Faculty Profile

Budhaditya Das completed his PhD in Human Ecology in April 2017 from the School of Human Ecology at Ambedkar University Delhi, Delhi. His doctoral thesis was a historical and ethnographic study of the transformations in state and Adivasi relations over one hundred years in the forest villages of Satpuda hills in Madhya Pradesh, India. The title of his thesis was “State, Adivasis and Upland Livelihoods: A Study of Forest Villages in Central India”.

Dr. Das’s formative training has been in critical social work practice. He completed his MPhil in Social Work (2011) and MA in Social Work (2008) from the Department of Social Work, University of Delhi.

Budhaditya Das has earlier taught at the Department of Social Work, University of Delhi and the Department of Social Work, Jamia Millia Islamia.

• Dr. Das’s areas of research and teaching interest include critical agrarian studies, political economy, environmental history, environmental policy and governance, and gender and environment. He studies indigeneity, land and rural transformations, forest governance, and social impacts of land acquisition using qualitative and historical research methods.
• Dr. Das is in-charge of the State Social Impact Assessment Unit at the School of Human Ecology, which carries out impact assessment studies for the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi.
• Dr. Das contributes to the peer review process for interdisciplinary journals (Conservation and Society, Social Change, and China Report) as well as for academic publishers.
• Dr. Das assists the Environmental Management Committee of AUD with its initiatives and activities.

• Budhaditya Das is a recipient of the University Grant Commission’s Junior Research Fellowship in the Humanities and Social Sciences (2012—2016).

• Kabra, A. and B. Das. (2019). Global or local safeguards? Social impact assessment insights from an urban Indian land acquisition, in Susanna Price, Jane Singer (Eds).Country Frameworks for Development, Displacement and Resettlement. London and New York: Routledge.
• Das, B. (2018). Adivasi Identity and Livelihoods in Contemporary India, Economic and Political Weekly, 53(30), pp. 31—34.
• Das, B. (2016). Book Review of Madhu Ramnath’s Woodsmoke and Leafcups: Autobiographical Footnotes to the Anthropology of the Durwa in Summerhill: IIAS Review and Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences, Vol. XXII, No. 2, pp. 55—56.
• Das, B. (2012). Resisting Development, Theorising Resistance. Economic and Political Weekly, XLVII, No. 33, pp. 33-37.
• Das, B. and M. Bora. (2009). The Lalgarh Movement. Economic and Political Weekly, XLIV, Nos. 26 & 27, pp. 15—17.

• Examining Land Tenure and Resource Assemblages in Upland Central India. Association for Asian Studies AAS-in-Asia Conference, Delhi, 2018.
• Research-to-policy communication for agricultural development. Agriculture for Food Security (AgriFoSe 2030) Programme, Bangkok, Thailand, 2018.
• Adivasi Identity and Livelihoods in Contemporary India. Centre for North East Studies and Policy Research, Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi, 2018.
• State, Adivasis and Technologies of Government: Forest Villages in Central India. Ashoka University Environmental Studies Seminar, Sonepat, Haryana, 2017.
• Forest Tenure Reform: Ethnographic Insights from Upland Central India. Development Studies Association Conference, University of Bradford, United Kingdom, 2017.
• Marginal Lives: Adivasis and Forest Villages in Upland Central India. Penn State Asian Studies Summer Institute, Penn State University, USA, 2017.
• Social Impact Assessment: Opportunities and Challenges under RFCTLARR Act 2013. Council for Social Development, New Delhi, 2017.
• The Dilemmas of Implementing the Forest Rights Act in Upland Central India. Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, 2017.