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Dr. Sudheesh R C

Assistant Professor, Social Science

and

Co-Director, Academic Support Centre

Phone Extension: 508 | Direct Number: 080-23010508

Teaching

Academic Programmes

5-Year B.A., LL.B. (Hons.)

B.A. (Hons.)

Courses

Mar 2025

Jul 2024

Mar 2024

Nov 2023

July 2023

Education

  • DPhil in International Development, University of Oxford
  • MSc. in Social Policy and Development, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)
  • 5-Year integrated MA in Development Studies, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras

Profile

Sudheesh’s work spans the state, land, social policy, agrarian change and theories of development.

Sudheesh’s research explores the tension between demands for cultivable land and responses of the welfare state. Through an ethnographic study of land distribution measures taken up in response to Adivasi land struggles in Kerala, he has examined the specific citizen-state relationship that develops in such contexts. His research also tracks how long-term human intrusions into the environment have impacted the health of marginalised communities on the Western Ghats.

Prior to joining NLSIU, he was an Assistant Professor at the School of Development, Azim Premji University, Bengaluru, where he taught courses on the state, land and qualitative research methods. Earlier, he worked as a research assistant with the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation in New Delhi, where he supported knowledge exchange on decentralisation among policymakers and practitioners in South and Southeast Asia.

Sudheesh received the Clarendon scholarship at Oxford, the Titmuss Prize for Outstanding Performance and a full scholarship at LSE, and the Dr Dilip Veeraraghavan Memorial Award for the Best Academic Record in development Studies at IIT Madras.

Research Interests

  • The State
  • Land
  • Welfare and wellbeing
  • Agrarian change
  • The Idea of development
  • Planetary health
  • Political Ecology

Projects

The project combines archival and ethnographic methods and tries to understand what planetary health means for the lives of the most marginalised, resource-dependent communities and for the more-than-human actors they interact with on the Western Ghats. The investigation probes fundamental questions like what historical accountability for ecological destruction means, how ‘urgency’ gets framed in disaster management’ efforts, and why historically informed ethnography matters for climate research.

Publications

Journal articles

Book Chapters

Other publications

Book Reviews

Reports