PANELIST
VIBHA PINGLÉ
President
Ubuntu at Work Inc.
After completing her Ph.D. in sociology at Brown University, Vibha lectured in social studies at Harvard, was a visiting assistant professor at Brown, an assistant professor at Rutgers, an assistant professor at the University of Notre Dame, and a fellow and co-director of the Gender and Development program at the Institute of Development Studies, UK. She has been a consultant to the World Bank, DFID, the Aga Khan Foundation, UNDP, and Fidelity Investments. Her publications include: Rethinking the Developmental State: India’s Industry in Comparative Perspective (St. Martin’s Press, NY, 1999), Identity Landscapes, Social Capital, and Entrepreneurship: Small Business in South Africa (CPS, Johannesburg, 2001), book chapters, articles in professional journals and in newspapers.
Vibha Pinglé founded Ubuntu at Work (a nonprofit) in 2010. Ubuntu at Work grew out of her research project on women micro-entrepreneurs in South Africa (funded by the Ford Foundation), Namibia, Egypt, Nigeria, India, Indonesia and Nepal and supports marginalized and disadvantaged women find sustainable pathways out of poverty. Current projects focus on the Kavango region of Namibia.
Aside from leading Ubuntu at Work,Vibha teaches a course on gender and development at Brown University’s Watson Institute. She is also working on a book manuscript, Crafting Gender Justice. The manuscript draws upon over 25 years of Vibha’s field research conversations with marginalized and disadvantaged women in communities in South Africa, Namibia, Tanzania, Nigeria, Ghana, Egypt, Turkey, Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, Jamaica, United States, Cambodia, and Indonesia. Combining these conversations with a deep study of archaeological, historical, anthropological materials, economic history, social policy, literature, art, and crafting traditions, Crafting Gender Justice weaves a tapestry illustrating how working women today, and through history, have eked out a living as they struggled to raise their children, families, and carve out autonomous spaces for themselves. Their experiences illuminate our path toward gender justice.
Vibha has given three TEDx talks on rural women, their struggles, and pathways out of poverty, two at TEDxBoston (2010, 2015) and one at TEDxStellenbosch (2010).