MANISHA ANANTHARAMAN

About

I am a multi-disciplinary scholar working at the intersection of economic and cultural sociology, political ecology, and environmental governance to study how ecological transitions are shaped by inequality, identity, and institutions.

I study how economic and political ideologies, socio-cultural identities, and power relations impact how "environmentalism" and "sustainability" are conceptualized and organized at multiple scales, from the household to the transnational milieu. My work focuses on the recursive relations through which ecological policies both reflect and influence intersectional inequalities of race, class, caste, and gender. Using ethnographic methods, I examine the dynamics of everyday sustainability practices and political mobilizations in relation to one another, as exemplified in my recent book Recycling Class (2024, MIT Press).

Please browse my website to learn more about my research and publications on Critical Sustainabilities, Circular Economy, Sustainable Wellbeing, and Digitalization. The Teaching tab also has links to several syllabi on environmental justice, sustainability, and development taught through the lenses of postcolonial theory.

I am an Assistant Professor at the Center for the Sociology of Organisations, Sciences Po in Paris. Previously, I was an Associate Professor (Tenured) at Saint Mary's College of California in the Global Studies and Environmental Studies programs.

I received my PhD from the Department of Environmental Science Policy and Management at the University of California Berkeley (2015) and have a Masters in Integrative Bio-sciences from the University of Oxford (2008), where I was an Inlaks Scholar. In Spring 2019, I was invited to the Alba Viotto Visiting Professorship in Sociology at the University of Geneva, and was a visiting professorial fellow at the Sustainable Consumption Institute at the University of Manchester. I serve as an Associate Editor for Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene (UC Press) and Consumption and Society (Bristol University Press).

I am an Associate Fellow at Chatham House's Environment and Society Program and was a Commissioner on the Cambridge Sustainability Commission report on Scaling Behavior Change.

Exacerbating inequality, enduring poverty, and widespread climate disruption are interrelated socio-environmental problems. To explore their intersections, I take a situated, relational, and intersectional approach in my research, collaborating with scholars in critical geography, sociology, environmental science and policy studies, and with policy-makers and practitioners.

About

New book- Recycling Class, MIT Press, 2024 (Open-Access here)