kabitac


Kabita Chakraborty

Photo of Kabita Chakraborty

Department of Humanities

Associate Professor

Office: Children, Childhood and Youth Program
Phone: (416)736-2100 Ext: 66915
Email: kabitac@yorku.ca


I am a post-colonial scholar of critical children and youth studies. I work across South and Southeast Asia.

More...

Degrees

PhD, University of Queensland
M.A, University of Toronto

Research Interests

Children and Youth , Culture and Cultural Studies, South and Southeast Asia
  • President's University-Wide Teaching Award - 2016
  • Department of Humanities Teaching Excellence Award - 2015

Current Research Projects

Extreme Love: Young People's experiences at the intersection of intimacy and violence in urban India

    Summary:

    The project “Extreme Love: Young People’s Experiences at the Intersection of Intimacy and Violence in Urban India” explores young people’s experiences of violence in premarital dating/courtship processes in India. The context of the project is a globalizing and rapidly modernizing India where intimate culture is changing for young people. For modern youth in urban spaces, the importance of obtaining premarital relationship experience sits in contrast with continued social stigma around mixed-sex dating. As a result, young people participate in the world of youth romance in secret. Secret relationships, however, are complicated by particular types of violence endemic to the relationship process. While research on married couple’s experiences of violence in relationships is rich, little is known about young people’s experiences. Thus, the key issues to be addressed in the research are: mapping the various types of violence endemic in youth premarital relationships and documenting young people’s lived experiences of violence within the context of premarital relationships.Knowledge about how young people experience violence, how they manage violence in the context of secret relationships, and their understanding of gaps in support, create new knowledge about youth culture in India. The research, then, speaks to the recent “youth turn” within the field of Children’s Studies, and specifically addresses the call within the field for more diverse understandings of childhood and youth from the Global South.

    See more
    Role: PI

    Funders:
    SSHRC Insight
Books

Publication
Year

Chakraborty, Kabita. (2016) . Young Muslim Women in India: Bollywood, Identity and Changing Youth Culture Routledge: London

2016

Book Chapters

Publication
Year

Chakraborty, K (2024)." Children’s Rights, Bollywood Dance and the NGOisation of Poor Communities in India" in Oxford Handbook on Indian Dance edited by A. Banerji and P. Purkayastha. Oxford: Oxford University Press

2024

Chakraborty, K. (2024) A digital archive of relationship desires: Exploring gender, violence and romance in a modernizing India through unsolicited text messages. Sage Research Methods Cases: Diversifying and Decolonizing Research. Sage: Online

2024

Chakraborty, K (2023). “Nobody wants to be the behenji-type”: Youth, Work, and Premarital relationships in the urban slums of Kolkata in Child, Youth and Modernity in India edited by A. Dar and D. Kannan. London: Palgrave MacMillan

2023

Chakraborty K. (2016) Eve-Teasing and Education Mobility: Young Women’s Experiences in the Urban Slums of India. In: Worth N., Dwyer C., Skelton T. (eds) Identities and Subjectivities. Geographies of Children and Young People, vol 4. Springer, Singapore

2016

Chakraborty, Kabita. (2015) . Bollywood as a Role Model: Boyfriends, Dating and Negotiating Romance. In C. Bradford and M. Reimer (eds.) Girls, Texts, Cultures (pp. 238-263) Wilfred Laurier University Press.

2015

Chakraborty, Kabita. (2015) . Young People’s Mobile Phone Cultures in the Urban Slums of Kolkata. In N. Schinder and F. Titzmann (eds.) Youth, Media, and Gender in Post-Liberalization India. (pp. 191-214) Berlin: Frank & Timme.

2015

Chakraborty, Kabita. (2010) . Unmarried Muslim Youth and Sex Education in the bustees of Kolkata. In A. Doron and A. Broom (Ed.), Health Culture and Religion in South Asia (pp. 114-134). London: Routledge

2010

Beazley, H. and K. Chakraborty (2008). Cool Consumption: Rasta, Punk and Bollywood on the Streets of Yogyakarta, Indonesia and Kolkata, India. In U. M. Rodrigues and B. Smaill (Ed.), Youth, Media and Culture in the Asia Pacific Region (pp. 195-214). Newcastle UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

2008

Journal Articles

Publication
Year

Chakraborty, K. and D. Sen (2020). Shymoli and the Unknown male: the city’s violent margins. Special Issue on Kolkata. Contemporary South Asia 28(4): 472-484 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09584935.2020.1842862

2020

Agha, S., Thambiah, S. and K. Chakraborty (2019). Children’s Agency in Accessing for Spaces of Play in an Urban High-Rise Community in Malaysia. Children's Geographies 17(6): 691-704. DOI: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/DE6CNSRCT897VV6UUPGB/full?target=10.1080/14733285.2019.1574335

2019

Chakraborty, K., S. Thambiah and J. Arumugam. (2018). Estate youth and complicated migration in Malaysia’s oil palm plantations: The emotions of leaving and coming back home. Children’s Geographies . 16(6) 642-653. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14733285.2018.1479514

2018

Chakraborty, K and S. Thambiah (2018). Editorial Introduction: Children and Young People’s Emotions of Migration Across Asia. Children’s Geographies . 16(6): 583-590. DOI: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14733285.2018.1503231

2018

Thambiah, S, Chakraborty, K., Sarkar R. (2016) . Violence and Migration in a Team Research setting: Working with Bangladeshi Migrant Women in Malaysia. Gender, Place and Culture . DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2015.1136814

2016

Chakraborty, K. (2016). “Eve-teasing” and Education Mobility: Young Women’s Experiences in the Urban Slums of India. In T. Skelton, C. Dwyer and N. Worth (eds.) Geographies of Children and Young People . Volume “Inclusion and Exclusion”. 269-292. New York: Springer.

2016

Coren E, Hossain R, Pardo Pardo J, Veras MMS, Chakraborty K, Harris H, Martin AJ (2013). Interventions for Promoting Reintegration and Reducing Harmful Behaviour and Lifestyles in Street-connected Children and Young People. Evidence Based Child Health 8(4):1140-272.

2013

Nansen B, Chakraborty K, Gibbs L, Vetere F, MacDougall C. (2013) . “MyBus”: Children’s Mobile Health, Wellbeing and Digital Inclusion. Journal of Community Informatics.9(2):online

2013

Chakraborty, Kabita. (2012) Representations: Visual Arts: Television: India [entry on Young Muslim Women and Bollywood Popular Culture]. Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures (online edition) Netherlands: Brill.

2012

Nansen B, Chakraborty K, Gibbs L, Vetere F, and MacDougall C. (2012) . Children and Digital Wellbeing in Australia: Online Mediation, Conduct and Competence. Journal of Children and Media 6(2): 237-254.

2012

Chakraborty K, Nansen B, Gibbs L and MacDougall C. (2012) . Ethical Negotiations: Committees, Methods and Research with Children. International Journal of Children’s Rights. 20(2): 541-533.

2012

Coren E, Hossain R, Pardo Pardo J, Thomae M, Veras MMS, Chakraborty K. (2012) . Interventions for Promoting Reintegration and Reducing Harmful Behaviour and Lifestyles in Street-Connected Children and Young People (Protocol). Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Issue 4 2012.

2012

Chakraborty, K. (2012) . Virtual Mate-Seeking in the Urban Slums of Kolkata, India. South Asian Popular Culture 10(2): 197-216.

2012

Chakraborty, Kabita. (2012) . Young Married Muslim Couples Negotiating their Sexual Lives in the Urban Slums of Kolkata. Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific Issue 28 [online March 2012].

2012

Nansen B, Chakraborty K, Gibbs L, Vetere F, and MacDougall C. (2012) . “You Do the Math”: Mathletics and the Play of Online Learning. New Media & Society 14(1): 2016-2035.

2012

Chakraborty, Kabita. (2010) . The Sexual Lives of Muslim Girls in the bustees of Kolkata, India. Sex Education 10(1): 1-21.

2010

Chakraborty, Kabita. (2010) . Unmarried Muslim Youth and Sex Education in the bustees of Kolkata. South Asian History and Culture 1(2): 268–281 special issue ‘Health, Culture and Religion: Critical Perspectives’.

2010

Chakraborty, Kabita. (2009) . “The Good Muslim Girl”: Conducting Qualitative Participatory Research to Understand the Lives of Young Muslim Women in the bustees of Kolkata. Children’s Geographies 7(4): 421-434 special issue ‘20 years since the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child’.

2009

Forthcoming

Publication
Year

Chakraborty, K. (2020 forthcoming) . “Ap kesa insaan h..ek bar v rply nhi diye”: Male youth, eve-teasing, and community changes in the urban slums (bustees) of Kolkata“. Contemporary South Asia (Volume 27, Issue 2)

2020

Chakraborty, K. (for publication in 2020). “We are scared to get lost in our own neighbourhood”: How children’s geographies informs research on young people’s experiences of eve-teasing in the urban slums of India. In Children’s Geographies , special feature, Viewpoints: Children’s Geographies in Wider Contexts: Cross-Disciplinary Reflections.

2020


Current Courses

Term Course Number Section Title Type
Fall 2024 AP/CCY3999 6.0 B Research Methods with Children BLEN


Upcoming Courses

Term Course Number Section Title Type
Winter 2025 AP/CCY4999 6.0 M CCY Honours Research Project ONLN


I am a post-colonial scholar of critical children and youth studies. I work across South and Southeast Asia.

Degrees

PhD, University of Queensland
M.A, University of Toronto

Research Interests

Children and Youth , Culture and Cultural Studies, South and Southeast Asia

Awards

  • President's University-Wide Teaching Award - 2016
  • Department of Humanities Teaching Excellence Award - 2015

Current Research Projects

Extreme Love: Young People's experiences at the intersection of intimacy and violence in urban India

    Summary:

    The project “Extreme Love: Young People’s Experiences at the Intersection of Intimacy and Violence in Urban India” explores young people’s experiences of violence in premarital dating/courtship processes in India. The context of the project is a globalizing and rapidly modernizing India where intimate culture is changing for young people. For modern youth in urban spaces, the importance of obtaining premarital relationship experience sits in contrast with continued social stigma around mixed-sex dating. As a result, young people participate in the world of youth romance in secret. Secret relationships, however, are complicated by particular types of violence endemic to the relationship process. While research on married couple’s experiences of violence in relationships is rich, little is known about young people’s experiences. Thus, the key issues to be addressed in the research are: mapping the various types of violence endemic in youth premarital relationships and documenting young people’s lived experiences of violence within the context of premarital relationships.Knowledge about how young people experience violence, how they manage violence in the context of secret relationships, and their understanding of gaps in support, create new knowledge about youth culture in India. The research, then, speaks to the recent “youth turn” within the field of Children’s Studies, and specifically addresses the call within the field for more diverse understandings of childhood and youth from the Global South.

    Project Type: Funded
    Role: PI

    Funders:
    SSHRC Insight

All Publications


Book Chapters

Publication
Year

Chakraborty, K (2024)." Children’s Rights, Bollywood Dance and the NGOisation of Poor Communities in India" in Oxford Handbook on Indian Dance edited by A. Banerji and P. Purkayastha. Oxford: Oxford University Press

2024

Chakraborty, K. (2024) A digital archive of relationship desires: Exploring gender, violence and romance in a modernizing India through unsolicited text messages. Sage Research Methods Cases: Diversifying and Decolonizing Research. Sage: Online

2024

Chakraborty, K (2023). “Nobody wants to be the behenji-type”: Youth, Work, and Premarital relationships in the urban slums of Kolkata in Child, Youth and Modernity in India edited by A. Dar and D. Kannan. London: Palgrave MacMillan

2023

Chakraborty K. (2016) Eve-Teasing and Education Mobility: Young Women’s Experiences in the Urban Slums of India. In: Worth N., Dwyer C., Skelton T. (eds) Identities and Subjectivities. Geographies of Children and Young People, vol 4. Springer, Singapore

2016

Chakraborty, Kabita. (2015) . Bollywood as a Role Model: Boyfriends, Dating and Negotiating Romance. In C. Bradford and M. Reimer (eds.) Girls, Texts, Cultures (pp. 238-263) Wilfred Laurier University Press.

2015

Chakraborty, Kabita. (2015) . Young People’s Mobile Phone Cultures in the Urban Slums of Kolkata. In N. Schinder and F. Titzmann (eds.) Youth, Media, and Gender in Post-Liberalization India. (pp. 191-214) Berlin: Frank & Timme.

2015

Chakraborty, Kabita. (2010) . Unmarried Muslim Youth and Sex Education in the bustees of Kolkata. In A. Doron and A. Broom (Ed.), Health Culture and Religion in South Asia (pp. 114-134). London: Routledge

2010

Beazley, H. and K. Chakraborty (2008). Cool Consumption: Rasta, Punk and Bollywood on the Streets of Yogyakarta, Indonesia and Kolkata, India. In U. M. Rodrigues and B. Smaill (Ed.), Youth, Media and Culture in the Asia Pacific Region (pp. 195-214). Newcastle UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

2008

Books

Publication
Year

Chakraborty, Kabita. (2016) . Young Muslim Women in India: Bollywood, Identity and Changing Youth Culture Routledge: London

2016

Journal Articles

Publication
Year

Chakraborty, K. and D. Sen (2020). Shymoli and the Unknown male: the city’s violent margins. Special Issue on Kolkata. Contemporary South Asia 28(4): 472-484 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09584935.2020.1842862

2020

Agha, S., Thambiah, S. and K. Chakraborty (2019). Children’s Agency in Accessing for Spaces of Play in an Urban High-Rise Community in Malaysia. Children's Geographies 17(6): 691-704. DOI: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/DE6CNSRCT897VV6UUPGB/full?target=10.1080/14733285.2019.1574335

2019

Chakraborty, K., S. Thambiah and J. Arumugam. (2018). Estate youth and complicated migration in Malaysia’s oil palm plantations: The emotions of leaving and coming back home. Children’s Geographies . 16(6) 642-653. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14733285.2018.1479514

2018

Chakraborty, K and S. Thambiah (2018). Editorial Introduction: Children and Young People’s Emotions of Migration Across Asia. Children’s Geographies . 16(6): 583-590. DOI: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14733285.2018.1503231

2018

Thambiah, S, Chakraborty, K., Sarkar R. (2016) . Violence and Migration in a Team Research setting: Working with Bangladeshi Migrant Women in Malaysia. Gender, Place and Culture . DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2015.1136814

2016

Chakraborty, K. (2016). “Eve-teasing” and Education Mobility: Young Women’s Experiences in the Urban Slums of India. In T. Skelton, C. Dwyer and N. Worth (eds.) Geographies of Children and Young People . Volume “Inclusion and Exclusion”. 269-292. New York: Springer.

2016

Coren E, Hossain R, Pardo Pardo J, Veras MMS, Chakraborty K, Harris H, Martin AJ (2013). Interventions for Promoting Reintegration and Reducing Harmful Behaviour and Lifestyles in Street-connected Children and Young People. Evidence Based Child Health 8(4):1140-272.

2013

Nansen B, Chakraborty K, Gibbs L, Vetere F, MacDougall C. (2013) . “MyBus”: Children’s Mobile Health, Wellbeing and Digital Inclusion. Journal of Community Informatics.9(2):online

2013

Chakraborty, Kabita. (2012) Representations: Visual Arts: Television: India [entry on Young Muslim Women and Bollywood Popular Culture]. Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures (online edition) Netherlands: Brill.

2012

Nansen B, Chakraborty K, Gibbs L, Vetere F, and MacDougall C. (2012) . Children and Digital Wellbeing in Australia: Online Mediation, Conduct and Competence. Journal of Children and Media 6(2): 237-254.

2012

Chakraborty K, Nansen B, Gibbs L and MacDougall C. (2012) . Ethical Negotiations: Committees, Methods and Research with Children. International Journal of Children’s Rights. 20(2): 541-533.

2012

Coren E, Hossain R, Pardo Pardo J, Thomae M, Veras MMS, Chakraborty K. (2012) . Interventions for Promoting Reintegration and Reducing Harmful Behaviour and Lifestyles in Street-Connected Children and Young People (Protocol). Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Issue 4 2012.

2012

Chakraborty, K. (2012) . Virtual Mate-Seeking in the Urban Slums of Kolkata, India. South Asian Popular Culture 10(2): 197-216.

2012

Chakraborty, Kabita. (2012) . Young Married Muslim Couples Negotiating their Sexual Lives in the Urban Slums of Kolkata. Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific Issue 28 [online March 2012].

2012

Nansen B, Chakraborty K, Gibbs L, Vetere F, and MacDougall C. (2012) . “You Do the Math”: Mathletics and the Play of Online Learning. New Media & Society 14(1): 2016-2035.

2012

Chakraborty, Kabita. (2010) . The Sexual Lives of Muslim Girls in the bustees of Kolkata, India. Sex Education 10(1): 1-21.

2010

Chakraborty, Kabita. (2010) . Unmarried Muslim Youth and Sex Education in the bustees of Kolkata. South Asian History and Culture 1(2): 268–281 special issue ‘Health, Culture and Religion: Critical Perspectives’.

2010

Chakraborty, Kabita. (2009) . “The Good Muslim Girl”: Conducting Qualitative Participatory Research to Understand the Lives of Young Muslim Women in the bustees of Kolkata. Children’s Geographies 7(4): 421-434 special issue ‘20 years since the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child’.

2009

Forthcoming

Publication
Year

Chakraborty, K. (2020 forthcoming) . “Ap kesa insaan h..ek bar v rply nhi diye”: Male youth, eve-teasing, and community changes in the urban slums (bustees) of Kolkata“. Contemporary South Asia (Volume 27, Issue 2)

2020

Chakraborty, K. (for publication in 2020). “We are scared to get lost in our own neighbourhood”: How children’s geographies informs research on young people’s experiences of eve-teasing in the urban slums of India. In Children’s Geographies , special feature, Viewpoints: Children’s Geographies in Wider Contexts: Cross-Disciplinary Reflections.

2020


Current Courses

Term Course Number Section Title Type
Fall 2024 AP/CCY3999 6.0 B Research Methods with Children BLEN


Upcoming Courses

Term Course Number Section Title Type
Winter 2025 AP/CCY4999 6.0 M CCY Honours Research Project ONLN