Shainal Verma is a Ph.D. scholar in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. Her research focuses on Dalit women’s oral histories, spatial negotiations, and everyday lived experiences in the making of urban villages in Delhi. Her broader interests include gender, affect, and anti-caste urbanisms. Her work on Dalit women’s laughter received an Honourable Mention at the Bluestone Rising Scholar Competition (2026). She is a fellow of the Institute of Critical Social Inquiry Summer Seminar at The New School (2025), Writing Urban India 3.0 (2025), and Blue Club Media (2022). Her writing has appeared in platforms such as Economic and Political Weekly, Himal Southasian, Scroll, Critical Philosophy of Race, Doing Sociology, Feminism in India, and Ambedkarian Chronicle. She is also passionate about building systems of care and community.