, are able to strategize against domestic violence in grassroots communities.
Read MoreEducation
Vanderbilt University: Ph.D, Sociology | 2008
Selected Press
Witch Hunts Today: Abuse of Women, Superstition and Murder Collide in India
Scientific American | 2018-01-11
Battles over land and property are common starts to witch hunts, says Soma Chaudhuri, a sociologist at Michigan State University who studies gender violence in India. Chaudhuri says witch hunts and beatings provide an outlet for men living in poverty to vent frustrations over their own lack of power. “These rural communities are so marginalized and so oppressed, and they have no political resources and no avenues of protest. So what do people do when they’re very frustrated? You look to your surroundings for an easy scapegoat. Women are that scapegoat.” Long-standing cultural traditions of patriarchy, where men are supposed to control family resources, make women who may have inherited their own land easy targets, Chaudhuri says. With those patriarchal values comes misogyny and denigration of women, she adds...
A curse in the family: Behind India's witch hunts
Al Jazeera | 2013-03-06
oma Chaudhuri, an assistant professor at the Department of Sociology and School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University in the US, is an expert on this topic and explains: "The trigger could be a death [or] a series of bad luck, but we have also seen that witch hunts are also triggered by motivated and vested interest."
"These are communities and areas [where] there is much impoverishment going on, so there is a constant sort of stress. And it doesn't take long for the community to start gossiping and then also coming together and getting support against the 'witch'. And the witch hunt then becomes sort of a representation for stress relief. You go, you eradicate the woman or you beat her, or you make her confess - and the stress is relieved a little bit."...
In rural India, women’s groups target witch hunts
Futurity Magazine | 2012-09-04
Soma Chaudhuri spent seven months studying witch hunts in her native India and discovered that the economic self-help groups have made it part of their agenda to defend their fellow plantation workers against the hunts.
“It’s a grassroots movement and it’s helping provide a voice to women who wouldn’t otherwise have one,” says Chaudhuri, assistant professor of sociology and criminal justice at Michigan State University.
“I can see the potential for this developing into a social movement, but it’s not going to happen in a day because an entire culture needs to be changed.”...
