Arun Agrawal (born September 20, 1962) is a

political scientist Political science is the science, scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of politics, political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated c ...

and the Samuel Trask Dana Professor in the School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) at the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

. Agrawal is the coordinator for the International Forestry Resources and Institutions network and does research in Africa and South Asia. Agrawal was the editor-in-chief of the scholarly journal '' World Development'' from 2013-2021. Agrawal was a

Guggenheim Fellow Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

in 2011 and was elected to the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

in 2018.

Education

Arun Agrawal was born in Forbesganj,

Bihar, India Bihar (; ) is a states and union territories of India, state in eastern India. It is the list of states and union territories of India by population, 2nd largest state by population in 2019, list of states and union territories of India by are ...

, where he grew up in a middle-class family. Eventually he moved to

Patna Patna ( ), historically known as Pataliputra, is the capital and largest city of the state of Bihar in India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Patna had a population of 2.35 million, making it the 19th largest city in India. ...

to live with an aunt, so that he could attend a better school. Agrawal received his BA in History from the

University of Delhi Delhi University (DU), formally the University of Delhi, is a collegiate central university located in New Delhi, India. It was founded in 1922 by an Act of the Central Legislative Assembly and is recognized as an Institute of Eminence (IoE) ...

in 1983. He received an MBA in Development Administration and Public Policy from the

Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIM Ahmedabad) is the world's number 1 business school, located in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. The school has been accorded the status of an Institute of National Importance by Ministry of Human Resource ...

in 1985. Moving to the United States, he received his Ph.D. in political science from

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

in 1992. His Ph.D. work involved following Indian shepherds in the Himalayas to better understand how those communities managed commonly held resources.

Career

Agrawal has taught at the

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...

(1993-1996),

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

(1997-2002) and

McGill University McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter granted by King George IV,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill Universit ...

(2002-2003). In 2003, he began teaching at the

Ann Arbor Anne, alternatively spelled Ann, is a form of the Latin female given name Anna (name), Anna. This in turn is a representation of the Hebrew Hannah (given name), Hannah, which means 'favour' or 'grace'. Related names include Annie (given name), ...

, where he works on issues of environmental politics, governance, and sustainable development. In 2022, Agrawal was chosen to be a co-chair of the Transformative Change Assessment for the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). The Transformative Change Assessment will address "the underlying causes of

biodiversity loss Biodiversity loss includes the worldwide extinction of different species, as well as the local reduction or loss of species in a certain habitat, resulting in a loss of biological diversity. The latter phenomenon can be temporary or permanent, de ...

, the determinants of transformative change, and options for achieving the 2050 vision for biodiversity".

Publications

Agrawal's work has been published in journals such as ''

Science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

'', ''

Conservation Biology Conservation biology is the study of the conservation of nature and of Earth's biodiversity with the aim of protecting species, their habitats, and ecosystems from excessive rates of extinction and the erosion of biotic interactions. It is an int ...

'', '' World Development'', and ''

PNAS ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America'' (often abbreviated ''PNAS'' or ''PNAS USA'') is a peer-reviewed multidisciplinary scientific journal. It is the official journal of the National Academy of Scien ...

''. In a publication in ''

Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physics, physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomenon, phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. ...

'', Agrawal explores the positive side of disaster in his case study of a 1998 hurricane in

Honduras Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. The republic of Honduras is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Oce ...

. According to Agrawal, natural disasters like this set the stage for alternative social trajectories.

Books

Agrawal's best known book is ''Environmentality: Technologies of Government and the Making of Subjects'', published in 2005. Previously published books included ''Greener Pastures: Politics, Markets, and Community Among a Migrant Pastoral People,'' (1999) and ''Decentralization in Nepal: A Comparative Analysis'' (1998).

Reviews

*"Arun Agrawal (in ''Environmentality'') provides a most lucid account of the people-government- forest interplay in the 20th century Kumaon Himalayas in this book.... Arun Agrawal addresses these fascinating questions on the basis, not only of archival research, but significantly, on the strength of extensive long-term fieldwork."—The Hindu *"This book (''Environmentality'') aims to promote Arun Agrawal's own neologism - "environmentality" ... This book, too, has hidden its worthwhile arguments in thickets of verbal profusion, which make it hard to see the teak for the forest."--The Times Higher Education

Books edited

*2001: ''Agrarian Environments: Resources, Representations and Rule in India''. Duke University Press, Durham, *2001: ''Social Nature: Resources, Representations and Rule in India''. Oxford University Press, New Delhi, *2001: ''Communities and the Environment: Ethnicity, Gender, and the State in Community-Based Conservation''. Rutgers University Press, Piscataway, *2003: ''Regional Modernities: The Cultural Politics of Development in India''. Stanford University Press, Palo Alto,

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Agrawal, Arun 1962 births American political scientists Duke University Trinity College of Arts and Sciences alumni Environmental social scientists Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad alumni Indian political scientists Living people Delhi University alumni University of Michigan faculty Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences