Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt, PhD (Burdwan)
Fellow, Resource Management in Asia-Pacific Program

Email: kuntala.lahiri-dutt@anu.edu.au

Biographical Statement

Kuntala is a Fellow in the Resource Management in Asia-Pacific Program, and is the Convenor of Graduate Studies. She is also the leader of Environment and Resource Management stream of research in Crawford School in the College of Asia and the Pacific, ANU. Kuntala convenes the gender specialisation in the Masters in Applied Anthropology and Participatory Development (MAAPD) and teaches courses on Exploring Gender and Development (ANTH 8038/39) in the first semester every year.

Research Interests

Women, gender and development; environmental sustainability; women's empowerment in relation to water and mining; communities' roles and livelihoods in natural resources, such as in large-scale and artisanal mining, and the water and sanitation sectors (see www.genderandwater.org; rspas.anu.edu.au/gwn; empoweringcommunities.anu.edu.au). Themes currently being researched include artisanal mining (asmasiapacific.org) and community based natural resource management.

Kuntala's research is primarily on South Asia, mainly India, but also Bangladesh and Indonesia. Doctoral candidates currently working with Kuntala are writing theses on gender and development, water resources management, illegal mining and sustainable mine closure.

Key Publications

• (with Robert Wasson) (eds) Water First: Issues and Challenges for Nations and Communities, New Delhi: Sage, 2008.
• (ed) Fluid Bonds: Views on Gender and Water, Calcutta: Stree, 2006.
• (with Martha Macintyre) (eds) Women Miners in Developing Countries: Pit Women and Others, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006.
• (with David Williams) Moving Pictures: Rickshaw Art of Bangladesh, Ahmedabad: Mapin Publishing House, 2010.
• (with Saraswati Raju) (eds) Doing Gender in Geography in India, Routledge (forthcoming).
• Lahiri-Dutt, Kuntala (ed) Gendering the Field: Towards Sustainable Livelihoods for Mining Communities, ANU E Press (forthcoming).
• (with Gopa Samanta) Like a Drifting Grain of Sand: Redefining Security and Vulnerability in Charlands, Lower Bengal, India (forthcoming).

Career Highlights

NASA Post-Doctoral Fellowship (1987); Consultant, International Atomic Energy Agency (2000); Career Award, University Grants Commission, India (1999-2002); Panos Institute, Oral Testimony Project of mining displaced indigenous people (2002); World Bank Study on Impacts of Mining on Women in Indonesia (2006); Communities and Small Mines Grants (2005 and 2006); ARC Linkage Project Creating Empowered Communities (2006–08).