CSW, founded in 1946, facilitates annual dialogues between U.N. entities and civil society organizations on topics related to the promotion of gender equality and women\u2019s empowerment. This year, the commission\u2019s priority theme was \u201cinnovation and technological change, and education in the digital age for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls.\u201d Roy reflects with gratitude on her own journey at UConn, which led her to this prestigious event.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was really fabulous because, being in that network \u2013 which was possible only because I came to UConn \u2013 I could actually be in conversation with so many activists and researchers who are looking at issues of gender and technology coming from so many different parts of the world,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
‘They Have Created That Space’<\/strong><\/p>\n Roy came to UConn in 2019 as a graduate student from India with several degrees, including an MPhil in English and Ph.D. in Media, Communication, and Culture, both from Jadavpur University. Teaching as an assistant professor in India, she felt she needed to know more about society, and wanted more training in research methods. She found herself attracted to UConn\u2019s sociology department for its diverse faculty who conducted research in her areas of interest, such as gender and labor.<\/p>\n She currently attends two graduate certificate courses in human rights and women\u2019s, gender, and sexuality studies, which have deepened her understanding of how rights differ based on location. Over her four years at the University, Roy has published eight articles with the help of her professors, a feat that usually takes significant time in the social sciences at the graduate level.<\/p>\n From her professors, Roy has also learned how to network in organizations like the American Sociological Association (ASA) and International Sociological Association (ISA), as well as SWS, which brought about her U.N. delegation. Roy says the UConn sociology department \u201chas a very special connection with\u201d SWS, as numerous current and past faculty members, including Manisha Desai, Bandana Purkayastha, Nancy Naples, Mary Bernstein, and Fumilayo Showers, have held leadership roles in the organization.<\/p>\n \u201cThey have created that space for graduate students like me to get involved in that organization,\u201d Roy says.<\/p>\n ‘I Could Bring That Global Dimension’<\/strong><\/p>\n Roy studies how highly skilled and highly paid Indian technology workers organize for their rights as citizens in India and as immigrants in the U.S. She notes that these workers are considered a global labor force because of the transnational nature of technology.<\/p>\n \u201cFor example, the call center workers who are talking to people in the U.S. or the U.K. or other countries [while] sitting in India\u2014all of that is happening in real time,\u201d Roy explains. \u201cAnd there is a power imbalance because they are talking to their clients, and they are in the Global South, and those people are in the Global North.<\/p>\n \u201cThis power imbalance means that they have to make all the adjustments. So, if [they\u2019re] talking to somebody who is in the U.S., maybe it\u2019s 10 in the morning in the U.S., and in India, it would be somewhere around 10 at night, and that\u2019s pretty common,\u201d which takes a toll on workers\u2019 health and family lives, she says, especially for those who are expected to maintain homes and care for children.<\/p>\n Roy brought this knowledge to a meeting of the SWS International Committee, chaired by UConn assistant professor of sociology and Africana Studies Fumilayo Showers, where Roy first heard about CSW and its focus this year on gender and technology. The committee sought help in composing a set of recommendations to send to the U.N., and Roy volunteered.<\/p>\n \u201cI enjoyed that work because my research is also related to technology,\u201d says Roy. \u201cSo, I could share my expertise and insight, especially because I could see what happens in India as well as in the U.S. I could bring that global dimension.\u201d<\/p>\n ‘I Felt Really Empowered’<\/strong><\/p>\n Soon after helping with the SWS report, Roy applied and was one of 20 people selected to represent the organization as a delegate to CSW at the U.N., attending with Showers, who says Roy made valuable contributions at the global assembly.<\/p>\n \u201cRianka has a well-developed research agenda for this stage of her graduate career,\u201d Showers says. \u201cShe drew from her research to invite delegates and the U.N. audience to think about the dual role of technology as a tool of empowerment, for example, in facilitating transnational feminism through the activation and dissemination of feminist networks online, but also as a tool of disempowerment and discord.\u201d<\/p>\n Roy has already shared several of her U.N. experiences with the global sociology class she teaches, including a video she saw about a group called STEM from Dance, which uses dance to spark the interest of young girls of color in STEM. It\u2019s an example of joining different education methods in the classroom, something Roy often discusses with her students.<\/p>\n \u201cCurrently, our education systems everywhere, even in India, are very Eurocentric,\u201d Roy explains. \u201cWe need to incorporate more voices, more experiences that are really diverse. So this \u2013 the bringing together of dance and technology in a very performative way \u2013 was really unique, and I was able to share that with my students at UConn.\u201d<\/p>\n Roy says her experience as a delgate at the U.N. will continue to shape her work as a sociologist, activist, professor, and researcher, and ultimately holds immense personal significance for her.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a woman of color coming from the Global South, being in that space and sharing my ideas and identities with all those people\u2014I felt really empowered,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd I\u2019m going to cherish that experience for many years.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rianka Roy’s scholarship first brought her to UConn from India, and then to the United Nations as a delegate on behalf of Sociologists for Women in Society<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":196916,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2226,88,156,2431,1875,2235,2306],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[1902],"class_list":["post-197097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-clas","category-global-affairs","category-profile","category-sociology","category-grad-school","category-today-homepage","category-uconn-voices"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-02 22:31:04","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197097"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":197108,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197097\/revisions\/197108"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/196916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197097"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=197097"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=197097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"UConn](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/IMG-4051-225x300.jpg\")
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