Professor Sundari Anitha (she/her)

Department of Sociological Studies

Chair in Sociological Studies

Anitha Sundari
Profile picture of Anitha Sundari
S.Anitha@sheffield.ac.uk
The Wave

Full contact details

Professor Sundari Anitha
Department of Sociological Studies
The Wave
2 Whitham Road
Sheffield
S10 2AH
Profile

Anitha joined the Department of Sociological Studies in 2024, having previously worked at the University of Lincoln, the University of Leeds and the University of Central Lancashire. 

Anitha’s research focuses on two areas across the disciplines of Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology: (i)  the problem of violence against women and girls (VAWG) at the intersection of gender, race, border and migration in diverse contexts including the UK, US and India; domestic violence and abuse, including particular manifestations such as dowry-related abuse, forced marriage, transnational forms of violence such as abandonment of wives and domestic servitude; sexual violence including everyday forms of sexual harassment in online and offline spaces; gender-based violence in university communities; and (ii) the intersection of gender, race and ethnicity in employment relations; agency, solidarity and industrial action by migrant workers;  and trade union representation of migrant workers.  Anitha’s research draws upon qualitative research methods, including life history methods.

Anitha has been the Principal Investigator and Co-Investigator on a range of research projects and received funding from the The Leverhulme Trust, the Economic and Social Research Council, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Nuffield Foundation and the British Academy. 

Anitha served as Associate Editor of Women’s Studies International Forum (2022-23) and is a member of the Editorial Board of British Journal of Criminology and Women’s Studies International Forum.

Anitha was a member of the REF2021 Sociology sub-panel. 

She is a member of the ESRC peer review college.

Research interests

Anitha’s research spans the following areas:

  • Violence against women and girls at the intersection of gender, race, border and migration
  • Domestic violence
  • Sexual violence
  • Gender-based violence in university communities
  • Intersection of gender, race and ethnicity in employment relations
  • Trade union representation of migrant workers
  • Industrial action
  • Forced labour and domestic servitude
  • South Asian diaspora
  • Qualitative and narrative methods
  • Feminist and participatory research methodologies
Publications

Journal articles

Research group

Postgraduate supervision

Anitha has previously supervised and is currently supervising PhD students in the following areas: violence against women and girls including domestic abuse and sexual violence, and industrial action. Anitha welcomes enquiries and applications to study for research degrees in her areas of research interest.

Grants

Violence and Abuse in Romantic Relationships: Understanding the Experiences of Women and Girls in India (August 2023-July 2025), Principal Investigator

Funder: British Academy

Violence and Abuse in Romantic Relationships: Understanding the Experiences of Women and Girls in India (Jan 2024-December 2024), Principal Investigator

Funder: British Academy/The Leverhulme Trust

Tackling violence against racially minoritised women and girls (January 2023-June 2024), Co-Investigartor with Prof Aisha Gill (PI), University of Bristol

Funder: Economic and Social Research Council

Forced Marriage: Enhancing protection and prevention responses (April 2020-May 2023), Principal Investigator with Prof Aisha Gill (Co-I), University of Roehampton

Funder: Nuffield Foundation

Transnational abandonment of South Asian women: a new form of violence against women (January 2013-March 2016), Principal Investigator with Prof. Anupama Roy (Co-I), Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi; Funder: British Academy

 

Striking Women: South Asian workers’ struggles in the UK labour market: From Grunwick to Gate Gourmet (June 2012-December 2013), Principal Investigator, with Prof Ruth Pearson (Co-I), University of Leeds Funder: AHRC 

Partnerships, engagement and impact

Anitha previously managed a Women’s Aid refuge and worked as a Case Worker for Asha Projects, a specialist refuge for survivors of domestic abuse. She is a trustee of three organisations -  Asha Projects, ATLEU (Anti-trafficking and Labour Exploitation Unit) and Natcen (National Centre for Social Research). She serves as an expert advisor on labour disputes for the 2025 exhibition ‘Resistance’ curated by Steve McQueen, at Turner Contemporary, Margate. She has been active in advocacy and policy-making on violence against women, including forced marriage, for over 20 years. 

Anitha’s research has also led to policy impact. Transnational marriage abandonment (TMA) occurs when abusive husbands residing in the West strand their marriage migrant wives in their home countries, depriving them of their residential and financial rights and preventing them from accessing domestic abuse services in the UK. Anitha’s research documented (and named) the problem of TMA for the first time in 2016, following which she worked with Southall Black Sisters to persuade the family justice system in England & Wales to recognise such abandonment as a form of domestic abuse in 2017. However, victims who were stranded abroad found that immigration officers were unwilling to act on this change and routinely prevented their re-entry to the UK. In a landmark ruling on 14 October 2022, Justice Lieven held that victims of TMA are unlawfully discriminated against as they are not allowed to avail reliefs available to victims who are in the UK on a spouse visa. Following this ruling, Anitha was part of a working group on TMA that advised civil servants on the policy change. Hundreds of victims of domestic abuse who have been stranded abroad by their British husbands will finally get justice through a new out of country settlement route into the UK which comes into force on 31 January 2024.

Following Anitha’s research on South Asian women’s participation in the Grunwick and Gate Gourmet industrial disputes in the UK, she worked with Prof Ruth Pearson to produce a variety of resources to convey the research findings to non-academic audiences. These include a website for schools (key stages 3, 4 and 5) and community organisations about migrant workers in the UK and the world which have received over 3.5 million visits since January 2014:  Striking Women | ; and a two-part downloadable comic ‘Striking Lives’, depicting the life stories of two south Asian women workers in the UK: https://www.striking-women.org/sites/default/files/striking_women_for_download_opt.pdf .