Jane Krishnadas

Biography

BA Law & English Keele (1992), Solicitors Law Finals (Guildford, 1993), PhD Keele (2004)

Dr Jane Krishnadas is Undergraduate Module Leader for Family Law, Law in Action & International Human Rights

and contributes to the postgraduate courses:

• Law & Society, Gender Sexuality & Law, Safeguarding Adults, Human Rights, Globalisation & Justice

• and Module Leader for the newly designed elective 'Community Outreach & Socio-legal Advocacy

Jane contributes her legal ( Solicitors Law Finals, Guildford), academic (PhD in Law) and third sector experience (community legal coordinator, Nandurga, CHAI; Community Development Manager, Oxfam Latur, UK; India Projects Officer, Minority Rights Group, UK; Trustee, Savana; Member Brighter Futures and Friend Voices of Experience) in her current role as Director of Legal Outreach, Keele Law School.

Jane coordinates the exciting local innovation to contribute to community legal needs through the Community Legal Outreach Collaboration, Keele, (CLOCK) creating an innovative framework with North Staffordshire Law Society, third sector community partners and public bodies Staffordshire Police, City and County Council and local schools and colleges in creating community legal education, support and research collaborations.

Jane designed a collaborative training programme for the innovation in legal services ‘The Community Legal Companion’, with the Combined Court, Police, CPS, leading law firms and third sector partners, CAB, Savana, Brighter Futures, Arch, Aspire, and Voices of Experience.

Drawing upon her community legal research and education, Jane has further developed the new Community Outreach and Socio-legal Advocacy postgraduate elective, providing community internships locally and internationally with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India.

Research and scholarship

Jane’s research is on feminist socio-legal  rights theory and  practice in reconstruction in the global north and south. Jane engages a cultural, materialist and spatial analysis to consider intersecting gender, caste, class and religious identities regarding political representation,  housing, religious laws, land, employment and domestic violence at different socio-legal sites of the family, community, courts and World Bank.

Forthcoming: Reclaiming Rights; Grassroots legal strategies in post-crisis situations, with  Krishnadas Sukumaran (public interest litigant: S.Krishnadas v Government of Maharashtra); Pluto Press.

Jane draws upon her active engagement in social, economic and political reconstruction processes (as practiced with Oxfam, UK 1995-7 Minority Rights Group, 1997-8, and as a research member of the Centre for Law, Gender and Sexuality and the Alternative Globalisation Forum), to develop theoretical and  practical  critical rights strategies of  recognition, redistribution and relocation  through a transformative intersectional framework:

2008, Intersectionality and Beyond, Grabham, Cooper, Herman and Krishnadas, Routledge.

Jane is convenor of the Community Legal Outreach Collaboration, Keele (CLOCK) researching the  impact of withdrawal of significant areas of legal aid and impact on socio-legal strategies for human rights. Jane proposed the innovative role of ‘The Community Legal Companion’, 2012, for the right to legal assistance to fundamental human  rights.

Dr Jane Krishnadas is lead applicant with partner Prof Lakshmi Lingam Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.
UKIERI : UK/India, Thematic Partnership Research Innovations Grant:
"To pioneer an ‘International outreach methodology’ in social and legal research- review current social and legal education in the UK and in India to locate/develop pathways for relevant postgraduate and doctoral level education which will draw on action research, reflective practice and community engagement, create international opportunities, to use innovative methods to facilitate knowledge transfer and critical knowledge production and analyse the intersections of knowledge creation between UK-India scholars with community partners."

Dr Krishnadas is developing a Joint LLM in Access to Justice with Tata Institute of Social Sciences.

Jane supervises 4 international PhD students in area of socio-legal critiques of human rights and her research draws upon community legal strategies in the forthcoming book.

Jane is happy to supervise postgraduate research on areas of human rights and critical social-legal strategies.

Teaching

Jane teaches International Law and Globalisation and International Law of Human Rights and Public Law, at undergraduate level. Jane is also developing the Street Law project with Rosie Harding, in collaboration with the Student Law and Bar society, and is the Erasmus and Study Abroad co-cordinator.

At postgraduate level Jane teaches on the LLM Gender Sexuality and Law, and is module leader for ‘Human Rights and the Global Market’ on the MA on Human Rights, Globalisation and Justice.

Further information

Research Advisor for ‘Brighter Futures, Creative Support, Housing and Employment’

The Dudson Centre, Hope Street, Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, ST1 5DD

‘Friend’ of ‘Savana, Women Growing Stronger’ Unit 27 The Dudson Centre, Hope Street , Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, ST1 5DD