recent books

Brilliantly argues how centralization tendencies occur in the liberal economy of India at both the national and sub-national levels.

- Nagesh Prabhu, author of Reflective Shadows: Political Economy of World Bank Lending to India

Offers a rich description of the dynamics of state authority and a new space to understand centralization beyond the nature of Indian federalism.

- Vandana Asthana, author of Water Policy Processes in India: Discourses of Power and Resistance

Fernandes deftly reveals the complexity of postliberal governance in the context of water scarcity. The study sets a new standard for understanding how the bureaucratic state’s reaction to climate change creates and deepens existing inequalities.

- Nancy Naples, co-editor of Border Politics: Social Movements, Collective Identities, and Globalization

Fernandes has undertaken the chal- lenging task of rethinking what constitutes bureaucratic agency and its ethical constraints in the context of India’s water politics, going beyond simplistic narratives of corruption. She has opened a new area of research with a book that is nuanced, rigorous, and refreshingly original. 

- Current History

In thus providing a convincing analysis of water governance that seamlessly traverses the urban-rural divide in a historically sensitive way, Fernandes's book provides the right balance of complexity and coherence that an undertaking of this magnitude requires. 

            - Asian Ethnology

Fernandes has written a study of the dynamics leading to the emergence of India’s new middle class that makes an important theoretical and substantive contribution to this literature. The book will be of interest to scholars and theorists seeking to understand the origins, character, and political impact of this class. Recommended--- Choice

India's New Middle Class provides a much needed contribution to the literature on India. The book's innovative theoretical insights cast new light not only on the Indian middle class but more generally on the role of the middle class in times of transformation — Patrick Heller, Brown University

Leela Fernandes deftly uses a sophisticated theoretical framework to explain her rich local-level field evidence that few others could hope to match in terms of empathy, language, and a complete mastery of local knowledge and idioms. —Paul Lubeck

Leela Fernandes has written an impressive and ambitious analysis. Her approach is highly nuanced, consistently reminding the reader of the diversity within middle-class experiences and the variety of practices (discursive, civic, consumption) through which a new normative national standard of a consumer-citizen has been costructed. Fernandes has presented a sophisticated, original and imaginative appraisal of Indian middle-class politics, and why they matter.—Pacific Affairs

India’s New Middle Class is an important book because it gives one an appreciation for the theoretical and empirical complexity involved in defining class in a country like India during this historical moment. It is thus important reading for a sociology of neoliberalism.—Contemporary Sociology

Leela Fernandes’s work makes an important contribution to the study of middle classes in contemporary India, as well as to the field of comparative political economy in general. If for nothing else, the author deserves applause for this insightful peep into the politics of India’s new middle class. Students of development studies will find the study valuable. -Development and Change

"With a clear introduction that offers each chapters argument, this text is simultaneously challenging and approachable. It is accessible for specific purposes, as each essay can stand alone. The arguments are clearly and systematically laid out in this thoroughly research and articulate text."  ~Journal of American Culture  

"Unveiling the reproduction of the national in the transnational and the disciplining of interdisciplinarity, Fernandes deftly illustrates the minefields that women's and gender studies, postcolonial, and other interdisciplinary scholars traverse as they seek to produce transformative knowledge. Transnational Feminism in the United States is essential reading, ushering us into a more ethical practice of feminism and politics."  ~Nikol G. Alexander-Floyd,author of Gender, Race, and Nationalism in Contemporary Black Politics 

"Will help [readers] realize how transnational feminism has been influenced by the dominant language of human rights . . . [and]sharpens a critical sensibility on how to study women's issues globally."  ~Hypatia 

"Through this collection's five loosely connected essays...full of provocative arguments, Fernandes offers a cautionary analysis of the trajectory of 'transnational feminism' in women's studies in the U.S. academy."  ~WSQ: Women's Studies Quarterly