EUC Global Connection – India
The Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change brings together geographers, physical scientists, social scientists, humanities researchers and artists whose innovative research seeks to advance sustainability and social justice. Using field-based science, policy analysis, critical social theory, planning skills, geomatics, and cultural and arts-based approaches, our researchers drive action to address the world’s environmental and urban challenges.
EUC researchers are engaged in collaborative relationships, projects and partnerships with colleagues and institutions around the world. Here are the works we have been doing in India.
EUC Main Researchers in India
EUC Main Partner Institutions in India
EUC Research in India
The geographies of migration and forced displacement are critical areas of study for many students and faculty at EUC who work in the South Asian region, including India.
Professor Ranu Basu’s current SSHRC Insight project on ‘Subalterity, Education and Welfare Cities’ explores the geopolitical impacts of conflict and displacement on cities and schools in Havana, Toronto and Kolkata. The research focuses on the critical relationship between the state (through state-funded education), forced migration, and urbanization, specifically in the post-colonial and post-socialist contexts of Bengal and Kolkata. For example, it has examined how municipal schools administered by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) Department of Education have engaged with migrant children and their families, providing insight on the social and political transformation of these communities over time. Relations with the KMC staff and local schools have developed through this project.
Basu has also worked in the borderland region of the Sundarbans, the world’s largest contiguous mangrove forest, to understand its critical role in protecting the coastal regions of India and Bangladesh from tropical cyclones. Basu has explored the impacts of recent cyclones (Aila, 2009; Amphan, 2020) on the delta island of Kumirmari in the Sundarbans, trying to understand the important role that village schools play during such crises. Currently, she is working with Arnab Mazumdar an MA student who is working alongside the Bede Community– a travelling migrant group, in Bangladesh and India.
Links between the Centre for Refugee Studies (CRS) and Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group (CRG) scholars have been fruitful over a decade, with the exchange of faculty participating in conferences and seminars. Colleagues involved include Professors Jennifer Hyndman, Susan McGrath, Michele Millard, Wenona Giles, Nergis Canafe, James Simeon, Ranu Basu (from York University), and Ranabir Samaddar, Paula Bannerjee and Nasreen Chowdhory (from CRG). In 2022, Dr. Julián Gutiérrez Castaño (then a Ph.D student in Geography) participated in the annual workshop in Kolkata organized by CRG, alongside a group of international students. Publications, valedictory lectures, co-authored papers, and other initiatives have continued.
In 2023, Basu was invited to deliver the Plenary Lecture organized by the University of North Bengal, Siliguri, and Government of India at the International Conference on Emerging Issues in Environment, Livelihood and Development – A Future Road Map Towards Sustainable Earth. New collaborations have since developed with key faculty members (Dr. Indrajit Roy Chowdhury).
