Re-Cycling Class: The environmental politics of Bangalore’s new middle classes
My dissertation, Re-Cycling Class: The Cultural and Environmental Politics of the New Middle Classes of Bangalore, India, evaluates how middle class-led initiatives to promote sustainable waste management and transportation systems affect Bangalore’s poor and working classes. Using a participatory and community-based research approach, I worked with neighborhood associations, waste-engaged non-governmental organizations, labor groups, and municipal officials to understand the conditions under which waste management and transportation systems can be made more environmentally sustainable, while also enhancing the livelihoods and experiences of Bangalore’s working poor.
More broadly, my research, teaching and service are driven by my desire to understand the conditions under which, we, as a global society, can address issues of equity and social justice, while transitioning to more ecologically-sustainable futures. My time at ESPM has expanded and transformed my thinking on environmental issues and I am deeply grateful to my dissertation committee, ESPM faculty, and students for all their guidance and support over the years. I am also very fortunate to have worked with a number of exceptional undergraduate students at Berkeley, as a GSI and as a Berkeley Connect Fellow. Their enthusiasm, energy and engagement have enlivened my PhD experience and reaffirmed my commitment to a career as a teacher-scholar. After graduation, I will continue working on research questions that lie at the intersection of sustainability and social justice as an Assistant Professor in the Justice, Community and Leadership program at Saint Mary’s College of California.