Dr. Alva Bonaker

Alva Bonaker has been a PhD candidate in the Transnational Research Group "Poverty and education in modern India" since 2014. In her research she examines how the Indian Mid-Day Meal Scheme is seen by those that are meant to benefit from it, how they define its benefits and to what extent they shape the scheme and its outcomes themselves. She has conducted anthropological field research (in 2015/2016) in Delhi focussing on a case study of children from very poor migrant families living in slums, night shelter homes ('Renbasseras'), under the flyover or on the streets in South Delhi. The main methods are participant observation and semi-structured interviews at their homes, at an education NGO that works with them, at two primary schools, as well as at the NGO which cooks the food for these schools.

Alva studied Area Studies Asia/Africa with focus on South Asia in her Bachelor at Humboldt-University (HU) in Berlin and South Asian Area Studies with anthropology as major in her Master at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London. During the undergraduate studies she went to Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi for a semester. After completing her postgraduate studies she worked in the Indo-German "Sustainable Hyderabad" project on local civil society participation in urban developments.


Publications

Bonaker, Alva. 2012. Between Village and City: Rural-urban Linkages in the Broader Region of Hyderabad, Emerging Megacities, 2010 (6). Click here...

Bonaker, Alva. 2014. Making Winners? Transforming Individuals through Education in Colonial and Post-Colonial Contexts, conference report Historikertag, 23.–26.09.2014, Göttingen, in: H-Soz-Kult. Click here...

Bonaker, Alva. 2017. Young lives on the streets of Delhi, opinion article: World Is One News (WION). Click here...

Jain, Angela, Alva Bonaker and Sascha Dannenberg. 2012. Governance and Participation in the Telangana Region, New Delhi: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) publication. Click here...