Dr Ipshita Basu

I am a political sociologist with expertise on Development Justice and the Politics of group-based claims-making. I have worked across South Asia including Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka.

My research explains how the unequal distribution and experiences of crises and uncertainty (ill health, violence, environmental disasters) among indigenous people and marginalised social groups are produced by histories of colonial/postcolonial state-making, social structures, top-down environmental management and their own organised political resistance to these changes. I am the author of Reclaiming Indigeneity and Democracy in India's Jharkhand (Oxford University Press) and my recent articles cover topics on  just energy transitions, digitalising states and the racialised nature of urban evictions.

My most recent project, funded by the British Academy examines planetary health and wellbeing from the environmental histories and politics of adivasis in Kerala and Jharkhand. In the last 5 years, I have led projects funded by UK FCDO, British Academy and the University of Westminster to produce ground breaking research on how socially and spatially marginalised groups experience and respond to uncertainties produced by environmental, digital and urban transformations.

I write a blog called the Politics of the New Normal  to explain how the experience of crises and its responses in South Asia are built on old and new regimes of power, inequality and identities.

I am a Fellow of the UK Higher Education  Academy and for the last three years, as Steering Group member of the Pedagogies for Social Justice Project I have been working on innovative and impactful initiatives to decolonise teaching resources in development studies and politics.

I hold a PhD in International Development from the University of Bath (2010), an M.Res in International Development (Bath, 2004) and an M.A. in Sociology (Warwick, 2002), all funded by studentships. Previously, I was Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in International Relations at the University of Surrey (2012-2015) and Head of Research at BRAC'S Institute of Governance and Development (2010-2012). 

My areas of Expertise are as follows:

Planetary Health and Wellbeing

Digitalising States/Social Protection/Land

Group rights and claims-making in postcolonial democracies

Indigenous people, minorities and race/caste dynamics

RESEARCH PROJECTS

Principal Investigator Planetary Health and Relational Wellbeing: Investigating the Ecological and Health Dimensions of Adivasi Lifeworlds,  British Academy May 2024-May2026, £300,000.

Co-Principal Investigator Rethinking Accountability for Digitised Futures in Bangladesh, Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, Oct 2022-Dec 2023, £100,000.

Co-Investigator My City (In)visible British Academy 2021-2022 £15,000

Principal Investigator Moving from the Margins: Explaining Just Mobility in South Asia's Post Pandemic Urban Age. Westminster Sustainable Cities and Urban Environments Seed Grant, £10,000.

CURRENT DOCTORAL STUDENTS

Arunopol Seal  Being a Santhal in Chaachanpur, West Bengal: Tracing the contested genealogies of the contemporary Adivasi subject 

Muhammad Rahaman Investigating the practise of democracy in Bangladesh

If you are interested in research on development justice and indigenous people/ethnic/raced minorities in the global south; digitalising state/land/social protection and planetary health and wellbeing please contact Ipshita directly with your research proposal and CV on [email protected]

For details of all my research outputs, visit my WestminsterResearch profile.