Marital status
Married with two children

Current position
Professor, Department of Social Work, Visva-Bharati University, West Bengal, India
and Director-in-charge, Visva-Bharti Publishing Department, 6 AJC Bose Road, Kolkata – 700 017.

Address for correspondence
Deer Park, Santiniketan, West Bengal – 731235.
Phone: (03463) 262017 (res) (03463) 264777 (off)/ Mobile: (0) 9434016039.
E-mail: kmkmbhattacharya@yahoo.com

Ph.D. topic and area
Socialization in a plural society: a comparative study” submitted to the Department of Rural Studies (Anthropology and Rural Development), Visva-Bharati University. The area of study falls under culture-personality study in the discipline of psycho-anthropology. The study was conducted among three communities inhabiting almost neighbouring villages and having access to the same resources like markets, schools, health centres and livelihood opportunities. The communities were Hindus, Muslims and the Santals who are a Scheduled Tribe.

Work experience
Professor since 1996
Reader from 1986 to 1996
Lecturer from 1979 to 1986
Research Fellow from 1978 to 1979

Supervised research (selected)
Ph.D.
Women, wage work and intra-household relations in rural West Bengal
Experiences of Santal Children in Primary Education in West Bengal
Exploring empowerment of women through traditional self-governance systems in Meghalaya
Master’s dissertation
Women’s Self-Help Groups: Successes and failures
HIV/AIDS: Lifestyle of high-risk groups
Use and availability of prosthetics in rural areas

Honours
Awarded an Exchange fellowship to University of Connecticut, USA in the Asian American Studies Institute for a month in October 2005. Worked on project entitled “Women in Panchayat: Fine tuning democracy”. The aim was to look at women’s organizations and networks as well as leadership skills through which women can be empowered. I am working in close collaboration with the Panchayat Samiti, Bolpur-Sriniketan Block and am focussing on empowerment of women elected members.

Extra-curricular academic activities
Faculty, Nodal Agency for training family counsellors
Faculty, Nodal Agency for imparting of pre-marital counselling
Faculty, University Grants Commission sponsored Refresher and Orientation courses for college and university teachers
Faculty, Distance Education Programme, Department of Philosophy, University of Burdwan, West Bengal
Guest Faculty, Visva-Bharati Centre for Management Studies, Visva-Bharati University, West Bengal
Guest faculty, Bengal Law College, University of Burdwan, West Bengal
Master Trainer, GFATM Project, Round 7

Administrative tasks
Member, Task Force for drafting, implementing the XIth Plan Budget for the University.
Member, Standing Committee and Academic Member of Affiliated Institutes Wing, Visva-Bharati.
Member, Institute Board, Faculty of Humanities and Social Science, Visva-Bharati.
Member, Academic Council, Visva-Bharati.
Head, (2003-2006) Department of Social Work, Visva-Bharati.
Director-in-charge, VB Publishing Department, Kolkata since December 2006.
Principal, Palli Samgathana Vibhaga (Institute of Rural Reconstruction), Visva-Bharati
Member, Visva-Bharati Executive Committee

Conferences and symposia attended
2009 invited to attend the UNESCO conference on Higher Education, Paris
1996 XIVth European Conference of Modern South Asian Studies, Copenhagen. Presented a paper entitled “Relevance of Village Studies: History and Reality” (published in The Visva-Bharati Quarterly, Nov. 1998.) Delivered a lecture on “Religion of the Santals” in the Department of Religious Studies, University of Copenhagen. The lecture had been published in Sociology in the Rubric of Social Science: Professor Ramkrishna Mukherjee Felicitation Volume, edited by Ashok Ghosh and R.K. Bhattacharya, Anthropological Survey of India, Calcutta, 1995. (An earlier version of this paper was accepted for presentation at the XVII International Congress of the History of Religions, Mexico, 1995.)
1997 Lecture tour of Universities of Sapporo and Kyoto, Japan. Presented lecture on “Growing up in a Santal Village” (published in the Journal of Comparative Cultures, No. 4, 1999, University of Sapporo, Japan.)
1998 Participated in the International Congress of Ethnographic and Anthropological Sciences in Virginia, USA. Presented a paper “Tradition and Modernity: Breaking the bounds of perception” and presented a paper in the panel on Alternative Paradigms.
2000 XVIth European Conference on Modern South Asian Studies, Edinburgh. Presented a paper entitled “The Plural Situation: Experience of the Muslims of West Bengal” in the Bengal Studies Panel.
2002 Participated in the International Congress of the IUEAS (South Asia) in Kolkata, India, presented a joint paper with Boro Baski on “Experience of marginality: the Santals” (published in the Journal of the Anthropological Survey of India, Vol. 51, No., 1 March 2003.)
2002 Participated in the World Sociology Congress, Brisbane, presented a paper “Leisure among the tribes” (published in Journal of Tribal Studies, New Delhi, Vol.)
2004 Participated in the Fulbright International Seminar, held in Santiniketan, India.
2004 Nominated by the University to represent the university in the meets on promoting higher education in India in Tanzania, Kenya and Ethiopia, June 2004.
2005 Invited to present a paper in the national seminar on “History of Environment Studies” organized by the Department of History, Visva-Bharati University. Paper entitled “History of encountering environment”.
2005 Invited to present a paper in the national seminar on “Narrative and the Canon” organized by the Department of English and modern European languages, Visva-Bharati University. Paper entitled “Narration and Canon: Oral Traditions”.
2005 Presented a joint paper in the international conference on 150 Years of the Santal Hul in University of Sussex, UK; paper entitled “Santal Hul: blurred perspectives in history”.
2007 Presented a joint paper in the international conference organized by ICHR, Shillong.
2007 Participated in Mother Language festival in Dhaka as panellist
2007 Participated in international conference on writers, publishers and book sellers in Dhaka.
2009 Co-convenor International Conference on Gender under UNITWIN programme of UNESCO in Visva-Bharati University

Publications: (Selected)
A. Books:
Santals: entering the free stream (vernacular) with Sona Murmu, Boro Baski and Gokul Hansda, 2001, Eastern Zonal Cultural Centre, Kolkata, India.
Conditioning and empowerment of women: a multidimensional approach edited with Asha Mukherjee, 2003, Gyan Publishing House, New Delhi.
Celebrating Freedom: the Santal way of life, edited by Boro Baski and Kumkum Bhattacharya, Ghosaldanga Adibasi Seva Sangha.
B. Articles in books:
“Polyethnic behaviour: Hindu, Muslim and Tribal” in Tribal thought and culture: essays in honour of Surajit C. Sinha, edited by Baidyanath Saraswati, 1991, Concept, New Delhi.
“Families among the Hindus and the Muslims – an exploration on distinctions” (jointly with R.K. Bhattacharya) in The Indian Family, edited by K.K. Chakravorty, 1994, Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalay (Museum of Man), Bhopal, India.
“Religion of the Santals” in Sociology in the Rubric of Social Science: Professor Ramkrishna Mukherjee Felicitation Volume, edited by Ashok Ghosh and R.K. Bhattacharya, 1995 Anthropological Survey of India, Calcutta.
“Santal Identity in transition” (jointly with R.K. Bhattacharya) in Tribal Identity: Extinction or Adaptation, edited by K.K. Chakravorty, 1996 Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalay (Museum of Man), Bhopal, India.
“Women: Problems and Perspectives” in Changing Women’s Status in India: Focus on the North-east edited by Walter Fernandes and Sanjoy Barbora, 2002 North-eastern Social Research Centre, Guwahati, India.
“Networking within Santal Society: Focus on Women” in The Power of Women’s Informal Networks: Lessons in Social Change from South Asia and West Africa edited by Bandana Purkayastha and Mangla Subramaniam, 2004 Lexington Books, USA.
“Non-western traditions: Leisure in India” in Handbook of Leisure Studies, edited by Chris Rojek, Susan M. Shaw and A.J. Veal, 2006, Great Britain, Palgrave Macmillan.
“Public space and women’s rights: fine-tuning democracy” in Another Side of India: Gender, Culture and Development by Dr. Brenda Gail McSweeney was published on UNESCO's website on 8 October 2008.

Articles in Journals (selected)
“Relevance of Village Studies: History and Reality” published in The Visva-Bharati Quarterly, Nov. 1998.
“Growing up in a Santal Village” published in the Journal of Comparative Cultures, No. 4, 1999 University of Sapporo, Japan.
“Experience of marginality: the Santals” (jointly with Boro Baski) published in the Journal of the Anthropological Survey of India, Vol. 51, No., 1 March 2003.
“Leisure among the tribes” published in Journal of Tribal Studies, New Delhi, Vol.1, 2003.
“Tribes – State of Mind?” (jointly with R.K.Bhattacharya) published in the Journal of Indian Anthropological Society, Vol 38, 2003.
2004 “Dr. Surajit Chandra Sinha: A Tribute” (joint) in Indian Social Science Review, Vol. 6 No. 1 (January-June) 135-149.
2009 “Under a banyan tree” in Beyond Degrees edited by Ira Pande, IIC, New Delhi and Harper Collins.