I am a Ph.D. student in the department of anthropology at the University of Notre Dame. I received my M.A. Degree in Society and Politics from the University of Lancaster (2014), and a postgraduate diploma in Social Sciences from Nepā School of Social Sciences and Humanities (2011). For the past ten years, I have been actively involved in academic activism to contribute to achieving equality and social justice for Dalit communities across South Asia.
My lived experiences of caste-based discrimination, humiliation, and indignity and the involvement in few mental health research projects introduced me to the field of ethnopsychology and global mental health. So, I am interested to explore the relationship between caste and mental health by drawing upon theoretical and methodological approaches, particularly from medical and psychological anthropology. At Notre Dame, I am investigating why caste as an important factor contributing to Dalits’ mental illness is excluded from Nepal’s biomedical mental health services and approaches and how caste shapes the interaction between psychiatrists/counselors and Dalit patients.