Mira Rai Waits

Mira Rai Waits holds a PhD in the History of Art and Architecture from the University of California at Santa Barbara. Her research and teaching focus on spatial and post-colonial theory, modern architecture and urbanism, visual culture studies, and human rights. Her current project, "Producing the Prison: Space, Labor, and Representation," explores the architectural history of British colonial prisons in India. This project also examines the manner in which everyday acts of non-nationalist prisoner resistance contributed to the production of the prison space in order to argue for the recognition of a geography of everyday violence that conditioned the larger ethos of the penal experience. She has published on the relationship between capitalism and architecture in the colonial Indian prison system. Her work has been funded by the University of California President’s Program and she was the recipient of the 2014 Margaret Mallory Award for Best PhD Dissertation at the University of California at Santa Barbara.