Aastha Prasad

Aastha Prasad is a DPhil candidate at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies (CSLS), University of Oxford. She is supervised by Professor Fernanda Pirie. 

Aastha’s ethnographic fieldwork, conducted between November 2020 and January 2022, explores how changing legal regimes, from the colonial to the present-day context, intersect with the transformation of customary norms and practices among Adivasi (indigenous groups/tribes) communities, with a particular focus on customs related to kinship and land. She works with two Adivasi groups, namely the Chaudharis Dangis, in the South Gujarat region of India.

Aastha holds an MSc in Law, Anthropology and Society from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), London, United Kingdom. She also holds a BA in Liberal Arts and Sciences (major in International Justice and minor in World Politics) from Leiden University College (LUC), Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs, Leiden University, the Netherlands. 

Aastha is also active as an artist and has previously won the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights’ artwork competition.