Ep. 32 – Untangling Colorism with Tanuka Ghoshal and Tripat Gill

<p>Eight years. Seven rounds of revision. And a first submission where every reviewer recommended reject. In this episode, JMR Co-Editor Karen Winterich talks with <a href="https://zicklin.baruch.cuny.edu/faculty-profile/tanuka-ghoshal/" target="_blank">Tanuka Ghoshal</a> (Baruch College) and <a href="https://www.wlu.ca/academics/faculties/lazaridis-school-of-business-and-economics/faculty-profiles/tripat-gill/index.html" target="_blank">Tripat Gill</a> (Wilfrid Laurier University) about their paper, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00222437251409096" target="_blank">&quot;The &#39;Dark Is Hardworking&#39; Association: How Skin Tone Affects Perceptions of Service Providers in India</a>.&quot; Colorism in India has long been documented as a fair-skin premium, but this research uncovers the opposite: darker skin-toned professionals are perceived as more hardworking, and therefore more competent, in domains like financial and technical services. In the episode, you&#39;ll hear how an editorial team&#39;s nudge toward human branding sent the project in an entirely new direction, why the attractiveness angle wasn’t retained as a focus, and the real costs of collecting quality data in India.</p>