Menaka Raguparan
Associate Professor
Dr. Menaka Raguparan is a feminist socio-legal scholar whose research examines the intersections of law, crime, punishment, gender, race, and social inequality. Her work focuses on the regulation of sex work, anti-trafficking interventions, criminal courts, policing, and social movements as sites where care and coercion, protection and punishment, are often intertwined. Drawing on qualitative, ethnographic, and participatory research methods, she investigates how contemporary criminal legal reforms shape the lives of marginalized communities and evaluates the promises and limits of reform-oriented interventions.
Her current research includes a multi-jurisdictional study of Human Trafficking Courts in the United States, examining whether these specialized courts deliver therapeutic and gender justice or expand criminal legal oversight through new forms of supervision and regulation. She is also conducting research on police discretion and diversion programs, exploring how informal forms of criminal legal governance operate in practice. More broadly, her scholarship investigates how legal institutions, policy initiatives, and anti-trafficking efforts reproduce or challenge systems of surveillance, social control, and inequality.
Dr. Raguparan’s research has been published in leading journals including Gender & Society, Sexualities, Feminist Legal Studies, and Work, Employment and Society. She is also co-editing two scholarly volumes that critically examine anti-trafficking policies, media narratives, and the governance of vulnerability. Her work has been supported by internal research grants and recognized with the University of North Carolina Wilmington’s Rising Researcher Award.
Community Engagement
Dr. Raguparan collaborates with the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women North Carolina Coalition (https://mmiwnc.com/) to raise awareness about the crisis in her classrooms and communities.
Dr. Raguparan is the founder and co-chair of "Sex, Work, Law and Society," a collaborative research network (CRN 6) at the Law and Society Association (LSA).
Honors & Awards
Community Engaged Scholar Award (ASC- DFC) - 2026
Rising Research Excellence Award (UNCW) - 2025
Kathleen Berkeley Inconvenient Woman Award (UNCW) - 2023-2024
Diversity and Inclusion Fellowship (UNCW) - 2022-2024