Unveiling Lived Realities: Narratives of South Asian Indian Women in Academia

Gita Seshadri (), Shruti Singh Poulsen and Rajeswari Natarajan-Tyagi
Additional contact information
Gita Seshadri: Department of Couple and Family Therapy, Alliant International University, 2030 West El Camino Ave, Suite 200, Sacramento, CA 95833, USA
Shruti Singh Poulsen: Department of Couple and Family Therapy, Alliant International University, 2030 West El Camino Ave, Suite 200, Sacramento, CA 95833, USA
Rajeswari Natarajan-Tyagi: Department of Couple and Family Therapy, Alliant International University, 2030 West El Camino Ave, Suite 200, Sacramento, CA 95833, USA

Social Sciences, 2024, vol. 13, issue 12, 1-19

Abstract: This paper will focus on illustrating through qualitative personal narratives the lived realities of three South Asian Indian women in academia across the continuum of their experiences personally, professionally, and as academics within the field of Marriage and Family Therapy (MFT). The authors will speak to their South Asian identity, their acculturation experiences as Asian Indian women in the US professional and academic context, their different generational experiences in immigration journeys, their different academic and clinical journeys, and other contextual variables such as age, solidarity with other South Asian women in academia, peer mentorship experiences, and finding their own voices and empowerment through connections with other women with similar experiences. In addition to the lack of formal academic mentorship, the authors will describe how they as South Asian Indian women have grappled with the challenges of systemic gender and racial biases that undermined their development as academics and hindered their progress toward gender and racial equality in academic and clinical settings. The authors will situate their personal narratives within the frameworks of feminist solidarity and social justice through describing their mentorship experiences, as mentors and mentees, and how they still were able to establish their professional identities as professional, academic, South Asian women of color.

Keywords: South Asian women; Asian Indian; women of color; mentorship/academia; feminist solidarity; social justice (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/13/12/667/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/13/12/667/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:13:y:2024:i:12:p:667-:d:1541770

Access Statistics for this article

Social Sciences is currently edited by Ms. Yvonne Chu

More articles in Social Sciences from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().