Department of Development Studies

Professor Jens Lerche

Key information

Roles
Department of Development Studies Emeritus Professor in Agrarian and Labour Studies Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute Food Studies Centre Member, SOAS Food Studies Centre Research Cluster Member Research Cluster Member Research Cluster Member
Qualifications
MA, PhD (Copenhagen)
Email address
jl2@soas.ac.uk
Telephone number
020 7898 4505

Biography

Jens has an MA and PhD in Social Geography from the University of Copenhagen, His research focuses on India. His research interests include the political economy of agrarian transformation, and class and caste relations in agrarian transition; the political economy of labour relations, unfree labour and rural labour migration; and struggles, movements and labour organisations; and the role of the ILO. Recent publications include the co-authored volume Ground Down by Growth. Tribe, Caste, Class, and Inequality in Twenty-First Century India; and articles on class, caste and social mobilisation, and on agrarian transition and agrarian crisis an Indian context,. He is editor of the Journal of Agrarian Change. His present research is on inequality and poverty of Dalits and Adivasis in India, funded by the ESRC and ERC.

 

Research interests

Jens has researched extensively in northern India since the early 1990s, with particular interests in agrarian change, caste and labour relations, including seasonal domestic labour migration. He has also undertaken many shorter field research visits to many other parts of India and in 2000-2002 he worked as Governance Advisor for the Great Lakes (Africa) region in the Department for International Development (DFID) of the UK government.

PhD Supervision

Name Title
Mr Prince Asafu-Adjaye Trade Union Responses to Neoliberalism in Ghana
Abhishek Bhosale Land For Emancipation: Development with Dignity and Dalit Land Struggle in India
Muhtar Habibi Agrarian Capitalism in Neoliberal Indonesia: Class, Production and Reproduction
Ms Roshni Menon Land-pooling for the ‘smart city’ of Amaravati, Andhra Pradesh:Inclusive development or land dispossession in a different guise?
Suraj Bhaskarrao Telange Coercion and Co-option: Strategies of Labour Control and Labour Survival in Indian E-commerce Warehouses in India
Emilianus Yakob Sese Tolo Agrarian Conflicts and Environmental Problems: Class, Productiom and Reproduction in Indonesia

Publications

Contact Jens