Rate My Professor Souvik Chakraborty

Dr. Souvik Lal Chakraborty is a multidisciplinary academic whose research intersects anthropology, sociology, and human geography. He serves as a Lecturer in Human Geography within the Faculty of Arts at Monash University and as a Sessional Academic in the Department of Management. Additionally, he has held the position of Course Director and Program Director for the Master of International Development Practice. In 2022, he completed his PhD in Human Geography at Monash University, where his dissertation examined the geographies of social movements and conflicts over resource extraction, with a particular focus on Indigenous communities in India's Niyamgiri Mountains. This work earned him the Institute of Australian Geographers' Award for Dissertation Excellence in July 2023. His academic journey includes a Master's degree in Democratic Governance and Civil Society from the University of Osnabrück, Germany, obtained as a DAAD Public Policy and Good Governance Scholar in 2014, and a BA in Political Science from Jadavpur University, supported by a Government of India Scholarship in 2009. During his PhD, he was awarded the Monash Graduate Scholarship and Monash International Tuition Scholarship in 2018.

Souvik's research and teaching center on nature-society relationships, specifically the politics of mining and resource extraction, intersections of indigenous geographies and political ecology, contentious politics, and critical development studies. His key publications include "The Niyamgiri Movement and the Failure to Implement Alternative Visions of Development" (2022, Australian Outlook), a review of "Living with Oil and Coal: Resource Politics and Militarization in Northeast India" (2020), "Resisting Dispossession: The Odisha Story" (2020, Social Movement Studies), and "Political Strategies and Social Movements in Latin America" (2020). Over the past decade, he has worked as a student, researcher, and educator across India, Germany, and Australia, contributing to NGOs and activist organizations. His doctoral research has led to invitations for publications and public lectures, underscoring his influence in the field of political ecology and social movement studies.