Dolly Kikon is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Social and Political Science, The University of Melbourne. She received her doctoral degree in Anthropology from Stanford University (2013). Before embarking on her academic career, she completed her bachelor degree in law from University of Delhi and practised in the Supreme Court of India (New Delhi) and the Guwahati High Court focusing on human rights and constitutional provisions relating to tribal communities in Northeast India.Her published books include Living with Oil and Coal: Resource Politics & Militarization in Northeast India (University of Washington Press 2019 and Yoda Press India, 2020); Leaving the Land: Indigenous Migration and Affective Labour in India (co-author Bengt G. Karlsson) (Cambridge University Press India, 2019); Life and Dignity; Women’s testimonies of Sexual Violence in Dimapur (Nagaland) (NESRC 2015), Experiences of Naga Women in Armed Conflict: Narratives from a Militarised Society (WISCOMP 2004).
Mabel Denzin Gergan is a geographer by training, and her research focuses on postcolonial environmentalism, Tribal/Indigenous theorization, anti-colonial politics, and race and ethnicity in South Asia. She is Assistant Professor of Asian Studies at Vanderbilt University, USA
Dear Dolly,
I am so glad I reached out to you after hearing your UCLA talk, and for your honest and generous response that unspooled into such a heartfelt conversation…
Dearest Mabel,
I like the idea of reflecting together via letters. For some reason I feel the format is perfect; sort of a very deep political and feminist conversation in a letter-writing genre.