Purvi’s research focuses on caste, gender, and human rights issues in India. Her current project analyzes one strand of post-independence anti-caste activism, that of transnational Dalit activism (Dalits are the groups often glossed as “outcastes” or “untouchables”). She analyzes the simultaneous use and critique of human rights in Dalit activism and demonstrates how the global field has become critical to its conceptualization and articulation of social justice.