Arun Agrawal

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Arun Agrawal
Born (1962-09-20) September 20, 1962 (age 61)
Forbesganj,[1] Bihar, India[2]
SpouseRebecca Hardin[2]
ChildrenNaina Agrawal-Hardin[2]
Academic background
Education
Academic work
DisciplinePolitical scientist
InstitutionsUniversity of Michigan
External videos
video icon “The Evolution of the Commons, Arun Agrawal, February 5, 2021.

Arun Agrawal (born September 20, 1962) is a political scientist and the Samuel Trask Dana Professor in the School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) at the University of Michigan.[3] Agrawal is the coordinator for the International Forestry Resources and Institutions network and does research in Africa and South Asia.[4]

Agrawal was the editor-in-chief of the scholarly journal World Development from 2013-2021.[5][6] Agrawal was a Guggenheim Fellow in 2011[7] and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2018.[8]

Education[edit]

Arun Agrawal was born in Forbesganj,[1] Bihar, India, where he grew up in a middle-class family. Eventually he moved to Patna to live with an aunt, so that he could attend a better school.[2]

Agrawal received his BA in History from the University of Delhi in 1983. He received an MBA in Development Administration and Public Policy from the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad in 1985. Moving to the United States, he received his Ph.D. in political science from Duke University in 1992.[2][9] His Ph.D. work involved following Indian shepherds in the Himalayas to better understand how those communities managed commonly held resources.[2]

Career[edit]

Agrawal has taught at the University of Florida (1993-1996), Yale University (1997-2002) and McGill University (2002-2003). In 2003, he began teaching at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he works on issues of environmental politics, governance, and sustainable development.[8][9][10][11]

In 2022, Agrawal was chosen to be a co-chair of the Transformative Change Assessment for the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). The Transformative Change Assessment will address "the underlying causes of biodiversity loss, the determinants of transformative change, and options for achieving the 2050 vision for biodiversity".[12][13]

Publications[edit]

Agrawal's work has been published in journals such as Science, Conservation Biology, World Development, and PNAS.[3] In a publication in Nature, Agrawal explores the positive side of disaster in his case study of a 1998 hurricane in Honduras. According to Agrawal, natural disasters like this set the stage for alternative social trajectories.[14]

Books[edit]

Agrawal's best known book is Environmentality: Technologies of Government and the Making of Subjects, published in 2005.[15]

Previously published books included Greener Pastures: Politics, Markets, and Community Among a Migrant Pastoral People, (1999)[16] and Decentralization in Nepal: A Comparative Analysis (1998).[7]

Reviews[edit]

  • "Arun Agrawal (in Environmentality) provides a most lucid account of the people-government- forest interplay in the 20th century Kumaon Himalayas in this book.... Arun Agrawal addresses these fascinating questions on the basis, not only of archival research, but significantly, on the strength of extensive long-term fieldwork."—The Hindu[17]
  • "This book (Environmentality) aims to promote Arun Agrawal's own neologism - "environmentality" ... This book, too, has hidden its worthwhile arguments in thickets of verbal profusion, which make it hard to see the teak for the forest."--The Times Higher Education[18]

Books edited[edit]

  • 2001: Agrarian Environments: Resources, Representations and Rule in India. Duke University Press, Durham, ISBN 0-8223-2555-1
  • 2001: Social Nature: Resources, Representations and Rule in India. Oxford University Press, New Delhi, ISBN 0-19-565460-9
  • 2001: Communities and the Environment: Ethnicity, Gender, and the State in Community-Based Conservation. Rutgers University Press, Piscataway, ISBN 0-8135-2914-X
  • 2003: Regional Modernities: The Cultural Politics of Development in India. Stanford University Press, Palo Alto, ISBN 0-8047-4415-7

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b "Arun Agrawal". Sustainable Food Systems Initiative. 21 June 2018. Retrieved 16 May 2022.
  2. ^ a b c d e f Jones, Nicola (13 May 2022). "A lifetime of climate change". Knowable Magazine. doi:10.1146/knowable-051322-1. Retrieved 16 May 2022.
  3. ^ a b "Arun Agrawal". University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability. Retrieved 2021-03-29.
  4. ^ "Arun Agrawal". International Forestry Resources and Institutions. 2012-12-10. Retrieved 2021-03-29.
  5. ^ McKenzie, David McKenzie; Goldstein, Markus Goldstein; Friedman, Jed Friedman; Özler, Berk Özler (April 1, 2013). "Q&A with Arun Agrawal, Editor of World Development Part I". blogs.worldbank.org. Retrieved 16 May 2022.
  6. ^ "Arun Agrawal - Editorial Board - World Development - Journal - Elsevier". Elsevier. Retrieved 16 May 2022.
  7. ^ a b "Arun Agrawal". John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Retrieved 17 May 2022.
  8. ^ a b "News from the National Academy of Sciences". National Academy of Sciences. May 1, 2018.
  9. ^ a b "Arun Agrawal". University of Michigan. Retrieved 16 May 2022.
  10. ^ Agrawal, Arun (October 2003). "Sustainable Governance of Common-Pool Resources: Context, Methods, and Politics". Annual Review of Anthropology. 32 (1): 243–262. doi:10.1146/annurev.anthro.32.061002.093112. ISSN 0084-6570. Retrieved 17 May 2022.
  11. ^ Mapfumo, Paul; Onyango, Mary; Honkponou, Saïd K.; El Mzouri, El Houssine; Githeko, Andrew; Rabeharisoa, Lilia; Obando, Joy; Omolo, Nancy; Majule, Amos; Denton, Fatima; Ayers, Jessica; Agrawal, Arun (29 July 2017). "Pathways to transformational change in the face of climate impacts: an analytical framework". Climate and Development. 9 (5): 439–451. doi:10.1080/17565529.2015.1040365. ISSN 1756-5529. S2CID 154082103. Retrieved 17 May 2022.
  12. ^ "Dr. Arun Agrawal Announced as Co-Chair on Intergovernmental Transformative Change Assessment". seas.umich.edu. January 27, 2022. Retrieved 17 May 2022.
  13. ^ "Annex II to decision IPBES-8/1 Scoping report for a thematic assessment of the underlying causes of biodiversity loss and the determinants of transformative change and options for achieving the 2050 Vision for Biodiversity (transformative change assessment)" (PDF). IPBES. Retrieved 17 May 2022.
  14. ^ Agrawal, Arun (May 19, 2011). "A positive side of disaster". Nature. 473 (7347): 291–292. doi:10.1038/473291a. PMID 21593857. S2CID 205064492.
  15. ^ Agrawal, Arun (2005). Environmentality: Technologies of Government and the Making of Subjects. Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0-8223-3480-4.
  16. ^ "Contributors". In the Name of Humanity: 359–362. 31 December 2020. doi:10.1515/9780822393221-014. ISBN 9780822393221. S2CID 241224913. Retrieved 17 May 2022.
  17. ^ Gadgil, Madhav (December 12, 2006). "Modernity and Nature". The Hindu. Retrieved 16 July 2012.
  18. ^ Chapman, Graham (September 1, 2006). "If only we could see the teak for the trees". The Times Higher Education. Retrieved 16 July 2012.