Sujata Patel is currently a Visiting Professor at Umea University and Professor of Sociology at Savitribai Phule Pune University. Previously, she was a National Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies in Shimla, and taught sociology at the University of Hyderabad and SNDT Women›s University. Patel has also been a fellow at the Asian Research Institute at the National University of Singapore, the South Asia Institute at the University of Heidelberg, and the Amsterdam Centre for Urban Studiesat the University of Amsterdam.

Patel‹s research areas include, modernity and social theory, history of sociology/social sciences, urbanization and city formation, social movements, gender construction, and caste and class formation in India. Patel›s work combines a historical sensibility with four perspectives-Marxism, feminism, spatial studies, and post-structuralism.

Patel is committed to decolonial teaching and learning practices in classrooms and university structures. Patel was Vice President for National Associations in the International Sociological Association from 2002 to 2006 and President of the Indian Sociological Society from January 2016 to December 2017.

Most recently published (selection): Neoliberalism, Urbanization and Aspirations in Contemporary India (2022), Sociology‹s encounter with the decolonial: The problematique of indigenous vs that of coloniality, extraversion and colonial modernity (2021), Colonialism and its knowledges (2021).