Staff Members

Dr Rachel Simon-Kumar

Role: Senior Lecturer, International Student Advisor Qualifications: PhD (Waikato), M.Phil (JNU, New Delhi, Applied Economics) Email: rachelsk@waikato.ac.nz Location: K2.05A Contact: 8255

Research Interests:

Rachel lectures and convenes both graduate and undergraduate papers including WGST507: Gender, Development and Policy; WGST506: Theorising Gender (in politics); WGST302: Researching Gender; HDVP504 and HDVP505: Interdisciplinary Perspectives in Health; and HDVP506: Methods in Health Policy Analysis. She also contributes to papers in Sociology and Social Policy at the undergraduate level.

Rachel has done research on reproductive health in India, Asian migrant health in New Zealand, critique of citizenship in neo-liberal states, and gender issues in policy processes. She is the author of Marketing Reproduction? Ideology and Population Policy in India (Zubaan Publishers, New Delhi, 2006). In 2008, she received the Marsden Fast-Start Grant (2009-2011) to undertake 'Engaging Women and Migrants in New Zealand's public policy', a study that explores ideas of citizenship and democracy among minorities in twenty-first century western states.

Selected Publications:

Simon-Kumar, R. (2009) The ‘problem’ of Asian women’s sexuality: A critique of public discourses in Aotearoa/New Zealand, Culture, Health and Sexuality, vol11, Iss 1, January, pp. 1-16.

Simon-Kumar, R. (2008) “Approve to Decline”: A feminist critique of ‘Fairness’ and ‘Discrimination’ in a case study of EEO in the New Zealand Public Sector”, Women’s Studies Journal, Vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 20-36.

Simon-Kumar, R. (2007) Neo-liberal development and Reproductive Health in India: The Making of the Personal and the Political, Indian Journal of Gender Studies, Sept-Dec Issue, Vol. 14, no. 3. 2007, pp. 355-385.

‘Men, Male Bias, Patriarchy, Gender Relations: What are the barriers to gendering development?’ (2007) DevForum, Council for International Development, Wellington, Iss. 28, December, pp. 4-7.

‘Evaluating Power In Development Programmes: Usefulness Of Discourse Theory’ (2007) DevForum, Council for International Development: Wellington, Iss 27, July, pp. 4-7.

Simon-Kumar, R. (2006) Marketing Reproduction: Ideology and Population Politics in India, Zubaan/Kali for Women, New Delhi.

Simon-Kumar, R. (2006) Achieving ‘Development’ for Women: Evolving Concepts in Measurement, Women Talking Politics (Newsletter of the Aotearoa/New Zealand Women and Politics Network) Special Issue on Women and Development, No. 5, Winter, p. 4/5.

Simon-Kumar, R. (2004) The Public Sphere and Emancipation: Negotiating women’s rights in the time of neo-liberal development, International Feminist Journal of Politics, Vol. 6, No. 3, pp. 490-506.

Simon-Kumar, R. (2003) “Claiming the State: Women’s Reproductive Identity and Indian Development”, chapter in Kum-Kum Bhavnani, John Foran and Priya Kurian (eds), Feminist Futures: Re-imagining Women, Culture and Development, Zed Books, London.

Research Publications:

You may like to view publications from 1997 onwards for Dr Rachel Simon-Kumar