In this talk, Professor Haroon Akram-Lodhi launches his new co-edited book Handbook of Critical Agrarian Studies (2021), and points to lessons from critical agrarian studies for our understanding of COVID-19, such as the link between food systems and pandemics.

The Handbook offers interdisciplinary insights from both leading scholars and activists to understand agrarian life, livelihoods, formations and processes of change. It highlights the development of the field, which is characterized by theoretical and methodological pluralism and innovation. Furthermore, it presents critical analyses of, and examines controversies about, historical and contemporary social structures and processes in agrarian and rural settings from a wide range of perspectives.

Dr Srilata Sircar, Lecturer in India and Global Affairs at the King's India Institute, will join Haroon Akram-Lodhi to discuss the book.

About the speaker

Haroon Akram-Lodhi is Professor of Economics and International Development Studies in the Department of International Development Studies at Trent University, Peterborough, Canada, where he teaches agrarian political economy. Trained as an economist, the focus of Akram-Lodhi's research interest is in the political economy of agrarian change in developing countries, on the economic dimensions of gender relations, and on the political ecology of sustainable rural livelihoods and communities in contemporary poor countries. He has published extensively, including his widely acclaimed book Hungry for Change - Farmers, Food Justice and the Agrarian Question (2013). His most recent book is the Handbook of Critical Agrarian Studies (2021), which he co-edited with Kristina Dietz, Bettina Engels, and Ben M. McKay.

Discussants

Dr Srilata Sircar is Lecturer in India and Global Affairs at the King's India Institute.Trained as an urban geographer, Srilata received her doctoral degree from Lund University, Sweden in 2017. With a prior background in History and Development Studies, her research interests include urban political ecology of South Asia, the politics of caste in infrastructure-building, and the political economy of subaltern urbanization. Srilata is a contributing writer for Feminism in India.