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Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen

@swethaa.bsky.social
1.1K followers 120 following 47 posts

They / Them | Professor + Assoc. Dean for Research @ UCI Law Interdisciplinary research on Legal Profession, Alterities, Queers, Souths | See - swethaa.com/publications

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Reposted by Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen
Edward Elgar Publishing @elgarpublishing.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Research Handbook on Global Legal Education Edited by @swethaa.bsky.social, @ucirvinelaw.bsky.social and Bryant G. Garth, @abfresearch.bsky.social 🆓 Chapter | A kaleidoscopic invitation to consider global legal education: doi.org/10.4337/9781... More information: www.e-elgar.com/shop/isbn/97...
This authoritative Research Handbook examines legal training and its impact on law and society. Leading experts adopt a kaleidoscope perspective to compare diverse country case studies, highlighting shifting patterns rather than a single model of ‘global’ legal education.

Contributors explore how legal education remains nationalised via local histories, politics and markets, despite borrowing models and language from modern, merit-based, or global approaches. Chapters assess the appearance of law schools as powerful sites where divisions of class, race, gender, empire and prestige are reproduced, contested and sometimes reimagined. The Research Handbook demonstrates how familiar patterns of hierarchies, inequalities and Western-centric ideals travel widely alongside diverse efforts in majority world contexts to resist, revisit and reimagine fairer institutions. Combining doctrinal analysis, institutional histories, archives, interviews and fieldwork, this Research Handbook advances research and promotes further study.
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Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen @swethaa.bsky.social · 02/09/2025
Excited to head back to the @abfresearch.bsky.social for a year www.americanbarfoundation.org/the-abf-welc...
americanbarfoundation.org
The ABF Welcomes John M. Eason as the 2024-25 Neukom Research Chair - ABF
Eason’s research interests challenge existing models and develop new theories of community, health, race, punishment, and rural/urban processes.
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Reposted by Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen
Suryapratim Roy @suryaroy.bsky.social · 02/09/2025
With Rahul Sambaraju, I argue denial of racism and its coding in nationalism abets acts of racist violence. Thank you to @deirdre for running this piece. And thanks to Philomena Mullen for discussions on this, and @swethaa.bsky.social Ballakrishnen for injecting the word blasé into my head:
irishexaminer.com
Ireland’s history of humiliating the powerless has a new chapter
Downplaying the lived experience of minorities is not a new thing in Ireland - and it is allowing racism to gain traction
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Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen @swethaa.bsky.social · 27/02/2025
We might not be the people Sundaram and Kapur expected, but we are here, and the specter is upon us: what is the art history to come? Meghaa's latest on history, contradiction, postcolony, and the re(al)births of global modernism that await us. www.modernismmodernity.org/forums/posts...
modernismmodernity.org
The Art History to Come: Vivan Sundaram’s Marxism in the Expanded Field (Geeta’s Bookshelf), 1968–2000 | Modernism / Modernity Print+
In 2000, the Indian artist Vivan Sundaram made a portrait of the critic Geeta Kapur’s bookshelf titled Marxism in the Expanded Field (MEF, fig.1). Framed and sectioned by a beaten band of tape spelling a famous line from the Communist Manifesto, “All that is solid melts into air,” and executed nearly a decade after India’s neo-liberal reforms of 1991, MEF documents a suddenly
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Reposted by Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen
American Bar Foundation @abfresearch.bsky.social · 24/01/2025
Hello, Bluesky! 👋 We’re new here. At the American Bar Foundation (ABF), we conduct research at the intersection of law and society. Let’s connect and dive into today’s most pressing issues. Learn more about our work here: www.americanbarfoundation.org
americanbarfoundation.org
American Bar Foundation - Research Advancing Justice
The American Bar Foundation is a leading research institute. Our faculty produces interdisciplinary research to advance justice and the understanding of law.
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Reposted by Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen
Law and Society Association @lawandsociety.bsky.social · 19/12/2024
With their new “Law and the Interloper” workshop series, longtime friends @swethaa.bsky.social and @suryaroy.bsky.social will “queer” law and society research by centering a multitude of marginalized perspectives. Read more here! bit.ly/3Bpn5Io #QueerTheory #LawAndSociety #LSAGrants
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Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen @swethaa.bsky.social · 20/12/2024
In this chat w/ @lawandsociety.bsky.social , @suryaroy.bsky.social and I talk about the plans we have for our post-LSA'25 workshop, long-term friendships as method, and the space of the interloper to consider law and society research. (Thanks, Crissonna for the engagement!)
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Reposted by Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen
JJ Wright, Ph.D. @drjjwright.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
I'm delighted to share this new publication which is the editorial introduction to a special issue: "Mobilising Queer Joy: Establishing Queer Joy Studies." Please share (the joy) and help us spread word of this new area of study. @queerjoylab.bsky.social journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
New article. Mobilizing queer joy: establishing queer joy studies. JJ wright and Casey burkhoder. editorial introduction to a special issue of the journal sexualities. two pieces of illustrated dried flowers are on either side of the text.
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Reposted by Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen
Surabhi Shukla @surabhishukla.bsky.social · 14/12/2024
Sometimes, but only sometimes, two wrongs can make a right. Based on an erroneous definition of transgender in a prior case, which was then codified, the Kerala High Court has found that intersex children cannot be subjected to surgeries based on parental consent alone. lawandsexuality.com
lawandsexuality.com
Law and Sexuality
Bi-monthly Updates on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Cases in India
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Reposted by Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen
UC Irvine Environmental Law Program @ucilawenvironment.bsky.social · 13/12/2024
On behalf of dozens of students, faculty, staff, community leaders, and partner organizations who comprise the Environmental Law Program @ucirvine.bsky.social School of Law, we are pleased to share our 2024 Annual Report. Here's to a momentous year ahead! myemail.constantcontact.com/Environmenta...
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Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen @swethaa.bsky.social · 13/12/2024
Maryam Khan's latest on postcolonial state-making in South Asia and the unstable middles and alternative political possibilities that subsist in these contexts. Masterful complication of the "East-West symbiosis" in the Pakistani constitutional case. www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EHC4...
tandfonline.com
Patterns of Power in Constitutional Design: East-West Symbiosis in United Pakistan
Using an analytical framework of a ‘symbiosis’ between East Bengal and West Pakistan, this article centres the two-wing configuration of united Pakistan as a key element in shaping political contes...
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Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen @swethaa.bsky.social · 13/12/2024
learn more about this Cynthia Farid (+ Sergio + Yugank) led group and their @lawandsociety.bsky.social home: www.lawandsociety.org/lsairc39/
lawandsociety.org
Scholars in the Global South: Scholactivists or Interlopers? - Law and Society Association
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Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen @swethaa.bsky.social · 13/12/2024
Path dependencies of scholar activist / activist scholars, intergenerational cleavages in conversation and movements, and the grace to sit with inconvenient facts when working with causes close to our heart. Brilliant start to Day 2 of this HKU + @lawandsociety.bsky.social conference.
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Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen @swethaa.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
Grateful to Cynthia Farid, Yugank Goyal and Sergio Latorre for bringing together this community @ HKU to discuss scholar-activism and the nuanced majority world logics of knowledge production and collaboration.
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Damni Kain @damnikain.bsky.social · 11/12/2024
Big thanks to TSR for supporting @snehaannavarapu.bsky.social and me in organising the symposium — 'Movement in (Ethnographic) Method: Space, Time and Theory'. Call for participants will be out soon! Also, do not miss the promising keynote lectures by Nayanika Mathur and @asiyaislam.bsky.social
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Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen @swethaa.bsky.social · 11/12/2024
Thanks to everyone who came to this today. The questions helped me reassess my own prefigurative priors re: methods and vulnerability. For those who missed it, the conversation drew from this (open source!) chapter in the Massoud+Chua book re: sociolegal methods - www.cambridge.org/core/books/o...
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Reposted by Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen
Law and Society Association @lawandsociety.bsky.social · 10/12/2024
What does #LawAndSociety scholarship look like when approached from marginalized perspectives on the “periphery”? Join the conversation—apply for Law and the Interloper: #QueerTheory in Global Law and Society Scholarship by 12/15! adobe.ly/3Uqi1cN @swethaa.bsky.social @suryaroy.bsky.social
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Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen @swethaa.bsky.social · 06/12/2024
don't want you to miss your trip - but so bummed i'll be so close for a second and not able to collect on that hug. iA soon! xxx
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Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen @swethaa.bsky.social · 05/12/2024
Had a truly generative time at the ABF thinking in community about my next project on queerness and everyday macro-(non)aggressions. Thank you to all who came and engaged with such generosity. 🥲 Next stop: NYC to talk about how this relates to law, humor and identity w/these awesome humans:
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Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen @swethaa.bsky.social · 02/12/2024
"Taking Kurdish queer struggles seriously can similarly “unflatten” our analyses of social and political dynamics at a local level"
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Jennifer C. Nash @jennifercnash.bsky.social · 15/11/2024
Moving this from X to here - reminder that Black feminist theory summer institute applications are open. Details here: gendersexualityfeminist.duke.edu/black-femini...
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Jennifer C. Nash @jennifercnash.bsky.social · 26/11/2024
For those of us who think about the institutional life of women's/gender/sexuality studies, this is interesting (and, I think, sad) news: news.ucsc.edu/2024/11/femi...
news.ucsc.edu
After 50 successful years, Feminist Studies faculty vote to disestablish the formal department, making way for more wide-ranging feminist scholarship across campus
Feminist Studies faculty and staff are committed to helping current students enrolled in the department's programs earn their degrees
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Reposted by Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen
Daniel LaChance @dwlachance.bsky.social · 01/12/2024
Advanced doctoral students, early career faculty, and recent J.D.s: Doing work in legal history, broadly defined? Apply for the 2025 Hurst Institute in Legal History, a two week workshop and seminar in June. Deadline 1/15/25. More info: www.law.wisc.edu/hurst-instit...
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Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen @swethaa.bsky.social · 01/12/2024
done!!
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Christiana Essie Sagay @christianasagay.com · 13/11/2024
How have issue linkages featured in the framing of a transnational labour mobility regime? TWAIL-ing the Global Compact for Migration, I attempt to answer this question. Read the full article on @TWAILReview here bit.ly/4htIboW
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Reposted by Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen
folukeifejola @folukeifejola.bsky.social · 29/11/2024
In the Zong case the court heard how people had been thrown overboard to drown for an insurance claim. "The judges took their decisions on a technical point of evidence...nobody concerned in the case made any objection to slavery as a matter of principle." www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/403...
prospectmagazine.co.uk
Why lawyers were as culpable as any slaver
The focus on individual traders like Colston means lawyers are out of sight—but they facilitated the trade
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Law and Society Association @lawandsociety.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
Workshop applications are still open for “Law and the Interloper: Queer Theory in Critical Global Law and Society Scholarship”! Apply before December 15th: adobe.ly/3Uqi1cN @swethaa.bsky.social @suryaroy.bsky.social #QueerTheory #LawAndSociety #AccessToJustice
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Meera Deo @meeradeo.bsky.social · 22/11/2024
Hello, legal ed scholars! Here's my starter pack of folks studying legal education (broadly defined). Happy to add to it. go.bsky.app/JdGzRAP
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Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen @swethaa.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
also, Hi Cyrus!!
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Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen @swethaa.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
One last stop by Casey McQuiston is an unusual suspect - but it does YA + queer culture across time with a very New York as character story (their time travel meet cute is of course in the perfect NYC liminal space - the subway).
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Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen @swethaa.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
(and done!)
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Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen @swethaa.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
😆 thank you xxx
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Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen @swethaa.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
hi hi hi!!!
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Danish Sheikh @dansheikh.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
Melbourne friends: Delighted to share that my lecture-performance ‘Much to do with Law, but More to do with Love’ has been shortlisted for the Midsumma Queer Playwrighting Showcase. Catch me along with these other exciting new shows at Gasworks Theatre in 2025! www.midsumma.org.au/whats-on/eve...
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Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen @swethaa.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
✋ :)
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Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen @swethaa.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
sure, done!
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Claerwen O’Hara @claerwen.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
Excited to be presenting (my first) keynote address at the Melbourne Doctoral Forum on Legal Theory this week! Even more excited that what I’ll be presenting is a chapter (co- authored with @crisveijk.bsky.social) from the exciting new books I co-edited with @pagingdrpaige.bsky.social!
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Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen @swethaa.bsky.social · 26/11/2024
so kind!! and yes looking forward to seeing you in Chicago!
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Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen @swethaa.bsky.social · 26/11/2024
done!
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Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen @swethaa.bsky.social · 26/11/2024
Hi Stefan - added, and hi! :)
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Meera Deo @meeradeo.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
*IT'S LAUNCH DAY!* I'm thrilled to present our LSSSE Annual Report, "Twenty Years of LSSSE: Sharing Trends in Legal Education," which tracks patterns in legal ed on everything from diversity to debt, from learning outcomes to student satisfaction. Take a peek 👇 lssse.indiana.edu/annual-resul...
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Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen @swethaa.bsky.social · 26/11/2024
Ack, I think I made the start of one (but it only includes people i know already are on here, so please @ me if you would like to be added) - go.bsky.app/BViLYTV
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Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen @swethaa.bsky.social · 26/11/2024
Nice to see my primary intellectual home and incubator here. Time to start a starter pack for LSA scholars (on it as soon as I figure out what a starter pack is/does 😂)
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Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen @swethaa.bsky.social · 26/11/2024
thanks for doing this! would love to be added!
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Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen @swethaa.bsky.social · 25/11/2024
Looking forward to being in Chicago next week at the American Bar Foundation. I'll be presenting work on nonbinary identity navigation in the legal profession + a case for doing socio-legal research with a queer theory & CRT - "queerCRT" - lens. www.americanbarfoundation.org/event/speake...
americanbarfoundation.org
Speaker Series: Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen - ABF
Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen (Law Professor) examines intersections between law, globalization and stratification from a critical feminist and global south perspective.
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Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen @swethaa.bsky.social · 25/11/2024
Chapter and book are open access btw. If you'd like to check it out - www.cambridge.org/core/service...
cambridge.org
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Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen @swethaa.bsky.social · 25/11/2024
I really enjoyed writing this chapter on vulnerability and methods for Massoud and Chua's book Out of Place (CUP'24). But when I wrote the piece, I couldn't have imagined this kind of engagement - thank you, David + SLR! www.sociolegalreview.com/post/out-of-...
sociolegalreview.com
Out of Place in Italy: Positionality in Comparative Studies
David Nelken
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Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen @swethaa.bsky.social · 25/11/2024
😂😍
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Suryapratim Roy @suryaroy.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
Law and the Interloper is a project (in all its subversiveness) that @swethaa.bsky.social and I have been planning for a while. We’re doing a workshop around the time of the Law and the Society Association conference 2025. Have a look at the call for papers and join us!
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