Meena Dhanda arrived in the UK from Punjab, India in 1987 with an award of the Commonwealth Scholarship for her doctoral work in Philosophy at Balliol College, Oxford University. She was a Rhodes Junior Research Fellow at St Hilda's College, Oxford, before taking up a full-time lecturing position at the University of Wolverhampton in 1992, progressing to a Readership in 2010. She was promoted Professor on September 17, 2018. Dhanda has written about problems of racism within the field of philosophy, calling for more diversity within the field, and has spoken of the importance for her of doing "socially engaged philosophy." She has been an active member of the UK branch of the Society for Women in Philosophy for more than 25 years, and as of 2017, sits on the society's Funding Committee.
Main works
From September 2013 to February 2014 Dhanda led a project on ‘Caste in Britain’ for the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission, through which she produced two research reports – "Caste in Britain: Socio-legal Review", and "Caste in Britain: Experts' Seminar and Stakeholders' Workshop." She has published numerous transdisciplinary papers on topics of caste and race, including ‘Punjabi Dalit Youth: Social Dynamics of Transitions in Identity’, ; ‘Runaway Marriages: A Silent Revolution?’, ; ‘Certain Allegiances, Uncertain Identities: The Fraught Struggles of Dalits in Britain’ ; ‘Do only South Asians reclaim honour’? ; ‘Anti-Castism and Misplaced Nativism’. She has published two books: a monograph, The Negotiation of Personal Identity and Reservations for Women.
Dhanda, M. , Contemporary South Asia, 17, 1: 47-64.
Dhanda, M. ‘’, in I. Ness, The Encyclopedia of Global Human Migration. Wiley Blackwell.
Dhanda, M. ‘Certain Allegiances, Uncertain Identities: The Fraught Struggles of Dalits in Britain’, in O.P. Dwivedi, The New Indian Diaspora. New York: Editions Rodopi, 99-119.
Dhanda, M. ‘Anti-Castism and Misplaced Nativism: Mapping caste as an aspect of race’ Radical Philosophy'', 192, July-Aug, pp. 33–43.
Dhanda, M., Mosse, D., Waughray, A., Keane, D., Green, R., Iafrati, S. and Mundy, J.K. Caste in Britain: . Equality and Human Rights Commission Research Report no. 92. Manchester: Equality and Human Rights Commission.
Dhanda, M., Waughray, A., Keane, D., Mosse, D., Green, R. and Whittle, S. Caste in Britain: . Equality and Human Rights Commission Research Report no. 91. Manchester: Equality and Human Rights Commission.
