Dr
Debolina Dutta
Research Fellow
Dr. Debolina Dutta is a Research Fellow at the Centre of Excellence for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (CEVAW) at the Melbourne Law School.
Debolina holds academic degrees in law, literature and cultural studies. Her research is located at the intersections of feminist jurisprudence, postcolonial theory, law and the humanities, sexuality studies, violence against women and feminist methods. She was previously Associate Professor at the Jindal Global Law School, India and has worked as a sexual rights advocate nationally and internationally. Debolina was Residential Fellow at the Institute for Global Law and Policy, Harvard Law School (2021-2022) and Visiting Fellow at the Institute for International Law and the Humanities, Melbourne Law School (2020-2021). She sits on the editorial boards of the Australian Feminist Law Journal and Law and Literature; and is a member of the regional board of Urgent Action Fund (Asia and Pacific), a feminist funding organisation.
As a feminist, researcher and activist Debolina has had a long-standing relationship with the grassroots sex workers’ movement in India. Her co-directed documentary filmWe Are Foot Soldiers, on the collectivization of children of sex workers, received the 3rd prize at Jeevika: Asia Livelihood Documentary Competition in 2012. At CEVAW, building on her doctoral research and drawing on Indigenous-centred methods, Debolina is developing a research project which will organise a feminist commission of inquiry into sex workers’ encounters with law and legal processes. The project will have several outcomes including an archive of sex worker testimonies, an edited book volume, a documentary film and advocacy documents.Her book,A Jurisprudence of Conversations: Law, Life and Feminism in Post-colonial India is forthcoming from Cambridge University Press’ Law in Context series in 2025.