Shilpa Phadke conceptualised and led the Gender & Space Project at PUKAR from September 2003 to September 2006. She is currently writing a book based on the Gender and Space project along with Sameera Khan and Shilpa Ranade to be published by Penguin India. She has been educated at St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, SNDT University and the University of Cambridge, UK. She is a PhD candidate at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai working on issues of contemporary urban middle-class sexuality. She has taught undergraduate sociology and anthropology at St. Xavier's College, Mumbai. As a pedagogue, she has designed and coordinated several discussion groups, a lecture series and workshops. She is a consultant with 'Films of Desire: Sexuality and the Cinematic Imagination'.
Shilpa Phadke has published both academically in journals such as the Economic and Political Weekly and the Indian Journal of Gender Studies, had chapters in books published by Sage, India, OUP, India and Zubaan, India, in magazines such as Art India, Agenda, Indian Architect and Builder and Architecture: Time Space People, as well as in newspapers and popular magazines. Her areas of concern include gender and the politics of space, the middle classes, sexuality and the body, feminist politics among young women, reproductive subjectivities and pedagogic practices.
Her publications include:
‘Dangerous Liaisons: Women and Men; Risk and Reputation in Mumbai’, in Economic & Political Weekly, Vol.42 No.17, 28 April 2007.
‘Re-mapping the Public: Gendered Spaces in Mumbai’, in Madhavi Desai (ed.), Gender and the Built Environment, N. Delhi: Zubaan, 2007.
‘You can be Lonely in a Crowd: the Production of Safety in Mumbai’, in Urban Studies ed. By Sujata Patel & Kushal Deb, OUP, 2006. (anthologised from journal essay).
‘Some Notes Towards Understanding the Construction of Middle Class Urban Women’s Sexuality in India’, in Radhika Chandiramani and Geeta Misra (eds.), Gender, Sexuality & Rights: Exploring Theory & Practice, N Delhi: Sage, 2005
‘You can be Lonely in a Crowd: The Production of Safety in Mumbai’, in Indian Journal of Gender Studies, N Delhi: Sage, February 2005.
‘Thirty Years On: Women’s Studies Reflects on the Women’s Movement’, in Economic & Political Weekly, October 23, 2003.
Ms. Phadke is involved with the following organisations:
Board Member, Creating Resources for Empowerment in Action (CREA), New Delhi.
Associate, Partners for Urban Knowledge Action and Research (PUKAR), Mumbai