Dr Neethi P
Associate Professor
Neethi is a development scholar writing on urban employment, labour informality, and women’s work. Her research explores the complexities of everyday informal labour regimes, concentrating on hyper-marginalised informal workers. She has extensively worked on diverse forms of labour control and response mechanisms within informal workspaces, focusing on the intersections of caste, class, gender, and urbanity that shape the informal labour markets in India. While addressing these concerns, Neethi’s approach diverges from economic orthodoxy by integrating sociological, anthropological, ethnographic, and labour geographical perspectives. Over the course of more than a decade, her research has encompassed various sectors, including garments, electronics, ports, home-based work, street vendors, sanitation workers, waste workers, cotton-mill workers, and sex workers. Apart from a string of international peer-reviewed journal articles and opinion pieces, Neethi has authored Globalisation Lived Locally: A Labour Geography Perspective (Oxford University Press, 2016) and co-authored Urban Undesirables: City Transition and Street-Based Sex Work in Bangalore (Cambridge University Press, 2022). For her doctoral research, she was awarded a Fulbright Nehru Doctoral 365体育投注 Fellowship at the University of Georgia. Before joining MAHE, Neethi worked as a Senior Consultant, Academics & 365体育投注 at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS), Bangalore, and as an Assistant Professor at the School of Development, Azim Premji University. She is a member of the 365体育投注 Advisory Board of Antipode, the Asia representative of the 365体育投注 Sociological Association (ISA), and an Editorial Board Member of the Global Labour Journal (GLJ) and Urbanisation. Neethi is an Advisory Member of the Karnataka Labour Policy Committee for 2024-25.
365体育投注 Law School (MLS) Bengaluru
Qualification: PhD in Economics, Centre for Development Studies (CDS), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, India MPhil in Applied Economics, Centre for Development Studies (CDS), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, India
CURRENT ACADEMIC ROLE & RESPONSIBILITIES
Associate Professor
AREAS OF INTEREST, EXPERTISE AND RESEARCH
Area of Expertise
Urban Employment, informal work, women’s work, Critical Geography, Labour Geography, Urban Sociology, Qualitative 365体育投注 Methods
Area of 365体育投注
Women’s work, Urban Employment, Informal labour markets, Labour movements
Publication details :
Orcid https://orcid.org/my-orcid?orcid=0000-0002-0553-8040
Google Scholar link - https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=list_works&hl=en&authuser=1&hl=en&user=9EIaAboAAAAJ&sortby=pubdate&citft=1&email_for_op=neethimenon%40gmail.com&authuser=1
Books
1) Neethi P and Kamath, A (2022) Urban Undesirables: City Transition and Street-Based Sex Work in Bangalore, Cambridge University Press, UK, India
2) Neethi P. (2016) Globalization Lived Locally: A Labour Geography Perspective, Oxford University Press, New York, India
Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
1) Neethi P. and Rao, D (2023) ‘Memory, Identity, and Deindustrialization: Reflections from Bygone Mill-scapes of Bangalore, India’, Development and Change, Wiley Blackwell, UK
2) Kamath, A., & Neethi, P. (2022.). Disappearing Spaces and Betraying Allies: Urban Transition and Street-based Sex Work in Bangalore. Globalizations 19(5): 741-759, Taylor and Francis
3) Kamath, A., & Neethi, P. (2021). Body politics and the politics of technology: technological experiences among street-based sex workers in Bangalore. Gender, Technology and Development,25(3):294-310, Taylor and Francis
4) Neethi P.(2020) ‘New Revanchism and the Urban Undesirables’: The Street-based Sex Workers of Bangalore , CITY , 24 (5-6):759-777, Taylor & Francis
5) Neethi P., Kamath, A., and Paul, A.M. (2019) ‘Everyday Place-Making through Social Capital among Street Vendors at Manek Chowk, Gujarat, India’, Space and Culture, 24(4): 570-584 Sage
6) Neethi P.(2019) Review of Undervalued Dissent: Informal Workers’ Politics in India by Manjusha Nair, Global Labour Journal, 10(1):180-182
7) Neethi P. (2014) ‘Home-Based Work and Issues of Gender and Space: A Case from Kerala’, Economic and Political Weekly, 49(17): 88-96
8) Neethi P. (2012) ‘Globalisation Lived Locally: Enquiries into Kerala’s Local Labour Control Regimes’, Development and Change, 43(6):1239-1263, Wiley Blackwell
9) Neethi P. (2012) ‘Globalisation Lived Locally: A Labour Geography Perspective on Control, Conflict and Response among Workers in Kerala’, Antipode, 44(3): 971-992, Wiley
10) Neethi P. (2008) ‘Contract Work in the Organised Manufacturing Sector: A Disaggregated Analysis of Trends and their Implications’, Indian Journal of Labour Economics, 51:559-573
Chapters in Edited Volumes
1) Neethi P. (October, 2025) ‘Issues of space and gender in home-based work: a case from Kerala, India’, Chapter 29: 481-493 in Herod (Ed.) 365体育投注 Handbook of Labour Geography, Edward Elgar,https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/handbook-of-labour-geography-9781785363399.html?srsltid=AfmBOorTRMG7EHVB4pcFWH8Ep7x8rXeHrMvs7gOFRmRi6yQR_BLB0xp3
2) Neethi P. and Kamath, A. (forthcoming 2025) ‘Urban Transition and Street-Based Sex Work in Bangalore, India’ in Lars Meier (Eds.) 365体育投注 Handbook of Urban Sociology, Routledge
3) Neethi P. and Kamath, A. (2024) ‘Turbulent Transformation and Urban Undesirables: Revanchist Urban Transition and Street-Based Sex Work in Bangalore in Thomas Coggin and Rupa Madhavan (Eds.) Contested Urban Spaces: Urbanisation, Law and Informal Work, Routledge Studies in Urbanism and the City, https://www.routledge.com/Mapping-Legalities-Urbanisation-Law-and-Informal-Work/Coggin-Madhav/p/book/9781032471587, 19 July, 2024, UK and NY
4) Neethi P., Kamath A., & Mundra, S. (2020) ‘A Technological Panacea for Women Garbage Collectors’ in Kamath, Social Context of Technological Experiences: Three Studies from India, Routledge, UK
5) Neethi P. (2016) ‘Labour Control and Responses: Women Workers in an Apparel Park in Kerala’, in Raju and Jatrana (eds.), Women Workers in Urban India, Cambridge University Press
Working Papers and Reports
1) Neethi P., and Shilpa, S. (2025) Gender Glossary, Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS), Bangalore
2) Neethi P. and Sundara Babu (2023) ‘No Roadmap for Social Security’ in WNTA Annual Governance Review Report 2023
3) Chief Minister’s Rajasthan Economic Transformation Advisory Council (CMRETAC)
4) Policy Study on Managing Urban Informal Sector (2022)
5) Kombe, Wilbard, Neethi P., Keerthana Jagadeesh & Athira Raj (February 2022). ‘C’. GOLD VI Working Paper Series #07 Barcelona: United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG)
6) Neethi P. (2009) ‘Globalisation Lived Locally: New Forms of Control, Conflict and Response among the Labour In Kerala, Examined through a Labour Geography Lens’, Working Paper 417, CDS, Trivandrum
7) Neethi P. (2007) ‘Globalisation and Labour Market Flexibility: A Case of Contract Workers in Organised Manufacturing Sector in India’, unpublished MPhil dissertation submitted at Centre for Development Studies (CDS), Trivandrum, under Jawaharlal Nehru University
Opinion Pieces
1) Neethi P. (2025) ‘ASHA workers - the ongoing struggles for their welfare’, The Hindu, 8 March
2) Neethi P, Akbar, A. (2024) ‘Remoulding the global plastic treaty’, The Hindu, 8 June
3) Neethi P, Anant Kamath (2024) ‘Workers, not tech, should be state’s priority’, The Hindu, 1 April
4) Neethi P, Drupad Umesh (2024) ‘Understanding the world of informal waste pickers’, The Hindu, 1 March
5) Neethi P. (2023) ‘Mental health and the floundering informal worker’, The Hindu, 10 October
6) Neethi P, Antara Rai Chowdhury, Divya Ravindranath (2022) ‘Working women too with a dream of good childcare’ , The Hindu, 8 March
7) Neethi P. (2020) ‘Fallen through the cracks’, The Hindu, 17 November
8) Neethi P. and Kamath A. (2020) ‘How the Corona outbreak is also a socio-economic inequality issue?’, The Wire, March 23
9) Neethi P. and Shivakumar N (2019) ‘New Rules, Old Problems’, The Hindu, 25 December
10) Neethi P., and Kamath, A. (2018) ‘Wasn’t this city made for you and me? Sex workers and their shrinking spaces’, The News Minute, 21 February
11) Neethi P. (2013) ‘Some pictures of local labour in the time of globalisation’, Sanghaditha, 6(4)
12) Neethi P. (2011) ‘Workplaces where Humaneness is Decimated’, Malayalam Varikha
13) Neethi P. (2008) ‘Globalisation and Labour Market Flexibility: A Case of Contract Workers in Organised Manufacturing Sector in India’, Malayalam Varikha, 28th June, in Malayalam