Sharmila Parmanand

Gates Cambridge International Scholarship

Critical inquiry into Anti-Trafficking discourse in the Philippines

Supervisor: Dr Tomas Larsson, Department of Politics and International Studies

Sharmila Parmanand is Assistant Professor in Gender, Development and Globalisation at the LSE Department of Gender Studies. Sharmila's research examines the colonial histories and gendered logics that underpin development and humanitarian interventions in the global south, with a focus on the politics of knowledge production and feminist entanglements with the state on issues such as migration, gender-based violence, precarious labour, economic restructuring and social protection.  

Sharmila is currently working on her first book, titled 'Saving Our Sisters: The Politics of Anti-Trafficking and Sex Work in the Philippines', which uses the Philippines as a case study to show how anti-trafficking invokes the language of development and human rights to entrench border control practices and the gendered policing of precarious workers. This manuscript makes the case for an expansive postcolonial reimagining of anti-trafficking that repositions it as a question of social justice and equity rather than criminalisation.