Haripriya Rangan
Senior Lecturer
I am interested in issues that address regional sustainability and resilience from the perspectives of economic geography, development, and political ecology. 
RESEARCH
Research interests:
- Political ecology of regional transformations
- Social geographies of marketplace trade
- Environmental history of the Indian Ocean World
- Postcolonial development
- Regional development and management of commons resources
Ongoing Research
1. The political ecology of plant exchanges around the Indian Ocean: My current research with Dr. Christian Kull on plant exchanges around the Indian Ocean engages in a comparative analysis of how introduced acacia species have fared in four sites: the highlands of Madagascar, the highlands of Mpumalanga Province in South Africa, the highlands in southern India, and the outback of northern Australia. In this research, we focus on: 1) the reasons for the introduction of the species; 2) how these introduced species have been diffused and dispersed across the landscape; and 3) how different social groups and institutions regard the presence of these introduced species in these
landscapes. The research project is funded by a grant from the Australian Research Council.
2. The social geographies of marketplace trade: A large proportion of people in the world are involved in small-scale trade and businesses that support the everyday life of regions. Despite their crucial role in creating livelihood networks and marketplace trade within and across regions, most policy makers view these ‘informal sector’ actors and their economic activities as peripheral to the growth of national economies. I am working on a monograph that rethinks the concept of ‘informal economy’ as regionalised social geographies of marketplace trade, and shows how this alternative concept can provide a richer understanding of how these ‘businesses of everyday life’ of regions contribute to different processes and patterns of regional economic growth and resilience.
3. Commons resource management and the geography of the medicinal plant trade in South Africa: My research in South Africa focuses on two aspects of natural resource management: first, how post-apartheid reforms in rural areas affect people whose livelihoods depend on harvesting commons resources for subsistence or sale; and second, how the economic geography of trade in commons resources influences the ways in which these are subject to conservation and management. My empirical research on the economic geography of the medicinal plant trade in South Africa has included fieldwork in the provinces of Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, and Limpopo, and in the two largest urban centres for the medicinal plant trade, Johannesburg and Durban.
Research Supervision:
I supervise research students working on a wide range of topics relating to development issues, environmental and natural resources management in various regions of the world.
Doctoral Students
- Lisa Elford, Thesis title: Social Geographies of Bare Life: HIV/AIDS, Refugees, and Human Rights in South Africa.
- Herlina Hartanto, Thesis title: Market change and adaptability of Customary Forest Institutions in Kerinci, Central Sumatra, Indonesia.
- Kiran Shinde, Thesis title: Environmental management of Pilgrimage Tourism in Vrindavan, India.
- Paul Rogers, Thesis title: Agribusiness and Rural Development in Indonesia.
- Kwasi Agyeman, Thesis title: Land Use Change and Forest Transformations in the Ashanti Region, Ghana (currently Lecturer at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana).
- Akiko Yamane, Thesis: Rethinking Climate Change and Vulnerability in Sri Lanka, Monash University (currently Assistant Professor of geography at California State University at Fresno, USA).
- Mary Gilmartin, Thesis: Education and Change in South Africa and Northern Ireland, (External Advisor) University of Kentucky, USA (currently Lecturer in geography at National University of Ireland, Galway).
- Raewyn Porter, Thesis: 100 Years of Contest: Land and Governance in Uganda, RMIT University, Melbourne (currently involved in consultancy work in international development).
- Abdul Razak, Thesis: Spatial Access to work and services for squatter households in Delhi, India (co-advisor with Prof. J. Friedmann) RMIT University, Melbourne (currently Lecturer in urban planning at Anna University of Technology, Chennai, India).
MA Research Students
(Co-supervision with Dr. C. Kull)
- Usman Shah, Thesis title: Institutional analysis of water resource management in the Kunduz Basin, Afghanistan
- Michelle Aitken, Thesis title: Australian wattles in South African livelihoods: Management implications for development
- Anna Egan, Thesis Title: Perceptions of non-native plant species in northern Australia.
- Alyse Weyman, Thesis title: Biodiversity conservation and invasive species: Regional responses to natural resource management in the Southern Gulf Catchment, Queensland.
Honours research students at Monash University
- Rémy Kinna, Thesis: Conservation and Development Perspectives in the expansion of the Blyde River Canyon Reserve into Mariepskop State Forest, Mpumalanga, South Africa (co-supervised with Dr. C. Kull)
- Tracey Butcher, Thesis: The Role of Gender Focused NGOs in the former Homelands of South Africa.
- Petr Svoboda, Thesis: Gandhian experiments with Alternative Development: the case of Gandhigram, Tamil Nadu, India
- Paul Carroll, Thesis: Sugarcane Farming on Communal Land: The Case of KaNgwane Former Homeland, Mpumalanga, South Africa.
- Julien Gronbach, Thesis: Indigenous climate knowledge and rural agricultural practices in the South African lowveld.
- Rebecca Monson, Thesis: The big flood: a ‘natural’ disaster? Understanding the 1998 East Gippsland floods and vulnerability in the Upper Tambo Valley, Victoria.
- Jessica Williams, Thesis: Development and Community Participation in Papua New Guinea.
- Nicole Forster, Thesis: Victorian regional forest agreements: Public consultation and conflict (co-supervised with Prof. D. Mercer).
TEACHING
- GES1050
The Global Challenge - GES2660
Power and Poverty - GES3330/GYM4330
Field Studies in Regional Sustainability - GES3470/IDA4140
Urbanisation and Regional Development in the Indo Pacific Rims - IDA5130
Environmental Revolutions
RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS
Books
Rangan, H. 2000. Of Myths and Movements: Rewriting Chipko into Himalayan History, London: Verso Press. (also published by Oxford University Press, Delhi, India)
Friedmann, J. and Rangan, H. 1993. In Defense of Livelihood: Comparative Studies in Environmental Action, edited with John Friedmann, Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press.
Articles
Please Email me for copies (electronic or paper versions) of the articles you cannot get from your library.
Rangan, H. and Kull, C. What makes ecology ‘political’? Rethinking ‘scale’ in political ecology through plant movements, revised and resubmitted to Progress in Human Geography (Nov 2007)
Kull, C. and Rangan, H. Acacia exchanges: Wattles, thorn trees and the study of plant movements, Geoforum. In press.
Rangan, H. ‘Development’ in Question, in Kevin Cox, Jennifer Robinson, and Murray Low eds. The Handbook of Political Geography. London: Sage. In press.
Kull, C., Tassin, J. and Rangan, H. 2007. Multifunctional, scrubby, and invasive forest? Wattles in the highlands of Madagascar. Mountain Research and Development 27(3): 224-231.
Rangan, H. 2004. From Chipko to Uttaranchal: The Environment of Protest and Development in the Indian Himalaya”, in R. Peet and M. Watts eds. Liberation Ecologies, Second Edition. London: Routledge.
Rangan, H. and Gilmartin, M. 2002. Gender, Traditional Authority, and the Politics of Rural Reform in South Africa. Development and Change. 33 (4): 633-658.
Rangan, H. 2001. The Muti Trade: South Africa’s Indigenous Medicines”, Diversity. 2 (6): 16-25.
Rangan, H. and Lane, M. 2001. Indigenous Peoples and Forest Management: Comparative Analysis of Institutional Approaches in Australia and India”, Society and Natural Resources, Vol.14 (2): 145-160.
Rangan, H. 2000. The Political Ecology of Sustainability and Forest Management: Reflections on Contemporary Theories and Material Practices”, in F.P. Gale and R.M. M’Gonigle eds. Nature, Production, Power: Towards and Ecological Political Economy. pp.121-140. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.
Rangan, H. 2000. State Economic Policies and Changing Regional Landscapes in the Uttarakhand Himalaya”, in A. Agarwal and K. Sivaramakrishnan eds. Agrarian Environments: Resources, Representation, and Rule in India. pp. 23-46. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press.
Rangan, H. 1999.Bitter-Sweet Liaisons in a Contentious Democracy: Radical Planning through State Agency in Postcolonial India”, Plurimondi, Vol. 1 (2): 47-66.
Rangan, H. 1997. Indian Environmentalism and the Question of the State: Problems and Prospects for Sustainable Development”, Environment and Planning (A), 29 (12): 2129-2143.
Rangan, H. 1997. Property vs. Control: The State and Forest Management in the Indian Himalaya”, Development and Change, 28 (1): 71-94.
Rangan, H. 1996. From Chipko to Uttaranchal: Development, Environment, and Social Protest in the Garhwal Himalayas”, in R. Peet and M.J. Watts eds. Liberation Ecologies: Environment, Development, Social Movements, pp. 205-226. London: Routledge.
Rangan, H. 1995. Contested Boundaries: State Policies, Forest Classifications, and Deforestation in the Garhwal Himalayas”, Antipode, 27 (4): 343-362.
Rangan, H. 1993. Romancing the Environment: Popular Environmental Action in the Garhwal Himalayas”, in J. Friedmann and H. Rangan (eds.), In Defense of Livelihoods: Comparative Studies in Environmental Action, pp. 155-181. Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press.
Rangan, H. 1990. Hadija: Three Stories, Emergences: Journal for the Study of Composite Cultures, 1 (2): 46-48.
| 1999 - 2001 | Lecturer, School of Geography and Environmental Science, Monash University, Australia |
| 1997-99 | Lecturer, School of Social Sciences and Planning, RMIT, Australia. |
| 1995-97 | Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Geography, University of Kentucky |
| 1994 | Visiting Lecturer, Social Policy Programme, University of Durban-Westville, South Africa |
| 1994 | Postdoctoral Lecturer, Department of Geography, University of California- Berkeley |
| 1992-93 | Graduate Teaching Associate, Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of California-Los Angeles |
| 1986-89 | Transportation Planning Assistant, Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG), Los Angeles. |
| 1984-85 | Architect-Planner, Vastushilpa Foundation, Ahmedabad, India. |
| 1983-84 | Planning Consultant, CEPT Study Cell, Ahmedabad, India. |
| PROFESSIONAL SERVICE | |
| Board of Directors, Institute of Postcolonial Studies, Melbourne, 2005- Associate Director, Institute of Postcolonial Studies, Melbourne, 2002 - present Book Series Editorial Board, Institute of Postcolonial Studies, 2001- present Editorial Board, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 2001-2006 |
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Room Number: S121, Menzies Building
Telephone Number: +61-3-9905 5300
Fax Number: +61-3-9905 2948
Haripriya.Rangan@arts.monash.edu.au