HARPREET KAUR BHULLAR
PhD Student
Email: harpreet.bhullar@u.nus.edu
Research Title: The Great Indian Struggle for Clean Energy Transition: A Critical Ethnography and Participatory Research with Land-Dependent Communities Affected by Large-Scale Renewable Energy Projects in India
Research Group: Politics, Economies and Space (PEAS)
Thesis Advisor: Prof Petra Tschakert (NUS) & Dr Kriti Kapila (King’s India Institute, KCL)
India’s energy transition trajectory is deeply intertwined with contestations over colonially defined ‘wasteland’, its ownership and the recognition of land-dependent communities as its traditional custodians. Small and marginal farming and pastoral communities are forced to give up their customary rights over these ecologically rich tracts of ‘wasteland’ so that private developers can set up solar and wind energy generation plants. My doctoral research aims to study the intergenerational knowledge and wisdom about land and ecology resting within these communities and at risk of complete erasure due to the resultant land-use shifts.
Drawing on theoretical perspectives in spatial justice, political ecology, and decolonial studies, the research explores how traditional knowledge systems and practices can inform just transition processes and bring epistemic justice to the communities affected by renewable energy generation projects in Western India. A critical ethnography and participatory research design seeks to reinstitute the agency, power and voice of this historically marginalised community within the academic discourse on just transitions.
Harpreet holds double Master’s degrees in English and Social Work from the University of Delhi and Tata Institute of Social Sciences in India, respectively. She has over 14 years of development sector experience, with the last five years focused on evidence generation and leading programmes on climate justice across India, Indonesia and EMEA.