Committee Update

Over the last year, I have struggled to put together an advisory committee for my doctoral studies. While I have secured the first two areas of focus – political economy and political ecology, the third has remained quite elusive. For a few months I was considering cultural politics, but due to my somewhat negative experiences with the field and its tendency to hypercynicism, I have all but abandoned the idea.

This leaves me in a quandary which I will need to extricate myself out from quite soon. I do know that sometime down the road I will want to pull in GIS techniques, but I have thus far focused my attention on catching up in the theoretical realm. At the same time, I have begun my gradual return to activism after a two year hiatus, and will want to also continue my involvement with social movements.

Over the next while I will attempt to develop a reading list around my two definite themes. The conjunction between Marxism and ecology seems particularly interesting, and I will supplement this with studies into social/environmental movements and agrarian political economy:

Here are a few references of books I am currently looking at:

Doyle, T. (2005). Environmental movements in minority and majority worlds : a global perspective. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press.

Foster, J. B. (2002). Ecology against capitalism. New York: Monthly Review Press.

Kovel, J. (2002). The enemy of nature : the end of capitalism or the end of the world? London: Zed Books.

Pepper, D. (1993). Eco-socialism : from deep ecology to social justice. London ; New York: Routledge.

Bardhan, P. K. (2003). Poverty, agrarian structure, and political economy in India : selected essays. New Delhi ; New York: Oxford University Press.

Kistaiah, M., Srinivasulu, K., & Kakatiya University. Dept. of Political Science & Public Administration. (1993). Agrarian question in India, some perspectives. New Delhi: Sterling Publishers.