Dr. Meenakshi Saharan

Assistant Professor , Psychology

Ph.D. in Psychology, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur

M.A. in Social Work (Children and Families), Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai

Dr. Meenakshi Saharan is an Assistant Professor in Psychology at Thapar School of Liberal Arts and Sciences. With a Master’s in Social Work (Children and Families) from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, and a Ph.D. in Psychology from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, she brings an interdisciplinary perspective to the discipline. Her work is rooted in critical and cross-cultural psychology, with a particular focus on suffering, healing, social justice, and culturally responsive mental health. She is also specialised in conducting sensitive research and working with victim-survivors of sexual violence. Her doctoral research explored the silencing of child and adult victim-survivors of child sexual abuse in India, where she used qualitative methods and an equity perspective on trauma to examine individual, socio-cultural, and institutional dynamics of suffering, healing, and social justice.

She also has extensive professional experience in child protection and mental health, having led CHILDLINE 1098 services and managing a Child Care Institution in Delhi. Her ongoing pro-bono work with community-based organisations includes training and workshops on mental health, life skills, and rights-based learning with various stakeholders. With an emphasis on context, ethics, and reflexivity in psychological inquiry, her teaching philosophy encourages critical engagement, ethical reflexivity, and social awareness in the classroom, and envisions psychology as an inclusive, practice-informed, and contextually grounded discipline.

Manuscripts Under Review:

• Saharan, M., Priya, K. R., & Kukreja, S. (Under review). Silenced Suffering of Child Sexual Abuse in India: A Foucauldian Discourse Analysis of Social Justice Policies. Manuscript submitted to Social Change.
• Saharan, M. (Under review). Power, Knowledge, and Discourse: A Foucauldian Analysis of Juvenile Justice in Contemporary India. Manuscript submitted to Youth Justice.
• Saharan, M., Bhagwati, M., Bhattacharya, P., Yadav, S., & Priya, K. R. (Under review). “Accompanying” the Survivors of Structural Violence toward Radical Healing: Reflections on Using Culturally Responsive Research. Manuscript submitted to Journal of Social and Political Psychology.

Working Papers:

• [Journal Article] “Problematising 'Victim v/s Survivor' Identity in Context of Child Sexual Abuse: A Feminist Perspective”
• [Journal Article] “Sexual Grooming in Child Sexual Abuse: Insights from Survivor-Centric Qualitative Research in India.”
• [Journal Article] “Locating and Relocating the Self: An Autoethnographic Account of Qualitative Research on Child Sexual Abuse”

Paper Presentations:

• Presented a paper titled ‘Silenced Wails of Young Incest Survivors: Life Story Perspective of Girl Children in Children’s Home’ in the “4th Edition of Global Congress on Gender and Sexuality Studies” in Budapest, Hungary (2023)
• Presented a paper titled ‘Child Sexual Abuse and Policies: Exploring Children’s Perspectives’ at the national conference on “Resilience and Early Life Adversities” organized by the Department of Liberal Arts, IIT Hyderabad (2019)
• Presented a paper titled ‘Exploring Unheard Voices of Children with Childhood Sexual Abuse Experiences’ at the 29th National Convention on “Making Psychology Deliverable to Society” organized by the National Academy of Psychology (NAOP) (2019)

Book Chapters:

• Saharan, M. (2019). Exploring stakeholder’s perspective on children’s sexual agency: A brief qualitative enquiry. In Selected works of young social science researchers (Vol. 1, pp. 1–11). GEDY India. ISBN 978-81-941873-1-8.

Honours and Achievements:

• Chaired a session on Family, Social Culture, and Victimisation at ‘Reporting Child Sexual Abuse (CSA): A Cross-National Study of Impacts of Socio-Legal Culture and Intersectionality in India and the UK’ Symposium by the Department of Law and Criminology at the University of London, Royal Holloway (2024)
• Student representative at Women’s Cell, IIT Kanpur per the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition, and Redressal) Act, 2013 (2020-2021)
• Invited as a key discussant by Men Against Violence and Abuse (MAVA) in their annual two day film festival on gender diversity - SamaBhav Film Festival held at the Department of Social Work, M.G. Kashi Vidyapith, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh (2020)
• Attended a four-day Communication and Training workshop on Justice for the Vulnerable conducted by Triangle Organization, UK on Intermediary services (2018)
• Qualified for UGC National Eligibility Test in Social Work (2017)
• Participated in the TISS-UNICEF Rajasthan Research Project in two phases- from 28th October 2014 to 14th November 2014 and in June 2015