Culture and Heritage

Professor Ghosh is a human geographer who examines sustainability challenges across postcolonial geographies amidst rapid climatic changes, employing indigenous knowledge systems and environmental heritage. He has been an academic researcher and teacher for over a decade at the universities of Leicester (UK), Heidelberg and Leuphana (Germany), Sussex (UK), Colorado-Boulder (USA), Calcutta, and Jindal Global (India). Additionally, he has been associated with institutions such as WWF-India, the Centre for Science and Environment, and UNDRR. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, UK, representing the global gold teaching standard.

Before transitioning to academia full-time in 2012, he had a distinguished 12-year career in journalism. During this period, he worked with leading media houses in India, the UK, and Tanzania, including The Times of India, Hindustan Times, The Guardian, and the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Professor Ghosh has 25 years of experience spanning research, teaching, policy advocacy, and journalism and has been recognised with prestigious global awards such as the Chevening Scholarship (UK-FCO), DAAD Guest Scientist Grant (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst), and the Asian Journalism Awards, among others.

Professor Ghosh's research identifies newer socioecological risks, develops polycentric resilience and resistance, uncovers unsustainable spatial transformations, ecosystem degradation and its impact on humans and nonhumans, deconstructs knowledge hegemonies in global sustainability governance, and decolonises the understanding of sustainable development. He is particularly interested in uncovering and understanding traditional environmental knowledge and human-nonhuman–more-than-human interactions to develop a place- and evidence-based, localised sustainability governance.

Professor Ghosh's current research projects and plans concern uncovering more empirical evidence and challenging dominant, hegemonic ideas that continue to shape the existing sustainability processes (such as the SDGs) and climate action. This will inform theoretical recalibration from a decolonial perspective and help repoliticise these into a more just, equitable, and inclusive regime required for addressing the existential crisis that the Anthropocene is threatening to culminate into.

For example, Professor Ghosh recently examined the interaction of climate change impacts, neoliberal ecosystem and institutional adaptation governance to uncover how it produced critical public health challenges for women and children (2024), which are invisible and obscured. This important contribution to the scholarship is now a part of the reading lists of prestigious institutions. Before this, he examined how global sustainability rhetoric marginalised vulnerable communities (2020), how climate change impacts laid bare coercive ecosystem conservation practices (2021), and how despite technological advancement, significant knowledge-action gaps plagued DRR efforts and undermined long-term community resilience (2023).

Book/ Monograph

• Ghosh, A.(2018). Sustainability conflicts in Coastal India: Hazards, changing climate and development discourse in Indian Sundarbans. Springer ISBN: 978-3319638911, https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-63892-8

Edited Book / Single Editor

• Ghosh, A. (Ed.). (2020). The tides of life: Surviving between the margins – An anthology on the Sundarbans. Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), Ministry of Culture, Government of India. ISBN: 978-81-942224-1-5

Journal articles & book chapters

2024

• Ghosh, A., and Dutta, K. (2024). Health threats of climate change: From intersectional analysis to justice-based radicalism. Ecology and Society, 29(2), Article 15. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-14045-290215
• Sen, A., Mukherjee, J., Ghosh, A., and Fickert, T. (2024). For, of, and by the community: Critical place-based reflections on mangroves regeneration in the Indian Sundarbans. Community Development Journal. https://doi.org/10.1093/cdj/bsae066
• Mukherjee, J., Sen, A., Lahiri-Dutt, K., and Ghosh, A. (2024). Towards transformative social resilience: Charting a path with climate-vulnerable communities in the Indian Sundarbans. M. Lobo, E. Mayes, and L. Bedford (Eds.), Planetary justice (pp. 178–196). Bristol University Press. https://bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/edcollchap-oa/book/9781529235319/ch010.xml

2023

• Ghosh, A., Sen, A., and Frietsch, M. M. (2023). What is a 'very severe cyclone' please? Uncovering knowledge and communication gaps in climate resilience realities: Lessons from Indian Sundarbans. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 84, 103499. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2022.103499

2021

• Ghosh, A., Sen, A., Dutta, K., and Ghosh, P. (2021). Falling “fortresses”: Unlocking governance entanglements and shifting knowledge paradigms to counter climate change threats in biodiversity conservation. Environmental Management. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-021-01552-0

2020

• Ghosh, A. (2020). Deconstructing a 2-year long transdisciplinary sustainability project in Northern universities: Is rhetorical nobility obscuring procedural and political discords? Sustain Sci, 15, 1111–1127. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-020-00816-8
• Samimi, C., Ghosh, A., and Fickert, T. (2020). Die tropischen Zyklone Idai und Fani im Jahr 2019. Geographische Rundschau, 72(4), 34–37.
• Ghosh, A. (2020). Disastrous delta: Daily struggles against nature in Indian Sundarbans. A. Ghosh (Ed.), Tides of life: Surviving between the margins (pp. 29–36). Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA). ISBN: 978-81-942224-1-5

2019

• Ghosh, A., and Boyd, E. (2019). Unlocking knowledge-policy action gaps in disaster-recovery-risk governance cycle: A governmentality approach. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 39, 101236. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2019.101236

2018

• Ghosh, A., and Boykoff, M. (2018). Framing sustainability and climate change: Interrogating discourses in vernacular and English-language media in Sundarbans, India. Geoforum, 98, 106–115. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2018.11.014
• Ghosh, P., and Ghosh, A. (2018). Is ecotourism a panacea? Political ecology perspectives from the Sundarban Biosphere Reserve, India. GeoJournal, 84(5), 1157–1178. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-018-9862-7

2016

• Gibson, T. D., Pelling, M., Ghosh, A., Matyas, D., Siddiqi, A., Solecki, W., Johnson, L., Kenney, C., Johnston, D., and Du Plessis, R. (2016). Pathways for transformation: Disaster risk management to enhance resilience to extreme events. Journal of Extreme Events, 3(4), Article 1671002.

2015

• Ghosh, A., Schmidt, S., Fickert, T., and Nüsser, M. (2015). The Indian Sundarban mangrove forests: History, utilization, conservation strategies and local perception. Diversity, 7(2), 149–169. https://doi.org/10.3390/d7020149
• Boyd, E., Ghosh, A., and Boykoff, M. T. (2015). Climate change adaptation in Mumbai, India. In The urban climate challenge: Rethinking the role of cities in the global climate regime (p. 139). Routledge.

2013

• Boyd, E., and Ghosh, A. (2013). Innovations for enabling urban climate governance: Evidence from Mumbai. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, 31(5), 926–945.
• Boykoff, M., Ghosh, A., and Venkateswaran, K. (2013). Media coverage of discourse on adaptation. In S. C. Moser and M. T. Boykoff (Eds.), Successful adaptation to climate change: Linking science and policy in a rapidly changing world (Chapter 14, pp. 237–252). Routledge.

Policy documents:

• Ghosh, A., in Pelling, Mark (eds.). 2014. Pathways for Transformation: Disaster risk management to enhance development goals. UNISDR Background Paper prepared for the 2015 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction. Geneva, Switzerland
• Ghosh, A. (2012). Living with Changing Climate. Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi, India

SELECT MEDIA EDITORIALS and OP-EDS

• The Wire 2025 and ABP 2025: The Year We Crossed 1.5°C – and Political Forces Decided to Make It Worse
• ABP - 2021: How COPs will Continue to Fail until the 'Rich' are held Responsible for Emissions, which Heads of States will never do.
• The Wire - 2020: Invisible Disasters Left in the Wake of the Visible Storm: Wrecked by lockdown, humiliated by obscurity, betrayed by disaster relief, five million people in the Indian Sundarbans struggle to survive the dual onslaught of Cyclone Amphan and COVID-19
• ABP - 2020: Destruction of the Environment and its Links with COVID-19
• Asia House - 2015: ‘Knowledge’ can be Bengal’s Magic Wand
• Asia House - 2014: All Layers of Indian Society are Engaged in the 2014 Elections
• Down to Earth - 2011: Bonn to Bust: Climate Politics and Annual UNFCCC Meeting

Select Media Articles: Thematic Research

Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation: A series of articles on the socioecological, economic, cultural impacts of climate change in the eastern and western India.

• The Wire 2020: Invisible Disasters Left in the Wake of the Visible Storm

TRF[1] 2015

• Climate Pressures Lead to Rise in ‘New-age Orphans’ in India Delta
• Everyday Disasters' Driving Flight from Sundarbans

(Comprised winning entries for TRF to Asian Journalism award 2015)

NYT[2] 2015

• Lured by Marriage promises, Climate Victims Fall into Trafficking

TRF 2013

• Poor planning, climate shifts devastating india's sundarbans
• india's grid expansion erodes island solar scheme
• indian islanders seek jobs, husbands outside sinking sundarbans

(Comprised winning entries for TRF to Asian Journalism award 2013)

HT[3] 2010

• Toxic seas, empty nets: impact of climate change and pollution on commercial fish stock in the Arabian sea and how it is affecting the lives of fisher folk around the megacity of Mumbai
• Changing climate costs crop insurers dearly
• The Sunshine Industry: How weather forecast emerges as a business opportunity for private enterprises in the time of climate change

A series of investigative and research-based reports on shifting rivers (Ganges and Padma), shifting borders between India and Bangladesh, erasing identities, disrupting millions of lives, creating conflicts.

TOI[4] 2000-2004

• A series of grounded, investigative articles on the river hydrology, dams, spatial and temporal impacts of this interaction
• How lives of communities in both sides of the river and international border are being disrupted and enforcing outmigration as well as human trafficking
• Floods and land erosion along the Ganges and Padma leading to a humanitarian crisis
• Eroding rivers erode identities
• Politics over newly emerged land or charlands
• Cross border pollution in between India and Bangladesh
• Internal displacement of hundreds of thousands because of erosion

Commercial Surrogacy and its Social Implication

A series of articles on social implications of assisted reproductive technology that helped outsource human birth. The stigmas, exploitations, opportunities, business, rights, medico-legal challenges comprised a long and continued saga.

TOI & HT 2002-2007

• From humiliation and shame to glory and pride

Story of India’s first and world’s second test tube baby and her creator, Dr Subhash Mukherjee, who committed suicide, unable to face the humiliation of non-recognition. Between 1978 and 2000, there was a continued arduous struggle by a fellow scientist to reinstate Dr Mukherjee and his team as the creator of the first IVF child in India, who was only a few months younger than the world’s first test tube human child. A series of investigative stories which was an exhilarating example of investigative science journalism. It led to a change in official records and reinstating Dr Mukherjee as the pioneer.

The Guardian 2008

• The fertility tourist in India

HT 2006-2008

• Wombs on hire in the cradle of the world: Childless couples from all over the world flock Anand, south-east Gujarat to rent wombs
• Adopting an embryo from India and delivering in the UK: How an unregulated market developed with the help of technology
• The first case of posthumous artificial insemination in India (broke the story that became a sensation to both the politics and society)
• Business of privately owned human sperm banks, sperm couriers, egg banks, embryo banks
• A flourishing fertility tourism industry in Mumbai
• The first IVF child of India and her journey

Aids Orphans and Widows: Stories of Marginalisation

A series of investigative and research-based inquiry into the state of India’s AIDS orphans and widows in the hinterlands of Western India.

HT 2007

• How orphans and widows in the villages languished in absence of any state or social support
• A public health crisis that redefined the role of grandparents
• Life in an HIV/AIDS orphanage – surreal marginality
• Property the biggest driver behind artificially constructing stigma

Biodiversity Conservation

A series of investigative and research-based articles on challenges to biodiversity conservation in Eastern and Western India

The Guardian 2007

• A women saved seeds of rice varieties from extinction

TOI 2000-2004

• Challenges of Tigers census in the mangroves of Sundarbans
• Technological tools and statistical modelling in the Sundarbans for prey base and tiger estimation
• Human-animal conflict in the Sundarbans
• Conflicts between the state and the local people on conservation
• Tackling stray elephants and human-elephant conflicts in east-central India
• Ecosystem boundaries and conservation challenges in Bhitarkanika mangroves

HT 2007-2009

• Importance of saving non-charismatic fauna for sustainability
• Wildlife crimes and its impact – from allegator skins to poaching
• Deforestation in Western India at an alarming rate
• Urban leopards and the megacity: Human-leopard conflicts in Mumbai
• Human-elephant conflicts in Western India and its drivers
• Stray dogs – fox conflict resulting in death of the latter and loss of their habitat around wildlife sanctuaries, leading to imbalance in the ecosystem
• How non-charismatic fauna Great Indian Bustard became almost extinct
• Poaching of corals, zooplankton and phytoplankton a serious but invisible concern even within the conservation discourse
• Poaching of star turtles, another uncharismatic fauna, puts them in the endangered list

Resource Conservation

Extensively researched about conserving natural resources such as water and its equitable distribution, pollution of different kinds and resource scarcity

The Guardian 2007

• How a man, almost single-handedly, revived traditional knowledge of water harvesting and converted a dry, arid region into a green, fertile land
• Reverse gear: Nano, world’s cheapest car, can be a pollution nightmare

SciDevNet 2011

• A roof, a tank and rain: All it takes is a roof, a gutter and a tank to lift the poor out of drudgery. But is it that simple?

HT 2007-2009

• Saving up for a dry day: Rainwater harvesting in Mumbai
• E-Waste chokes the city of Mumbai and how
• Flipside of the real estate boom: Construction waste assumes menacing proportions in Mumbai
• Pollution haven in the form for shipbreaking: Largest toxic ship breaking yard at Alang, Gujarat, and its environmental implications.

Health and Development Nexus

Numerous investigations into the healthcare system in India, especially in the rural areas and in the state healthcare. Also critically examined the private healthcare industry and commercialisation of health leading to inequity and injustice.

HT 2006-2009

• Increasing real estate price led to a spike in HIV/AIDS infection in Mumbai. A fascinating, once-in-a-lifetime investigation that revealed demolition of brothels in some of prime locations led to greater vulnerability and poor protection of sex workers
• India becoming a hub of global clinical trial market – a detailed investigation that identified the risks and opportunities
• Bird flu epidemic in India and how it was affecting poultry farmers in Western India
• Development of indigenous vaccines for Swine Flu
• How medical code of ethics was violated by private healthcare industry, the legal loopholes and an ethical nightmare
• Mental health ailments resulting from city driving conditions in drivers of public transportation and trains

TOI 2000-2004

• Audit of rural healthcare and what ails the system. These stories were finally revisited by the media during the COVID crisis in India
• How maintaining a mere cold chain for immunisation was a major challenge for doctors on duty
• Immunisation drives and their challenges in rural India
• Biomedical waste and its impact on the city of Kolkata
• Antibiotic overuse and its impact on public health – a research feature
• Arsenic poisoning through vegetables grown in areas with groundwater contamination

[1] Thomson Reuters Foundation

[2] New York Times

[3] Hindustan Times

[4] The Times of India