My research focuses on migration, supply chains, and gender, caste, and race in the global economy. Bringing together law, interdisciplinary social sciences, and social theory, I develop empirically grounded theories of migration and supply chain governance to inform international, national, and local law regimes. My work aims to advance urgent global migration and supply chain governance paradigms that promote decent work and address gender-based violence, racialized labor market stratification, and other forms of structural discrimination.
To this end, I have spent the last eight years conducting research on labor, migration, and supply chains in South Asia, the Middle East, and East Africa. My approach advances law, academic scholarship, and civil society engagement in regulatory framing and enforcement, with a focus on building tripartite enforcement through the International Labour Organization. I inform emerging legal frameworks and academic debates with field research from difficult to access field sites; and provide hands-on support to civil society organizations to advance structured data collection and inform legal and quasi-legal processes. These complementary dimensions of my research practice strengthen information pathways on global labor migration and value chain governance, with long lasting implications for transforming inequalities of power in knowledge generation.
Attesting to the strengths of this approach, my research has been funded by the National Science Foundation - Law and Social Sciences Program; US Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor; Open Society Foundations; Global Fund for Women; International Labour Organization; and University of Pennsylvania Law Review.
My work is informed by more than a decade of experience working with grassroots campaigns and civil society organizations in the U.S., South Asia, and Africa, using legal, research, media, and community organizing approaches. My portfolio encompasses research and advocacy in collaboration with large global institutions like Human Rights Watch, the International Labour Organization, Global Labor Justice - International Labor Rights Forum, and the Freedom Fund. It also includes collaborations with more than 20 grassroots partner organizations and coalitions concentrated in Asia and Africa.
University of California, Berkeley, PhD Jurisprudence and Social Policy, ABD, expected Fall 2022 I University of Pennsylvania Law School, JD and Certificate in Global Human Rights, 2013 I Yale University, BA English and Ethnicity, Race, and Migration, 2006
Peer Reviewed Journal and Law Review Articles
Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee, “Gendered Technologies of Power: Experiencing and Unmaking Borderscapes in South Asia,” Berkeley Planning Journal, Volume 29: 45-78 (2017).
Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee, “Legal Protections for Migrant ‘Trainees’ in Japan: Using International Standards to Evaluate Shifts in Japanese Immigration Policy,” 35 U. PA. J. INT’L 4 (2014).
Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee, “Distant Silences and Default Judgments: Access to Justice for Transnationally Abandoned Women,” 15 U. PA. J.L. SOC. CHANGE (2013).
Book Chapters
Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee, “End Gender Based Violence and Harassment – Gender Justice on Global Supply Chains: An Agenda to Transform Fast Fashion” in ed. Francisco Valdes, Steven Bender, and Jennifer Hill, Critical Justice: Systemic Advocacy in Law and Society, West Academic, 2020.
Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee, “Fast Fashion, production targets, and gender-based violence in Asian garment supply chains,” in Labor, Global Supply Chains, and the Garment Industry in South Asia: Bangladesh After Rana Plaza, ed. Sanchita Banerjee Saxena, New York: Routledge, 2020.
Alexa Koenig, Felix McMahon, Nikita Mehandru, and Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee, “Open Source Fact-Finding in Preliminary Examinations,” in Quality Control in Preliminary Examination: Volume 2, ed. Morten Bergsmo and Carsten Stahn, Brussels: Torkel Opsahl Academic EPublisher, 2018.
Works in Progress
Dev Nathan, Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee, Purushottam Kumar, Sukhpal Singh, Padmini Swaminathan, Rahul S., Reversed Subsidies: Gender, Labour, and Environment in Garment Value Chains, contracted with Cambridge University Press.
Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee, “Migrant Labor Supply Chains: Architectures of Mobile Assemblages” (invited revision at Journal of Legal and Social Theory).
Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee, “Contesting Caste: Institutionalized Oppression and Circumventive Legal Mobilization,” (under review at Law and Social Inquiry).
Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee, “Regulating Recruitment: Migration, criminalization, and compounded informality in India,” (under review for Law Review publication).
Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee, “Workforce Contraction Dynamics in the Wake of COVID 19: State Regulation, Employment Practices, and Migrant Workers in the Construction and Hospitality Sectors in the Gulf,” (field work complete, draft in progress).
Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee, “Megacities and the Spatial Variegation of Citizenship in India” (field work complete, draft in progress).
Chase Burton and Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee, “Migration, Iteration, Assemblage: A Historical Theory of Contingent Labor Forms,” (draft in progress).
Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee, “Networking Solidarities: Trustworthy Infrastructures and the Future of Collective Action on Garment Supply Chains in Asia,” (preliminary issue analysis with Asia Floor Wage Alliance in progress).
Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee, “Global Exclusion of Agricultural Workers from Labor Rights Protections,” (research covering labor law exclusions in 105 countries complete, draft in progress).
Litigation Guides and Policy Reports
Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee, “Advancing Freedom of Association for Farm Workers: The Role of ILO Convention 11 in Addressing the Legal Exclusion of Agricultural Workers from Labor Law Protections (IUF and Global Labor Justice-International Labor Rights Forum Report).
Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee, The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act: A Litigation Guide and Compilation of Judgements, Second Edition, Kolkata: Seagull Books, 2019 (first edition published in 2014).
Katerina Yiannibas, Lance Compa, Ben Hensler, Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee, JJ Rosenbaum, Model Arbitration Clauses for the Resolution of Disputes Under Enforceable Brand Agreements, 2020, available online from International Lawyers Assisting Workers Network (ILAW).
Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee, Guidance on Joint Committees: The Exercise of Employee Participation Rights in Qatar, International Labour Organization, 2019.
Series: Reports to the International Labor Conference on Gender Based Violence and Harassment on Garment Supply Chains, 2018-2020
Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee, Advancing Gender Justice on Asian Fast Fashion Supply Chains Post COVID 19 – Learning from ILO C190 on its First Anniversary, 2020.
Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee, End Gender Based Violence and Harassment – Gender Justice on Garment Supply Chains, An Agenda to Transform Fast Fashion, 2019.
Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee, Gender Based Violence in the H&M Garment Supply Chain: Report to the ILO, 2018.
Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee, Gender Based Violence in the Gap Garment Supply Chain: Report to the ILO, 2018.
Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee, Gender Based Violence in the Walmart Garment Supply Chain: Report to the ILO, 2018.
Nidhi Goyal and Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee, Invisible Victims of Sexual Violence: Access to Justice for Women and Girls with Disabilities in India, Human Rights Watch, 2018.
Series: Reports to the International Labour Conference Committee on Decent work in global supply chains, 2016
Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee and Vaibhav Raaj, Precarious Work in the Asian Seafood Global Value Chain, 2016
Daniel Castellanos Contreras, Trudy Rebert, and Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee, Raising the Floor for Supply Chain Workers: US Seafood Supply Chains, 2016
Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee, Precarious Work in the H&M Global Value Chain, 2016
Ananya Basu and Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee, Precarious Work in the Gap Global Value Chain, 2016
Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee, Precarious Work in the Walmart Global Value Chain, 2016
Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee, India’s Labour Law Changes, Society for Labour and Development, 2016.
Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee, The plight of Indian migrant workers and policy recommendations for safe migration, International Labour Organization, 2016.
Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee, Migrant Workers at the Margins: Access to Rights and Entitlements for Migrants in India, Society or Labour and Development, 2016.
Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee, Practices of Change: Addressing Equity and Inclusion for Dalits in South Asia, European Union, 2015.
Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee, Cleaning Human Waste: Manual Scavenging, Caste, and Discrimination in India, Human Rights Watch, 2014.
Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee and Jael Silliman, Transforming Development Practice: Taking a Gender Equality Approach to Support Rural Women in Advancing their Social, Economic, and Political Rights, UN Fund for Gender Equality, 2014.
Litigation Guides and Policy Research in Progress
Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee and Aaron Steinberg, Locked: Wage Theft, Restricted Mobility, and Forced Labour Conditions for South Asian Migrant workers in the Hospitality and Construction Sectors in the Gulf (Equidem and Global Labor Justice – International Labor Rights Forum report).
Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee, Jennifer Gordon, JJ Rosenbaum, and Jenn Round, “Co-enforcement of labor rights on garment global supply chains,” (Rutgers Center for Innovation in Worker Organization and Global Labor Justice – International Labor Rights Forum report).
Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee and Binod Khadria, “Migrant Rights in India,” International Migrants Bill of Rights Initiative, ed. Ian M. Kysel, Justin Gest, Tom Wong (submitted for inclusion in Migrant Rights Database benchmarking legal protections).