Agrarian Geographies of India

This research agenda is led by 2022-24 CASI Postdoctoral Research Fellow Amrita Kurian. Dr. Amrita Kurian works on expertise and agrarian geographies in rural Andhra Pradesh. Her research provides a humanistic critique of state experts’ technical interventions to address emergent problems that threaten the sustainability of agriculture and agrarian livelihoods. It explains how, faced with such formidable challenges, the experts’ pursuit of quality frequently fails and faces increasing contention from farmers and traders on the ground. Her ethnographic study of the cigarette tobacco sector also exposes the increasing burden placed on rural environments and agrarian producers in the Global South today as they simultaneously cope with the adverse ecological effects of commercial agriculture and the increasing pressure on their incomes from constantly evolving standards imposed by agricultural commodity markets. Dr. Kurian secured a research grant from Garware Technical Fibres for two subsequent projects that bring everyday practices of dignity among oppressed caste laborers from Andhra Pradesh into debates on agricultural sustainability and climate migration. The first is a collaborative oral history project highlighting the neglected voices of women laborers whose partners have migrated in search of seasonal work. A parallel project will assess the value chain of Guntur chilies as a commercial cash crop and its rise as a coveted spice of the middle class in coastal Andhra Pradesh.In 2024, she has peer-reviewed essays appearing in top-tier journals such as the Journal of Cultural Anthropology, and Science, Technology and Human Values, and Geoforum.