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Jo (they/them) is a writer-activist trained in participatory, feminist, and ethnographic research methods. Their doctoral research focused on understanding cooperation, identity formation, care, and kinship in sex workers’ activist networks at the intersections of caste, class, gender, sexuality and economy. For their fieldwork, they worked with the National Network of Sex Workers, India, activists and filmmakers to patch together a world of crisis, resilience, response and celebration built by sex workers in the network. 

Beyond their doctoral studies, Jo is involved with multiple open-access projects bridging anthropology and advocacy, most notably Almaarii (a visual anthropology of South Asian queer closets) and Trans/form (a project to understand anti-trans violence in India) among others. Jo works with Mithra Trust in Chennai to facilitate mental health workshops where they use narrative therapy and anthropology to create queer support spaces and enjoys facilitating workshops where they can experiment with creative pedagogy. 

Jo is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy of the United Kingdom (FHEA) and a Junior Fellow at the Center for Applied Transgender Studies (CATS). They have taught a range of core and specialist courses, from the history of anthropology to the anthropology of kinship, sex, gender, race, and desire. They have also run specialist workshops on sex work, film, labour rights, and activism in India with public anthropology collectives. Alongside a PhD in Anthropology from SOAS, Jo has an MA in Sociology from CHRIST University Bengaluru, and a BA in Mass Media with a specialisation in Journalism from the University of Mumbai.