Student Spotlight: Anchita Dasgupta '21

Anchita Dasgupta '21 is a Middle East Studies and History concentrator from Kolkata, India. Her research in the department, revolving around the self-determination movements in Kashmir and Palestine, meshes activism with the law. Her thesis in MES, entitled “Beit Sourik and Kunan Poshpora: Reimagining Agency in Legal Resistance Movements,” examines two instances of military violence in Indian-held Kashmir and Israeli-occupied West Bank against which resisters sought justice through the law. These became a flashpoint within the Kashmiri and Palestinian resistance movements that discredited the exertion of agency in legal resistance. Graduating from Brown, Anchita will be pursuing an MPhil in Law at the University of Oxford, where she will continue her research on how the statist trappings of legal justice shape international human rights law, and how legal resistance offers grassroots activists an avenue to challenge the former. As an aspiring human rights lawyer, Anchita hopes to carry her critical theoretical training in MES into the practice of the law, as she continues to elevate subaltern discourses on the law in the academy. Anchita was awarded the 2021 CCSA Undergraduate Thesis Prize for her thesis.