Pranav Arwari
23 de outubro de 2025
9:00 PM
Session summary
How do you speak about queerness in places where there’s no word for it in the local language and where the words that do exist are often seen as foreign, even threatening? In South Asia, queerness has long existed in many forms through folk traditions, community roles like the hijra, and deeply personal stories passed through generations. But much of today’s language and education around LGBTQ+ rights comes from Western frameworks. This disconnect often makes local communities feel like queerness is something imported, not something rooted in their own history and culture. This session will explore how queer educators and activists across South Asia especially in India are challenging this idea by reclaiming queer stories through local languages, indigenous knowledge, and cultural memory. It draws on field research with organizations working in rural and urban communities ts of South Asian queer lives. Together, well look at how group-based learning spaces like peer-led classrooms, community gatherings, and online collectives are reshaping how queerness is taught and understood. These spaces don’t just resist erasure; they create belonging. This session is for anyone interested in how education can be a tool of resistance, how decolonization shows up in everyday language, and how South Asian communities are creating new pathways for queer activism.
Biography
Pranav Arwari is a queer educator, activist, and inclusion strategist with deep experience advancing LGBTQ+ rights and inclusive education across India and the U.S. His work focuses on building culturally rooted, community-led approaches to queer education in South Asia, particularly within school systems shaped by colonial legacies and systemic marginalisation. In India, Pranav has worked extensively in educational spaces to advocate for queer inclusion designing curricula, training educators, and supporting queer students navigating systems that often lack safety, language, and visibility. His practise spans classrooms, nonprofits, and government partnerships, driving change through both policy and pedagogy. He has been recognised as a LinkedIn Top Voice for Gender Equity, selected for UN Women's Feminist Leadership Lab, and served as an Equity and Inclusion Fellow at Harvard University. He also contributed to LGBTQ+ programming for the Global LGBTQ+ Rights Summit at the Carr Center. Currently, Pranav is focusing on strategy-building for larger community movements exploring how localised efforts can shape broader policy change across the region. He holds a Masters in Human Development and Education from Harvard, and brings both lived experience and strategic insight to his commitment to justice.
