Hamsa Rajan

Building on the 6 years I have lived in both eastern and western China, I use ethnographic and qualitative methods to investigate family life in ‘Tibetan autonomous’ counties and districts. My work seeks to bridge the divide between dominant academic theories, largely reflecting global North experiences, and the often very dissimilar lived realities and values of the global South. I draw on feminist, sociological, and political science literature to understand ethnic minority conditions, gender politics, family conflict and abuse, and intergenerational household relationships in Tibetan towns, villages, and nomadic grasslands.

I am currently working on a book developing a ‘family systems’ theory of domestic violence, aimed at expanding beyond existing individualistic models of intimate partner abuse, perpetration, and crime. The book aims to better incorporate extended family living arrangements and heavily communal forms of living, often common in the global South, into our theoretical understanding.