Arita Balaram
Arita Balaram teaches at the intersections of psychology and social justice with particular interests in critical race and feminist studies.
Biography
Balaram earned her Ph.D. in Critical Psychology from the Graduate Center, City University of New York. She teaches courses in community studies, psychology, gender, sexuality, and queer studies, and ethnic studies. Her research focuses on the role of storytelling in social justice work and how individuals and communities assert their identities in contexts where concepts of home and belonging have been contested for generations. More recently, she has served on the steering committee of Jahajee, a gender justice organization in New York City supporting survivors of intimate partner violence in the Indo-Caribbean diaspora. She is also a co-founder and member of Ro(u)ted by Our Stories, a collective of Indo-Caribbeans in the U.S. interested in feminist oral history, community archiving, and distributive justice. She is a visiting faculty member at Bennington for the 2024-2025 academic year.