Her research has encompassed a range of topics including: politics of space, identity and community among communities of South Asian origin in Tanzania; questions of empowerment in relation to grass-roots struggles in the global South, principally with the Sangtin Kisan Mazdoor Sangathan (SKMS) in Sitapur District, India; the politics of language and social fracturing in the context of development and neo-liberal globalization; and creative praxis that uses collaboration, co-authorship, and translation to blur the borders between academic, activist, and artistic labors.
[2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9] Richa Nagar's historical, geographical, and feminist exploration of the politics of place, identity, and community among 'Asians' in Tanzania is based on a "large number of life histories as well as participant observation" among Hindus, Khoja Shia Ithna Asheris, Goans and Sikhs, chiefly in the city of Dar es Salaam.
Playing with Fire and Sangtin Yatra have been translated into Turkish as Ateşle Oynamak: Hindistan'da Yedi Yaşam Üzerinden Feminist Düşünce ve Eylem (Ayizi Kitap, 2011) and into Marathi as Ageeshee Khelataana: Saat Stree Karyakartancha Sahpravaas (Manovikas Prakashan, 2015).
In Muddying the Waters: Coauthoring Feminisms Across Scholarship and Activism (2014), which received Gloria Anzaldua Book Prize's Honorable Mention,[21] Richa Nagar examines coauthorship as a mode of sharing authority and addresses translation as ethical responsibility.
Those between academia and social movements, academic and nonacademic writing, or geographical and linguistic borders...Nagar's work is a call for politically engaged and ethical research that takes matters of epistemic violence seriously.