Bandana Purkayastha

Professor, Sociology and Asian and Asian American Studies


Primary Research Theme

People and the City

Secondary Research Themes

Healthy Cities, Social-Ecological Systems

Recent Cities-related Projects

  • Lived religion among highly educated Hindu and Muslim women (with roots in South Asia): This project traces how highly educated immigrant women experience US based political-social structures that shape their ability to live their religions.
  • Immigrants and Refugees in CT: Experiences of recent immigrants and refugees in CT (being prepared for a report).
  • Water, inequalities and rights: An assessment of the human right to water against a backdrop of unequal access and privatization of water.

Selected Urban-Related Publications

Purkayastha, Bandana. (2019). Feminisms and Gender in Indian diasporas. EPW, Vol 54, 33-37

Purkayastha, Bandana and Margaret Abraham. (2019). Being Feminists in the US diaspora. EPW, Vol 54, 66-78.

Sahoo, Ajaya and Bandana Purkayastha (eds.) .2019 Handbook of Indian Transnationalism . New York: Routledge.

Purkayastha, Bandana.  2018.  Gender and Human Rights. In Handbook of the Sociology of Gender., edited by Barbara Risman and William Scarborough.  Springer.

Purkayastha, Bandana and Farhan Navid Yousaf. 2018. Human Trafficking: Trade in sex, labor, and organs.  London: Polity Press.

Purkayastha, Bandana. (2018). Migration, Migrants, and Human Security. Current Sociology Monograph Vol.66(2), pp.167-191.

Patil, Vrushali and Purkayastha, Bandana (2018). The transnational assemblage of Indian rape culture, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 41:1952-1970.

Purkayastha, Bandana, Adur, Shweta and Khan, Koyel. 2017. Performing Indian American ethnicity in mainstream America. In Handbook of South Asian Americans, edited by Ajaya Sahoo and Radha Hegde. Taylor and Francis.

Roseanne Njiru and Purkayastha, Bandana. (2017). ‘As a woman I cannot just leave the house’: gendered spaces and HIV vulnerability in marriages in Kenya, Journal of Gender Studies

Adur, Shweta and Purkayastha, Bandana. (2017). Claiming “Tradition”, Naming the Cause: Examining the Language of Social Identity among Queer South Asians in U.S. Journal of South Asian Diaspora, 9: 1-16.

Waring, Chandra and Purkayastha, Bandana (2017). “I’m a Different Kind of Biracial:” How Black/White Biracial Americans with Immigrant Parents Negotiate Race” Social Identities. 23:614-630.

Armaline, William, Glasberg, Davita, and Bandana Purkayastha (2017): De Jure vs. De Facto

Rights: A Response to “Human Rights: What the United States Might Learn From the Rest of

the World and, Yes, From American Sociology” Sociological Forum, 32: 220-224. Yousaf, Farhan and Purkayastha, Bandana (2016). Social world of organ transplantation, trafficking, and policies. Journal of Public Health Policy, 37: 190-199.

Yousaf, Farhan and Purkayastha, Bandana. 2016 Beyond saving faces: Survivors of Acid Attacks in Pakistan. Woman’s Studies International Forum. 54: 11-19,

Yousaf, Farhan, and Purkayastha, Bandana. 2015. “I am only half alive: Organ Trafficking in Pakistan Amidst Interlocking Oppressions. International Sociology, 30: 637-653.

Patil, Vrushali and Purkayastha, Bandana. 2015. Sexual Violence, Race, Media (In)visibility: Intersectional Complexities in a Transnational Frame. Societies, 598–617.

Purkayastha, Bandana. (2019). Feminisms and Gender in Indian diasporas. EPW, Vol 54, 33-37

Purkayastha, Bandana and Margaret Abraham. (2019). Being Feminists in the US diaspora. EPW, Vol 54, 66-78.