Faculty at School of Humanities and Social Sciences

Venkat Ramanujam Ramani

Venkat Ramanujam Ramani

Assistant Professor


Contact Information

I am interested in rural transformation in indigenous/ Adivasi communities, particularly in central India. My research examines ongoing livelihood transitions between forest-dependence, farming, market-dependence, and migration as a striving of marginal peoples to engage with power relations that combines strategies for survival with the pursuit of aspirations. I have also been closely engaged with the recognition of forest rights of Adivasi communities in eastern Madhya Pradesh and Bastar, Chhattisgarh. I completed my PhD at the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), Bengaluru, in 2021

  • 2021 Ph.D. in Conservation Science and Sustainability Studies| Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), Bengaluru, India; degree conferred by Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Manipal, Karnataka, India. Dissertation title: Shifting human-nature interactions in the Maikal Hills of Madhya Pradesh, India
  • 2010 M.Phil. in Environment, Society, and Development | Department of Geography, University of Cambridge 
  • 2004 M.A. in Social Work | Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai
  • 2002 B.A. (Honours) in Economics | St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi

  • 2021-2024: Post-Doctoral Research Associate, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), Bengaluru
  • 2024: Visiting Faculty, Department of Liberal Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (DLHS), Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Bengaluru campus
  • 2010-11: Senior Research Associate, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)
  • 2007-09: Research Associate, “Research on Coping with Vulnerability to Risk” (RECOVER) project, Institute of Social Ecology, Alpen-Adria University, Austria, funded by the Austrian Science Fund. The project examined the vulnerability and coping capacity of socio-ecological systems in the post-tsunami Nicobar Islands, India
  • 2005-07: Project Administrator, Project for sustainable development in the post-tsunami Nicobar Islands, Nicobar Youth Association, Nancowry, Nicobar District, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India
  • 2004-05: Project Officer, Foundation for Ecological Security (FES), Spearhead Team Udaipur, Rajasthan, India

Forest governance, critical agrarian studies, environmental anthropology, Adivasi youth aspirations, Adivasi livelihoods in transition

  • 2009-10: Commonwealth Shared and Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Trust Scholarship for post-graduate study in the University of Cambridge 
  • 2003-04: Najamai A. Minocher-Homji Prize for Best M.A. Dissertation, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India 

  • Member, Organising Committee, Student Conference in Conservation Science, Bengaluru (SCCS-Bng), India
  • Member, Network of Rural and Agrarian Studies (NRAS), India

Journals:

  • Ramanujam, R. Venkat (2017) Forest Rights in Baiga Chak, Madhya Pradesh, Economic and Political Weekly, 52 (25 & 26), 2017, pp. 47-50 
  • Thorat, O., Ronita Mukherjee, R. Venkat Ramanujam, Vikram Aditya, and M. Soubadra Devy (2016) Patterns of herbivory on Macaranga peltata, a pioneer species in the mid-elevation forests of the Western Ghats, Current Science, 111 (5), pp. 790-92 
  • Ramanujam, R. Venkat (2015) NTFP decline in the Maikal Hills: What are its implications? Protected Area Update (No. 114), Vol. 21, No. 2. 
  • Lele, Sharachchandra, R. Venkat Ramanujam & Jeetesh Rai (2015). Co-operative procurement and marketing of tendu leaves in Madhya Pradesh: Image and Reality. Environment and Development Discussion Paper No. 3, Bengaluru: ATREE
  • Ramanujam, R.Venkat, Simron Jit Singh & Arild Vatn (2012). ‘From the Ashes into the Fire: Institutional Change in the Post-tsunami Nicobar Islands’, Society and Natural Resources, 25 (11), pp. 1152-1166.

Singh, S.J & R. Venkat Ramanujam (2010), ‘Exploring Ecological “Unequal” Exchange Using Land and Labour Appropriation: Trade in the Nicobar Islands, 1880-2000’. In: Hornborg, A. & A.K. Jorgenson (eds.) Global Trade and Environmental Justice: New Approaches to Political Ecology, New York: Nova Science Publishers.

  • 2024 Forest rights and livelihoods in central India. Lecture delivered as part of the graduate course entitled ‘Forests, governance, and livelihoods’ at the School of Development, Azim Premji University, Bengaluru, 23rd February
  • 2023 From Panchayati Raj to PESA and FRA: deepening local democracy. Moderated a panel discussion comprising Prof. Viriginius Xaxa, former Deputy Director, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Guwahati, Mr. C.R. Bijoy, Independent Researcher and Activist, and Prof. Kamal Nayan Chaube, Dyal Singh College, Delhi University, at the National Conference on Local Democratic Governance in India: Looking back and going forward on Panchayati Raj, PESA, and FRA, Ranchi, 21-23 June 
  • 2023 From a fistful of millets to a bagful of rice: anxiety and aspiration in Adivasi Central India. Presentation (online) at the ‘Workshop on Food and Identity in South Asia since Independence’, Brunel University, London, 19th May
  • 2022 Re-imagining Community Forest Resource Rights (CFRR) and forest-dependent livelihoods in Bastar District. Presentation made in Hindi to senior officers and civil society representatives, ‘Workshop on CFR Rights in Bastar’, Collector’s Office, Jagdalpur, on 16th July  
  • 2021 Hopes belied, but the struggle is alive: forest rights in Baiga Chak, Madhya Pradesh. Presentation at symposium entitled ‘15 Years of the Forest Rights Act: Observations from 15 research scholars’ organized by the Centre for Science, Technology, and Society, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, 18th December
  • 2021 Forest of transformation: Livelihood and aspiration in the Maikal Hills of central India. Presentation made at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Seminar, Indian Institute of Technology – Delhi, 23rd November
  • 2021 Collective land-titling in a central Indian forest: Fostering conservation but promise betrayed. Paper presented at the panel entitled, ‘Anthropological perspectives on collective land titling as conservation,’ at the Anthropology and Conservation Conference, Royal Anthropological Institute, London, 27th October
  • 2021 India’s indigenous peoples in transition. Presentation at the Seminar on International Indigenous Perspectives, University of Northern British Columbia, Prince George, British Columbia, Canada, 25th October

  • 2023 Empty forests, changing aspirations: Adivasi migration and environmental consciousness in the Maikal Hills of Madhya Pradesh at the Central Indian Landscape Symposium, Kanha Tiger Reserve, Madhya Pradesh, India

  • Society and Natural Resources, Conservation and Society

Workshop entitled Qualitative research in conservation: power, positionality, and practice at the 14th Student Conference in Conservation Science – Bengaluru (SCCS-Bng), Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, India (2023)