"To work and suffer is to be at home. All else is scenery..." Adrienne Rich

"Wherever there is a ruin, there is a hope for treasure" Rumi

How do human beings make, re-make, un-make themselves in and through the relationships that surround them and the resources—social, political, economic—that are available to them? This broad question is at the heart of my intellectual process. I attend to it by addressing self and identity as communicative, narrative, and performative processes that human beings co-construct relationally and dynamically over time. I employ complementary and appropriate research practices–ethnographic methods and oral and life history interviewing—to understand the rich texture of marital and family identity in different contexts. At present, the following entwined issues permeate my thinking about identity:

• Individual and family identities come into being at the intersection of political, economic, social, and nationalist discourses. 
• Identity is a process that emerges as a consequence of a complex intersubjective narrative interplay between the researcher, the researched, and the reader/audience/observer. 
• Researcher positionality and reflexivity need to be interrogated to explore the problematic relationship between subjectivity, interpretation, and representation. 
• Writing about identity with our participants is a tensional narrative process, which may often be understood only in aesthetic, poetic, and performative forms.

Education

• Ph.D. (Communication Studies) Purdue University, 2004
• M.A. (Communication) Central Michigan University, 2000
• Master’s Diploma (Journalism) Indian Institute of Mass Communication, New Delhi, India , 1995
• B. A. (Honors) (Literary Criticism), Delhi University, New Delhi, India, 1994

Academic and Professional Appointments

• Associate Professor: School of Communication Studies (2010-present) 
• Assistant Professor: School of Communication Studies, Ohio University (2004-2010)
• Affiliate Faculty: Interdisciplinary Arts; Women's Studies; International Development Studies (Ohio University) 
• Visiting Graduate Faculty, Bangkok University, Thailand (Spring 2008, 2011)
• Graduate Teaching Assistant, Department of Communication, Purdue University (2000-2004)
• Research Assistant, Minority Student Services and Native American Programs Central Michigan University (1999-2000)
• Graduate Teaching Assistant, Speech Communication and Dramatic Arts, Central Michigan University (1998-1999)
• Program Producer and Correspondent, The India Show, Star Plus (now CNBC India)
• Editorial Assistant, Women's Feature Service

Un/homely Partitions:  Mobilities of Home in Oral Histories of India's Partition (monograph in progress; under advance contract with a university press)

• Best Article Award, African American Communication and Culture Division, NCA 2011
• Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award, 2010, School of Communication Studies 
• Ohio University Research Council Grant, Ohio University, 2009
• Provost's Award for Research and Creativity, Ohio University, Summer 2008 
• Top Paper, Ethnography Division, National Communication Association, 2007, 2009 
• OSCLG Kramarae Outstanding Dissertation Award, 2005 
• Top Paper Performance Studies Division, National Communication Association, 2005
• Alan H. Munroe Scholar, Department of Communication, Purdue University, 2003

Books:

Chawla, D., & Rodriguez, A. (2011).  Liminal Traces: Performing, Storying, and Embodying Postcoloniality. (Sense Publishers, Boston, MA)

Rodriguez, A. & Chawla, D. (2010). Intercultural Communication: An Ecological Approach. Kendall Hunt Publishing

Articles, Essays, Entries:

Published in peer-reviewed communication and interdisciplinary journals such as Qualitative Inquiry; Review of Communication, International and Intercultural Communication Annual, Women & Language; Cultural Studies Critical Methodologies; Storytelling, Self, Society; Teaching in Higher Education, Radical Pedagogy, International Journal of Qualitative Methods, International Journal of Progressive Education, Semiotics, and contributed invited chapters and entries in edited volumes (see vita for more details).