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Malini Ranganathan Assistant Professor School of International Service

Contact
Send email to Malini Ranganathan
(202) 885-6901 (Office)
SIS-School of Intl Service
SIS - 301
Prof Ranganathan's Spring 2019 Office Hours are by sign-up only. To sign up for 1 or 2 slots on Mon 230-430pm and Thurs 420-520pm CLICK HERE .
Additional Positions at AU
Faculty Fellow at the Metropolitan Policy Center, School of Public Affairs
Faculty Co-Lead, Environment Team, Antiracist Research and Policy Center
Degrees

PhD, University of California, Berkeley

MS, University of California, Berkeley

BA, Bard College, NY

Bio

Dr Ranganathan is a critical geographer and political ecologist with a broad interest in urban environmental justice. She uses history, ethnography, and social theory to study the politics and struggles surrounding urban water infrastructure and property regimes in both India and the US. Much of her research has looked at the politics of water, flood risk, and property-making in Bangalore/Bengaluru, India with respect to colonial and postcolonial urban improvement; social difference marked by race, class, and caste; and market-oriented reforms. In 2017, she was awarded a 2017-2019 American Council of Learned Societies-Andrew W. Mellon Foundation humanities grant for a collaborative book project Corruption Plots, Imagined Publics: The Ethics of Space in the Millennial City on the stories and imaginaries surrounding real estate “corruption”, land grabs, and widening inequality in global cities. Dr Ranganathan also investigates urban inequality in America and is researching prospects for antiracist climate justice in Washington, DC for which she was recently interviewed. She writes on US urban and environmental justice through an intersectional and antiracist lens. In her research and teaching more generally, she draws on history, critical urban studies, postcolonial/decolonial theory, critical race theory, feminist theory, and science and technology studies. In 2018 Dr Ranganathan was co-awarded the SIS "Scholar Teacher of the Year" Award.

Her research is published in the Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Progress in Human Geography, Environment and Planning: A (Economy and Society), Journal of Planning Education and Research, Capitalism Nature Socialism, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Urban Geography, Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography, and Water Alternatives among other journals. Her writing also appears on academic blogs such as Society and Space and Black Perspectives, and in edited books. She serves on the editorial boards of the Annals and Environment and Planning: D (Society and Space). Previously, Dr Ranganathan was a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Geography at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and has had research positions at TERI in New Delhi, ENDA-Tiers Monde in Dakar, and the Asian Development Bank in Manila. At SIS, Dr Ranganathan teaches SISU 250 (Environmental Sustainability and Global Health), SISU 349 (Global Cities, Justice, and the Environment), and SIS 620 (Environmental Justice).

See Also
Dr Ranganathan's March 2019 talk at the University of Michigan RacismLab
Dr Ranganathan's March 2019 honorary Treacy Lecture at the University of Wisconsin, Madison
Follow Dr Ranganathan on Twitter
Dr Ranganathan's academic website
For the Media
To request an interview for a news story, call AU Communications at 202-885-5950 or submit a request.

Partnerships & Affiliations

Scholarly, Creative & Professional Activities

Selected Publications

(*) Indicates SIS student

Professional Presentations

INVITED CAMPUS TALKS (only recent)

 CONFERENCE PAPERS AND PANELS (only recent)

  • 2018. "Urban Land Grabs as the New-Old Frontier of Capitalist Accumulation and Racial Violence", Panelist, Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, June 22.
  • 2018. "Pedagogies of Race and Racialization", Panelist, American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, New Orleans, April 14.
  • 2018. "The Political Ecology of Flood Risk and Management Across the North and South", Discussant, American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, New Orleans, April 13.
  • 2018. "From Urban Resilience to Abolitionist Climate Justice in Washington, DC", Abolition Ecologies Paper Session, American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, New Orleans, April 13.
  • 2018. "Water and Climate Justice", Panelist, American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, New Orleans, April 11.
  • 2018. "Racial Finance Capitalism", Discussant, American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, New Orleans, April 10.
  • 2018. "Land Justice in the City", Discussant, American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, New Orleans, April 10.

Multimedia

 

Research Interests

Political economy of development, urban inequality and environmental justice, postcolonial theory, critical race theory, feminist theory, the black radical tradition, discourse analysis, ethnography, history, qualitative GIS.

Grants and Sponsored Research

Honors, Awards, and Fellowships

  • 2018. Co-recipient, SIS Scholar-Teacher of the Year Award
  • 2011-2013. Post-Doctoral Fellow, Social Dimensions of Environmental Policy (SDEP), Department of Geography and Beckman Institute, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
  • 2009-2010. Chancellor’s Dissertation-Year Fellowship in the Humanities and Social Sciences, University of California, Berkeley.
  • 2007-2008. John L. Simpson Memorial Research Fellowship in International and Comparative Studies, University of California, Berkeley.
  • 2007-2008. American Institute of Indian Studies (headquartered at the University of Chicago) Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship.
  • 2006. Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award, University of California, Berkeley.
  • 2006. Center for South Asian Studies Summer Research Fellowship, University of California, Berkeley.
  • 2005. Center for Human Rights Summer Research Fellowship, University of California, Berkeley.

Professional Services

  • 2019-present. Editorial Board Member, Environment and Planning: D (Society and Space).
  • 2016-present. Editorial Board Member, Annals of the American Association of Geographers (People, Place, & Region section)
  • Peer reviewer for Annals of the American Association of Geographers, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Geoforum, Antipode, Environment and Planning: A, Environment and Planning: D, & Urban Geography
  • 2015-2017. Editorial Board Member, Geography Compass (Urban Section).
  • 2015-2017. Elected Board Member, Urban Geography Specialty Group (UGSG), American Association of Geographers (AAG)
  • 2015-2017. Elected At-Large Councilor, Cultural and Political Ecology Specialty Group (CAPE), American Association of Geographers (AAG)