Dr Amrita Lamba

Dr Amrita Lamba is a postdoctoral researcher on the EU funded project in understanding migration governance, and agricultural and rural change across Europe, Asia and Africa. Her main tasks are related to the qualitative comparative analysis process in the project. Her research has focused on the analysis of inclusive governance, particularly in natural resources and urban development in Brazil, South Africa and India. She has conducted extensive fieldwork in these countries, including the Inkomati basin and the Bushbuckridge region in South Africa; and the Jaguaribe basin, Ceará and the Verde para Sempre extractive reserve in the Brazilian Amazon. More recently she led a pilot study on urban change in Bangalore, India

Her PhD at SOAS tested the practical adequacy of an analytical framework for inclusive governance through comparative analyses of natural resources governance processes in Brazil and South Africa. The study also developed and tested the practicality of a method for qualitative comparative analysis grounded in critical realist ontology. Her other major areas of interest include innovations in institutional design, forced migration, poverty alleviation, adaptation and climate change. 

As a Bartlett research fellow at the Institute for Global Prosperity and the Institute for Sustainable Resources, University College London, Amrita’s work examined the interconnections between healthy built environment, resources nexus and urban governance through comparison across cities in developing countries. She was a Senior Teaching Fellow in the Department of Development Studies, SOAS, where she convened a course on natural resources and development. She has also been a Graduate Teaching Assistant in the theory, policy and practice of development and the political ecology of development. Previously, she has worked as a consultant for the World Bank and the UNDP. She received her MA and MPhil in Political Science from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and she holds a BA (Honours) in Political Science from Lady Shri Ram College at the University of Delhi.