About

 Punita is an applied sociologist with an interdisciplinary background in sociology, international development and public health.  Taking a social justice approach, her research is concerned with intersectional disadvantages faced by women and children particularly in South Asia and in the UK. She is interested in gender-based inequalities and violence embedded within the institutions of family, community, market and the state. More specifically, she is interested in a.) intra-household inequalities, particularly in household finance and food resources and care work including parenting, b.)  intersectional inequalities in health and employment.  She is particularly interested in economic justice and economic abuse with a focus on the UK and South Asia.

Funded by the GCRF, her current research is exploring food insecurity and women’s employment during Covid in Bihar, India. Previously, her research focused on economic justice, economic abuse and household resources among South Asian Women in the UK, India and Pakistan, funded by NIHR CLAHRC. Prior to that she worked on a number of projects including South Asian mothers' narratives of food practices and allergies, fathering in South Asian households, minority ethnic children’s experience of starting school, eating disorders and long-term health conditions, poverty and ethnicity funded by a variety of funders including NIHR and Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Punita has also worked on a number of other projects funded by DFID, World Bank and European Commission as a program officer in CARE India.

Punita has authored/co-authored over 45 academic outputs which includes 23 journal articles, 12 reports, 5 book chapters and 3 monographs. She has also delivered over 30 conference papers and panels. She is regularly invited to deliver talks by academic, public sector and voluntary sector organisations.

Punita regularly writes articles for a variety of print media such as The Conversation and The Independent which are often reproduced by national and international media including Quartz; Scroll.in; The Tribune in Pakistan;  The News Minute and many others. She engages with the print and electronic media on a regular basis, for example, BBC Sheffield, BBC Asian Network, Asian Sunday;  Whetstone Magazine and BBC World Service.

Punita served on the editorial board of Sociological Research Online (2017-2020) and regularly reviews for over 12 journals including Sociology, Identities, Journal of International Development, Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, Journal of Development Studies, Journal of Family Violence. She also regularly reviews for funders such as the MRC.

Teaching

Department of Social Work and Social Care and Community Studies

Courses taught:

 - MA in Social Work
 - BA in Social Work

Research

• Health Research Institute

 Current and Recently Completed Projects:

 - Principal Investigator, 2021 -2022: Food insecurity and women’s employment during Covid in Bihar, India, GCRF
 - Co-Investigator, 2017-2019: South Asian mothers' experiences of food practices and allergies, NIHR CLAHRC
 - Principal Investigator, 2013 -2016: Household resources and food practices in the UK, India and Pakistan, NIHR CLAHRC
 - Principal Investigator (2014) Resilience in early years, IMAGINE, SHU

Publications

Other activities

Invited talks

1. Chowbey, P. (Nov 2021) Barriers in fighting economic abuse: South Asian women in Britain, Survivors’ Summit, Surviving Economic Abuse
2. Chowbey, P. (2019) I did not know where my card and cheque books were kept: economic abuse identification, conceptualisation and strategies in Britain and South Asia, The UCL Centre for Gender & Global Health, seminar series,  London
3. Chowbey, P. (2017) South Asian women's financial strategies, Integrated Mixed Methods: A Workshop funded by British Academy, University of Manchester
4. Chowbey, P. (2017) Women's narratives of Economic abuse and financial strategies, Born in Bradford,  Bradford
5. Chowbey, P. (2016) Employment, masculinities and domestic violence in 'fragile' contexts: Pakistani women in Pakistan and the UK, Applying mixed methods: Studying work in Asia, GIGA German Institute for Global and Area Studies, Hamburg
6. Chowbey, P. (2015) What is food without love? Intra-household power dynamics and food consumption in the Gujarati and Pakistani households in India, Pakistan and the UK, Thomas Coram Research Unit, University College London
7. Chowbey, P. and Garrick, R. (2015) Building Resilience: Ethnic minority children starting school in England, EAL ‘For All’ Conference, Sheffield
8. Chowbey, P. and Garrick, R. (2014) Building Resilience: working with minority ethnic children and their parents, Invited talk,  Hunters Bar School, Sheffield
9. Chowbey, P. (Oct 2013), ‘Feed them nuggets of gold, but watch them with the eye of a tiger!’: British South Asian fathers talking about memories of their own fathers, University of Oxford
10. Chowbey, P (April 2012): Parenting in Modern Britain: Understanding the Experiences of Asian Fathers, Educating the next generation, Sheffield,  Keynote speaker
11. Chowbey, P., & Salway, S. (April 2011) Engaging with South Asian fathers, Communities Workforce Development Unit, Sheffield City Council
12. Chowbey P, Salway, S. (2010) Working with and against ethnic categories in a  study of long-term ill health and poverty, Promoting Methodological Innovation and Capacity Building in Research on ethnicity, ESRC Seminar series Sheffield

Panels in international conferences:

1. Johnson, L. Stylianou, A. & Chowbey, P. (2021) The impact of economic abuse on women: a multi country analysis, the European Conference on Domestic Violence, Online, September 2021
2. Olsen, W., Arun, S., & Chowbey, P. (2018) Women's inequalities and global progress in work: access, dignity, decency in women's work, panel in Development Studies Association conference, Manchester
3. Olsen, W. and Chowbey, P. (2015) Household Dynamics, Economic Marginalization/Integration, and Women’s Issues in Asia, panel in 24th IAFFE Annual Conference Gender Equality in Challenging Times, Berlin.

 Published conference abstracts

1. Chowbey, P. (2019) Healthy eating, social class, and ethnicity: exploring the food practices of South Asian mothers; 'Re-imagining Food Systems, Sustainability, Futures and the Everyday’, at Monash University, Prato, Italy.
2. Chowbey, P.  (2019) Control of household finances, empowerment and equality; Social Policy Annual Conference, University of Durham
3. Chowbey, P. (2018) Women's aspirations and discontent in control of household finances, Development Studies Association conference, Manchester  
4. Chowbey, P. (2017) Like you eat Weetabix, so we use wheat to make roti: What does healthy eating mean for South Asian women in the UK? British Sociological Association Food and Society 2017 Conference
5. Chowbey, P. (2017) Women's narratives of economic violence and financial strategies in Britain and South Asia, Psychology of Violence, British Sociological Association Annual Conference, Manchester
6. Chowbey, P. (2017) Household resources and  economic justice in Britain, India and Pakistan, 'Gender, Institutions and Change: Feminist Institutionalism after 10 years' Manchester
7. Chowbey, P. (2016) Employment, masculinities and domestic violence in 'fragile' contexts: Pakistani women in Pakistan and the UK, Applying mixed methods: Studying work in Asia, Social Policy Association Annual conference, Belfast
8. Chowbey, P. (2015) Household resources and 'institutional intersectionality' in Britain, India and Pakistan 24th IAFFE Annual Conference Gender Equality in Challenging Times, Berlin.
9. Chowbey, P. (2015) The institutional embeddedness of household resource allocation in Britain, India and Pakistan’, Social Policy Association Annual conference, Belfast
10. Chowbey P. (July 2014) What is food without love? The political, moral and emotional economies of food consumption in the UK, India and Pakistan, Social Policy Association Annual Conference, Sheffield
11. Chowbey, P and Salway, S. (April 2014)- ‘I feel my dad every moment!’: salience of memories of own fathers in British South Asian fathering practices, British Sociological Association Annual Conference, Leeds
12. Garrick, R. and Chowbey, P. (2013) Building Resilience: Ethnic minority children starting school in England, 23^rd European Early Childhood Education Research Association conference, Talinn, Estonia, August 28-31
13. Chowbey, P. & Salway, S. (2013) Alone in a crowd:  Barriers in social capital activation, A case study of UK Ghanaians,  British Sociological Association Annual Conference, London

Postgraduate supervision

Punita is interested in supervising students in the area of gender and economic justice, gender based violence, household finance, economic abuse, household food practices, women's employment and other areas of household and relationships. She is currently supervising a doctoral student who is exploring the transition experiences of racially minoritised student nurses into university.

Media

Interviews:
Radio:
1. BBC Radio Sheffield (27 Jan 2020) Culture and Identity
2. BBC Asian Network (26 June 2019) How does migration affect health?
3. BBC World Service (30 October 2018) Economic Abuse. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3cswgwb
4. BBC Asian Network, Growing up without a father (01 November 2018). https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000x1h
5. BBC Asian Network: (18 June 2018) Fathers and sons, with Mobeen Azhar
6. BBC Asian Network,  Big Debate: (17 November 2017)  How women use food to negotiate power in Pakistani and Indian households, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09dldgl
7. BBC Radio Sheffield: (21 May 2017) Confronting marital economic abuse

Newspapers/magazines:
1. Asian Sunday:  The organic emergence of the modern-day South Asian father (June 2022)
2. Whetstone Magazine, the South Asian vertical: Behind Recipes of Convenience is a Story of Sacrifice  (April 2021)

Articles/blogs:
1. The Conversation : Chowbey, P. (November 2017) How women use food to negotiate power in Pakistani and Indian households, 
2. The Conversation:  Chowbey, P. (2 May 2017) How Pakistani and Indian women confront marital economic abuse
3. Chowbey, P. (2021) Time poverty and healthy eating – reflections from research with British South Asian mothers  https://blogs.shu.ac.uk/chefscluster/2021/07/05/time-poverty-and-healthy-eating-reflections-from-research-with-british-south-asian-mothers/
4. Chowbey, P.  Sharp-Jeffs, N. (Dec 2017) Issues of economic safety and economic abuse in British South Asian households: reflections from an ESRC Festival of Social Science Event, as part of sixteen days of activism.
5. Journal of Advanced Nursing Invited blog Chowbey, P.  (6 December 2015) Domestic violence against women in the context of migration and minoritization