Gail Omvedt
Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1941, with a B.A. from Carleton College
and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley
(1973), Gail Omvedt has been a citizen of India since 1982, and a
scholar-activist, working with new social movements, in particular women's
groups and farmer's organizations. She has been actively involved with
movements for women's empowerment on several fronts: in fighting for
benefits for abandoned women; in helping women of farming families to win
rights to land and other property; in campaigns for representation in
local elected bodies; and in increasing the role of women in the
development of a sustainable agriculture. She has also been a part of the
independent farmers' movement and of anti-cast and environmental
campaigns.
Her academic writing includes numerous books and articles on class, caste
and gender issues, most notably: We shall Smash this prison: Indian
Women in Struggle (1979), Reinventing Revolution: New Social
Movements in India (1993), Gender and Technology: Emerging Asian
Visions (1994), Dalits and The democratic revolution (1994),
Dalit Visions: the Anticaste movement and Indian Culutural Identity
(1994)
In recent years she has been working as a consulting sociologist on
gender, environment and rural development, for UNDP, NOVIB and other
institutions.
Return to Project in Maharastra
Return to Current and Future Events
Return to IDS-Michigan Home
The IDS-Michigan web pages are maintained by Neerav Modi and Katie Richter. Please send feedback, questions or comments to IDS-MI.web@umich.edu using our
e-mail form.
This page was last modified on
Monday, 29-Jan-1996 00:04:58 EST