Chaitanya Lakkimsetti
  • Associate Professor

Biography

Professor Chaitanya Lakkimsetti’s work centers on gender, sexuality, law, and citizenship. In her empirical and theoretical work, she employs transnational and intersectional approaches to study sexual and gender inequalities in a global context.

Her first book Legalizing Sex: Sexual Minorities, AIDS and Citizenship in India (NYU Press, 2020) and related articles (published in Signs and Qualitative Sociology) examine how sexual and gender minorities demand legal and political citizenship in contemporary India. More particularly she examines how the global HIV/AIDS crisis has transformed the relationship between gender and sexual minorities and the Indian state. She deploys Foucauldian lens of biopolitics and postcolonial understandings of the state to understand these contemporary transformations. Her work brings to light contemporary struggles for social justice (including the successful struggles against the colonial era anti-sodomy law) undertaken by sex workers and LGBTQ groups in India.

Another significant area of Dr. Lakkimsetti’s research is an interdisciplinary collaborative project (with Dr. Vanita Reddy, Texas A&M) on #Metoo and transnational feminism. This collaborative project has resulted in co-edited dossier on #Metoo and Transnational Gender Justice (2021; Feminist Formations); and a co-edited book #MeToo and the Politics of Transnational Feminism: An Anthology (NYU Press, 2025). In contrast to the diffusionist model of #Metoo as a movement that originated in the US and spread to the rest of the world, this work offers a framework to understand the uneven and unpredictable politics of #Metoo.

Her current book project Demanding Death: Rape, Death Penalty, and Vigilante Violence in Contemporary India, is an interdisciplinary study of the growing demands for the death penalty and/or instant death—through lynching or extrajudicial killings--for rape in contemporary India. An article from this project, “‘Hang the Rapists Immediately’: Rape Vigilantism, State Violence, and Impunity in Contemporary India,” was recently published in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society.

 

Courses Taught at Texas A&M

  • SOCI/WGST 207: Introduction to Gender and Society
  • SOCI/WGST 316: Sociology of Gender
  • SOCI 430: Contemporary Sociological Theory
  • SOCI 661/WGST 661: Sociology of Gender
  • SOCI/WGST 689: Sexualities and Gender in Transnational Perspective
  • WGST 200: Introduction to Women’s and Gender Studies
  • WGST 601: Feminist Theory

 

 

Dr. Chaitanya Lakkimsetti on Rethinking How We Perceive Sexual Labour

Research Interests

  • Gender
  • Sexuality
  • Globalization
  • Law & Society
  • Political Sociology

Educational Background

  • Ph.D. University of Wisconsin-Madison

Selected Publications

  • Books


    Journal Articles and Book Chapters

    • Lakkimsetti, Chaitanya and Vanita Reddy. 2025. “Patriarchal Protectionism, Hegemonic Masculinity, and #MeToo: A Comparative Feminist Analysis of Gender-Based Violence in India and the US”. In #MeToo And The Politics of Transnational Feminism: An Anthology edited by Chaitanya Lakkimsetti & Vanita Reddy. New York: NYU Press. 25-44.

    • Over, Defne, Emilce Santana, Ernesto Amaral, Chaitanya Lakkimsetti, Anna Estelle Kelly, and Dulce Espinoza. 2025. “A comprehensive analysis of COVID-19 Vaccination Behavior: The Influence of religion, information sources, political leanings, and demographic factors”. PLoS One, 20(5), e0323815.
    • Lakkimsetti, Chaitanya. 2024. ““Hang the Rapists Immediately”: Rape Vigilantism, State Violence, and Impunity in Contemporary India.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 49(4): 755-777. 
    • Lakkimsetti, Chaitanya. 2022. “Traditional Genders, Modern Sexualities: Struggles Around Sexual and Gender Nonconformity in Postcolonial India”. In Sociology of South Asia: Postcolonial Legacies, Global Imaginaries edited by Smitha Radhakrishnan & Gowri Vijayakumar, Palgrave Macmillian. 121-150.
    • Lakkimsetti, Chaitanya and Vanita Reddy. 2021. “#MeToo and Transnational Feminism: An Introduction.” Feminist Formations 33(3): 224-238. 
    • Lakkimsetti, Chaitanya. 2021. “Stripping Away at Respectability: #Metoo India and the Politics of Dignity.” Feminist Formations 33(3): 303-317.
    • Lakkimsetti, Chaitanya. 2017. ““Home and Beautiful Things”: Aspirational Politics in Dance Bars in India.” Sexualities 20(4): 463-481.
    • Lakkimsetti, Chaitanya. 2016. “Empowered Criminals and Global Subjects: Gender and the Paradox of Transnational Advocacy in India.” Qualitative Sociology 39: 375-396. 
    • Lakkimsetti, Chaitanya. 2016. ““From Dance Bars to the Streets”: Moral Dispossession and Eviction in Mumbai.” positions: asia critique 24 (1). 205-230. 
    • Lakkimsetti, Chaitanya. 2014. ““HIV is Our Friend”: Prostitution, Power and State in Postcolonial India.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 40 (1): 201-226.