Devyani Tewari
PhD

Background

Dr. Tewari is an interdisciplinary and intersectional socio-legal scholar whose research examines how multiply-burdened individuals interact with and negotiate different sources of power, including law, culture, and religion, across sites such as the family and popular culture. Her scholarship is particularly concerned with how legal and social norms shape agency, identity, sexuality, and belonging, and how individuals navigate, resist, and reshape these structures of power.

Her research brings together disability studies, gender and feminist scholarship, socio-legal studies, and critical analyses of sexuality and desirability. Her doctoral research examined the politics of desirability in the context of marriage, exploring how gender, disability, and other social hierarchies shape perceptions of who is considered desirable for marital purposes. Her ongoing and forthcoming work extends these inquiries to questions of disability justice, female sexuality, family, culture, and the ways in which multiply-burdened individuals assert agency within intersecting systems of power.

Dr. Tewari's scholarship is empirical and interdisciplinary, combining qualitative and mixed-methods approaches with intersectional theoretical analysis. Her research has been published by Cambridge University Press, Edward Elgar Publishing, and Springer, and has been supported by competitive research fellowships and grants. She has more than four years of teaching experience in Canada and internationally, teaching courses on family law, disability, gender, race, culture, and related areas. Her teaching is informed by her empirical research and interdisciplinary scholarship, allowing her to connect legal concepts and doctrinal frameworks with contemporary social realities, lived experiences, and evidence-based analysis.