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Dr. Girija Shrestha

Girija Shrestha is an honorary research fellow at Monash Asia Institute, Monash University. She holds a Ph.D. in Gender and Development Studies and M.Sc. in Urban Planning, Land and Housing from Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand. She did another M.Sc. in Architecture from Odessa Civil Engineering Institute, former USSR. Prior to joining Monash Asia Institute, she worked at Asian Institute Technology, Thailand for about 12 years in different capacities as a researcher as well as a development project coordinator. She worked with Government of Nepal as an Architect Planner before moving to Thailand. She is also one of the Lead Authors for International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) - East and South Asia and the Pacific (ESAP) Region.

Research Interest

Gender and Housing, Urban Planning and Management, Urban Governance

Major Publications

Monograph/ Books

Gender Relations and Housing Design: A Study in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal (2001), Gender Studies Monograph No. 10, AIT, Bangkok.

GERNA: Profile of Experts and Organizations in Gender and Environment compiled by Girija Shrestha, Li Rongmei, and Govind Kelker (1995), Bangkok, AIT, Gender and Development Studies Center.

Book Chapters

  1. "Crafting an alternative: Forestry for livelihoods of the poor in Nepal" (coauthored with Dev Nathan) in the book edited by Dev Nathan, Govind Kelkar and Pierre Walter, Globalization and Indigenous Peoples in Asia: Changing the Local-Global Interface , Sage 2004.
  2. " Women's Agency and IT Industry in India " by Govind Kelkar, Girija Shrestha and Veena N. in the book edited by Cecilia Ng and Swasti Mitter tentatively titled " Gender and Digital Economy: Perspectives from Developing World", Sage 2005 (forth coming).
  3. City Consultation as an Approach for Gender Responsive Local Urban Governance: An Experience of UMP-Asia in book edited by Smita Mishra-Panda tentatively titled Engendering Governance Institutions , Sage (Forthcoming)
  4. "Whose Space? Gender and Housing Design in Nepal" in the book edited by Madhavi Deshai, tentatively titled " Women and the Built Environment " Zubaan: An Associate of Kali for Women (Forthcoming)

Papers:

  1. "Urban Local Governance, Gender Sensitive Policies and Women's Agency: A Case Study from Municipal Government of Nepal" in Local Government Quarterly, Special Issue on Women and Development, Vo. LXXIII No. 2-3-4, Jan-June 2005.
  2. "Leasehold Forestry in Nepal: Crafting an Alternative for the Poor"(coauthored with Dev Nathan) Special Articles in Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 39, No. 44, Oct. 30, 2004.
  3. "Radar Chart: A Tool to Demonstrate Gendered Share of Resources" in Gender, Technology and Development, No. 6, Vol. 2, 2002, pp 197-213.
  4. "Gender Relations and Housing: Cross-community Analysis" in Gender, Technology and Development, Vol. 4, No. 1, 2000. pp. 61-86.
  5. "The House As A Workplace: Women, Work and Housing in Kathmandu Valley, Nepal" UMP-Asia Occasional Paper No. 55 , UMP-Asia, Bangkok, February 2002.
  6. "Feminist Critique of Modern Architecture" in Gender, Technology and Development, Vol. 5, No. 3, 2001.
  7. "IT Industry and Women's Agency: Explorations in Bangalore and Delhi, India," (co-authored with Govind Kelkar and Veena Nagarjan) Gender Technology Development , Vol. 6, No 1, Jan - Apr 2002.

Papers Presented and published in International Conference Proceedings

  1. "Housing: A Woman's Workplace and it's Impact on her Work and Health" in the IV International Congress Women, Work and Health, held in New Delhi, India, 27-30 November 2005.
  2. "Implications of Women's Agency in Built Environment Designing in Asia " in 13th International Conference of Women Engineers and Scientiston " Women Engineers and Scientists: Main Force to Reshape the Future World" held in Seoul, Korea 26-29 August 2005. (awarded as an outstanding presentation)
  3. "Women's Agency and Local Urban Governance: An Impact Assessment of Urban Management Programme " in International Conference for Integrating Urban Knowledge and Practices "Life in the Urban Landscape" held in Gothenburg, Sweden, 29 May-4 June 2005.
  4. " Urban Local Governance, Gender Sensitive Policies and Women's Agency: A Case Study from Municipal Government of Nepal, in World Mayors' Conference on "Millennium Development Goals and The Role of Cities" in Kochin, India, 2-4 April 2005.
  5. City Consultation as an Approach for Gender Responsive Urban Local Governance: An experience of UMP-Asia by Girija Shrestha, Paper presented in Symposium "Governance in Development: Issues, Challenges and Strategies" at the "Workshop on Gender and Governance" Organized by The Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA), Gujarat, India, 14-18 December 2004.
  6. "Housing Technology, Women's Space in Global Economy" in Re-thinking and re-Conceptualizing Gender and Globalization II a workshop organized by Norwegian University of Science and Technology and Asian Institute of Technology, in Bangkok on November 20-21 2003.
  7. "Gender Relations and Changes in Housing Design in Kathmandu Valley, Nepal" in Gender and the Built Environment, A Symposium organized by Women's Architect Forum in association with Center for Environmental Planning and Technology and Environmental Planning Collaborative, in Ahmedabad, India, on February 7-8, 2002.
  8. "Women in IT Industry in India: Explorations in Delhi and Bangalore" in Expert Group Meeting to reviews ICT policy from a gender perspective, organized by United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, in Bangkok on 18-19 December 2001.
  9. "Changes in Housing Condition and Space for the Home Based Work: A Case in Suburban Nepal" in International Conference on Housing, Work and Development: The Role of Home-Based Enterprises, organized by University of Newcastle upon Tyne, U.K. on 26-28 April 2000.
  10. "Treatment of time spent for Childcare for Women and Men: A Case in Sub-urban Nepal" (co-authored with Kyoko Kusakabe) in the proceedings of conference 1999 IATUR Conference on "The state of Time Use Research and the End of the Century " organized by University of Essex, Colchester, UK: Oct. 6-8, 1999.
  11. "Gender Relations and Built Technology: A Cross-cultural Experience" in Regional Conference on Gender and Technology in Asia organized by Gender and Development Program, AIT and GASAT Asia, AIT, August 4-7, 1998.
  12. "Institutions dealing with Women in Nepal" in Curriculum Development Workshop I organized by AIT/Gen Dev in collaboration with ISS - The Hague, 29 August to 1 September 1994, AIT.

Workshop Reports

  1. Genders and Technological Change (1996), Bangkok, AIT, Gender and Development Studies Center.
  2. Gender and Post-Harvest Technologies in Asian Countries, with emphasis on village level processing (1996), Bangkok, AIT, Gender and Development Studies Center.

Book Reviews and Bulletin reports

  1. The Architect Reconstructing Her Practice by Francesca Huges, Ed. MIT Press, Massachusetts, 1996), Gender Technology and Development. Vol. 1, No. 1, 1997.
  2. Housing, Work and Development Workshop report, Gender Technology and Development, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2001.
  3. "Giving women a voice in Urban Governance - Experiences from UMP-Asia" in Habitat Debate, UN-HABITAT, December 2005, Vol. 11, No. 4.

Monash Asia Institute

Research Projects

Postgraduate Studies

MAI Research Centres

MAI Press & Asian Films

Institute Resources