Kalpana Venkatasubramanian

My key interest lies in exploring the framings of existing climate-based adaptation actions and the potential for adaptation initiatives to be just and equitable and reflective of community needs and priorities.  My dissertation research examines the narratives through which climate change discourse, policy and action emerge in India as shaped and produced by state and non-state actors and their implications for current and future adaptation strategies. Further, it investigates challenges of adaptation from a rural communities’ perspective to illustrate the empirical relevance of on-going adaptation services as well as throw light on a range of factors that potentially undermine existing and future adaptive capacities to climate change. This research contributes empirically and theoretically to the fields of political ecology, human-environment studies, and adaptation research, through a critical examination of the ideas, technics, policy and practice that underlie climate change discourse and action in a specific socio-economic and political context.