Dr Shreya Sinha

Profile

I am a political economist studying agricultural value chains and commodity markets, rural labour relations and ecological dimensions of agrarian change. My work is focused on India, while being in conversation with other regions of the Global South, and is deeply historically informed. I have wide-ranging experience in intensive independent and collaborative field research in India.

I have a PhD in Development Studies from SOAS University of London, an MA in Development Studies from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, and a Bachelor’s in History from St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi. I did my postdoctoral research at the Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, and have previously taught at the University of Reading, Cambridge, SOAS and LSE. I am currently one of the Associate Editors of the Journal of Agrarian Change. 

Teaching

Postgraduate

BUS7032P Global Supply Chain Management (Semester B) (Module Organizer)

 

Undergraduate

BUS4017U Corporate Strategy and Social Justice (Teaching Team)

I also teach a workshop on 'Navigating Fieldwork' as part of the PhD training pathways at Queen Mary Business School and have supervised several undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations in business management.

I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy/Advance HE.

Research

Research Interests:

My research interests include debates in agrarian political economy, political ecology, political economy of development and economic geography, with a regional focus on India. More specifically, my recent and ongoing works are focused across the following inter-related areas:   

• Agricultural commodity markets and value chains;
• Agrarian capital and links with non-agricultural sectors;
• Labour regimes;
• Ecological contexts of agricultural production.

 

Centre and Group Membership

• Co-Director, Centre on Labour Sustainability and Global Production (CLaSP) 
• Member, QMUL South Asia Forum

Publications 

Journal Articles

• Sinha, S. 2024. ‘Shifting agrarian labour regimes, ecology, and the crisis for Dalit women’s work in India’, Journal of Economic Geography, lbae047, https://doi.org/10.1093/jeg/lbae047
• Sinha, S., Narain, N. and Bhanjdeo, A. 2022. ‘Building back better? Resilience as wellbeing for rural migrant households in Bihar, India’, World Development, 159, 106031 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2022.106031
• Mehta. S. and Sinha, S. 2022. ‘The Rise and Fall of Agrarian Populism in Post-colonial India: Farmers’ Movements and Electoral Politics at Crossroads’, Sociological Bulletin, 71(4), 601-618 https://doi.org/10.1177/00380229221116944
• Pratheepa, Rengalakshmi, R, Sinha, S. 2022. ‘The socio-ecological contradictions of land degradation and coastal agriculture in south India’, Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 6(1), 391-411 https://doi.org/10.1177/25148486221079720 
• Sinha, S. 2022. ‘From cotton to paddy: Political crops in the Indian Punjab’, Geoforum, 130, 146-154 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2021.05.017 
• Pattenden, J, Campling, L, Castañón Ballivián, E, Gras, C, Lerche, J, O’Laughlin, B, Pérez-Niño, H, Sinha, S.  2021. ‘Introduction: Covid-19 and the Conditions and Struggles of Agrarian Classes of Labour’, Journal of Agrarian Change, 21(3), 582-590 https://doi.org/10.1111/joac.12440 
• Sinha, S. 2021. ‘Revisiting agrarian questions of capital: Examining diversification by capitalist farmers in Punjab, India’, Third World Quarterly, 42(4), 699-716 https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2021.1873762 
• Sinha, S. 2020. ‘Betting on potatoes: Accumulation in times of agrarian crisis in Punjab, India’, Development and Change, 51(6), 1533-1554 https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.12589 
• Sinha, S. 2020. ‘The Politics of Markets: Farmer-trader relations under neoliberalism in Punjab, India’, Journal of Agrarian Change, 20(2), 255-269 https://doi.org/10.1111/joac.12346 
• Sinha, S. 2019. ‘Is the Aspirational Districts Programme Merely A Political Device?’, Economic and Political Weekly, 54(3) https://www.epw.in/engage/article/is-the-aspirational-districts-programme-merely-a-political-device-development 

Book Chapters 

• Sinha, S. 2026 (Forthcoming). ‘Contract Farming in South Asia’, in Caroline Hambloch, Niels Fold, Sudha Narayanan, Mark Vicol (ed.) Routledge Handbook of Contract Farming and Development, Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003513674-36
• Sinha, S. 2024. ‘Punjab’s Mandis, Agrarian Life and the Farmers’ Protest’, in Christine Moline and David Singh (ed.) The Indian Farmers’ Protest of 2020-21, Routledge.
• Sinha, S. and Vira, B. 2021. ‘The Rural Non-Farm Economy in India Revisited: From Rural Industrialization to Rural Entrepreneurs’, in Murat Arsel, Anirban Dasgupta and Servaas Storm (ed.) Reclaiming Development Studies: Essays for Ashwani Saith, Anthem Press.

Book reviews 

• Sinha, S. (Forthcoming). Review of ‘A History of India’s Green Revolution: Reign of Technocracy, by Prakash Kumar’, Agricultural History Review.
• Sinha, S. 2016. ‘Review of ‘Mapping India's Capitalism: Old and New Regions’, edited by Elisabetta Basile, Barbara Harriss-White and Christine Lutringer, and ‘Middle India and Urban–Rural Development: Four Decades of Change’, edited by Barbara Harriss-White’. Journal of Agrarian Change 16 (3), 507-511 https://doi.org/10.1111/joac.12157 

 
Other publications (selected) 

• Sinha, S. 2024. ‘In Punjab’s Grain Mandis, the Afterlife of the Farm Protests is Playing Out’, The India Forum https://www.theindiaforum.in/public-policy/punjabs-grain-mandis-afterlife-farm-protests-playing-out
• Sinha, S. 2023. 'Crisis in the Bread Basket', Phenomenal World (Republished in Himal Southasian) https://www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/crisis-in-the-bread-basket/
• Bhogal, S. and Sinha, S.  2021. ‘India protests: farmers could switch to more climate-resilient crops – but they have been given no incentive’, The Conversation https://theconversation.com/india-protests-farmers-could-switch-to-more-climate-resilient-crops-but-they-have-been-given-no-incentive-154700 
• Sinha, S. 2020. ‘In Punjab, the centrality of the mandi system’, Hindustan Times https://www.hindustantimes.com/analysis/in-punjab-the-centrality-of-the-mandi-system/story-V1QIJJuShlfDIRiaE7ukQJ.html 
• Sinha, S. 2020. ‘The Agrarian Crisis in Punjab and the Making of the Anti-Farm Law Protests’, The India Forum https://www.theindiaforum.in/article/agrarian-crisis-punjab-and-making-anti-farm-law-protests (republished in Developing Economics)

 

 

Supervision

Co-supervisor:

• Laura Maghețiu, Queen Mary Business School: A Comparative Study of Voluntary Carbon Offsetting Markets and the Forestry Sectors of Romania and Uruguay
• Alec Fiorini, Queen Mary Business School: The Fertilizer Frontier: Capital, Nitrogen, and Sovereignty in the Mediterranean Basin
• Rebecca Bricchi, Queen Mary Business School: Gendered Labour Regimes in Darjeeling Tea Plantations, India

 

Second Supervisor:

• Ramu Avala, Department of Geography QMUL: Caste, Capital, and the Contested Geographies of Coastal- Development

Public Engagement

I have been interviewed by media organizations such as BBC Radio, CarbonBrief and Business Insider, and have written for popular platforms such as The Conversation, on my areas of research expertise, among various other forms of public engagement. 

I am an editor of the Journal of Agrarian Change: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/14710366

I am also an Affiliate of Hughes Hall, University of Cambridge.