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Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) (University of Delhi)

D.Phil. (University of Oxford);

M.Phil., M.A. (Jawaharlal Nehru University)

Dr. Aparna Agarwal

Assistant Professor

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ORCID ID 0009-0000-3227-7483
Key Expertise Urban Political Ecology, Waste Studies, Anti-Caste Studies, Politics in India

Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) (University of Delhi)

D.Phil. (University of Oxford);

M.Phil., M.A. (Jawaharlal Nehru University)

Biography

Aparna Agarwal is an Assistant Professor at the School of Government and Public Policy, O.P. Jindal Global University in Sonipat. She completed her D.Phil. from the Department of International Development, University of Oxford. She is currently working on her book monograph examining geographies of waste, the ongoing waste crisis, and the changing social dynamics among sanitation and waste workers in Delhi. 

Her research interests lie in the fields of urban sociology, waste studies, labour studies, anti-caste studies, political ecology, and Indian politics. Aparna’s postdoctoral research will focus on perceptions of the environment around waste sites in Delhi. 

Social Movements in India

Dissertation Writing

Qualitative Research Methods

Urban Natures

Swiss Government Excellence Postdoctoral Fellow, University Of Lausanne, 2024-2025

The Last of Frontline Workers: The Growing Precarity among Sanitation and Waste Workers during Covid- 19 in Governing the Crisis:Covid-19 and Narratives from the Margin ed. Rahul Ranjan (London: Routledge, 2025)

The Visibility and Invisibility of Caste(d) Waste Management Infrastructures in Delhi. 2025. Economic and Political Weekly. (Accepted)

The Making and On-going Death of Bhalswa Landfill in Delhi, Contemporary South Asia (Accepted)

Article in The Environment History Now, 18 February 2022— “Understanding Waste Beyond Management: Understanding Waste Crisis at the Intersection of Human and Non-Human World” https://envhistnow.com/2022/02/18/waste-beyond-management-understanding-the- waste- crisis- at-the-intersection-of-the-human-and-non-human-world/

Article in The Wire, 6 August 2020— “The Many Lives and Meanings of Waste” https://thewire.in/urban/the-many-lives-and-meanings-of-waste

Article in The Wire, 6 April 2020— “The Murky Underbelly of Sanitation during the Pandemic” https://thewire.in/rights/lockdown-delhi-ragpickers-sanitation-workers

Book review of S Baviskar, D.W Attwood; ‘Inside-Outside: Two Views of Social Change in Rural India’, Social Change: Journal of the Council for Social Development, Sage Publication. 2017 (DOI: 10.1177/004908571666)

Book review of P.C Joshi’s book; ‘Marxism as Scientific Enterprise’, Social Change: Journal of the Council for Social Development, Sage Publications, 2016 (DOI: 10.1177/0049085715618582).
ORCID ID 0009-0000-3227-7483
Key Expertise Urban Political Ecology, Waste Studies, Anti-Caste Studies, Politics in India
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