
Protest, performance, and care - with Alisha Ibkar
From Careful Thinking by Martin Robb
November 9, 2025 · 1h 10m · Episode 25
About this episode
The episode discusses the intersection of care and political action through the lens of a protest movement organized by Muslim grandmothers in India.
What can a protest movement organised by Muslim grandmothers in India teach us about the role of care in political action? In what sense should we understand care as performance and everyday caring activities as artful practices? And how might interpersonal care nurture a wider caring imagination and foster a politics of care? These are some of the questions we discuss in this episode, with Alisha Ibkar . Originally from Kaliachak in West Bengal, India, Alisha has a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature from Aligarh Muslim University in Uttar Pradesh, and a Master of Arts degree, also in English Literature, from Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. She was a Commonwealth Scholar at the University of Warwick, where she completed a Master’s degree in applied theatre, with her dissertation focusing on the study of ethics and the aesthetics of care in the context of political activism. Alisha is currently a School of Arts, Languages and Cultures doctoral fellow in Theatre and Performance at the Martin Harris Centre for Music and Drama in the University of Manchester. Since 2016 she has also held the post of Assistant Professor of English Literature and Language at Aligarh…
People in this episode
Host: Martin Robb
Guest: Alisha Ibkar
Topics covered
- protest movements
- care in political action
- performance as care
- interpersonal care
- politics of care
- artful practices
Keywords
- protest
- care
- political action
- performance
- art
- activism
- interpersonal care
- caring imagination
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Aligarh Muslim University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, University of Warwick, The Care Lab, AHRC-funded Care Aesthetics Research Exploration (CARE) Project
Places: Kaliachak, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, New Delhi, Manchester
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