pathway: Area and Development Studies

My research explores the power dynamics driving deforestation in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), focusing on multinational timber corporations and their impact on local communities. Using a Global Value Chain framework, I will analyse how the Congolese timber commodity chains are structured to enables state and market actors to profit from deforestation. By examining the global-local interactions, conducting fieldwork in Kinshasa and Mai-Ndombe, and engaging with diverse stakeholders, I aim to uncover the political, and economic forces fuelling deforestation, thereby contributing to a greater understanding of the global timber industries operations in the DRC.

My proposed research will look at the dynamics of caste hierarchy in a new sub-national state in southern India, Telangana.

Through this study I am to  contribute to the understanding of caste inequalities, contemporary politics of secession and state formation, and the consequences of such politics for social struggles and policies for Dalits.

Following 15 years of professional experience in the international child protection sector,  I have seen first-hand how children alive today, and particularly children in the Global South or those facing adversity, are struggling to cope in a world characterized by economic, political, social and ecological instability as a result of Covid-19, conflict and climate collapse. Faced with these systemic disruptions, calls around the decolonization of aid are gaining ground, focused around dismantling historic systems of oppression, exclusion and ‘white saviour’ mentality that have permeated the international development sector since its inception. My research sets out to explore, using participatory methods with children, the implications of the decolonisation of aid for international child protection actors, with a specific focus on how understandings of violence against children evolve through the encounter with the ‘slow violence’ of climate collapse.

My research will explore how norms impact adolescent girls’ menstrual health in Nepal and identify how these norms can be addressed. The research will sit within the broader ‘Menstrual Justice in Low- and Middle-Income Countries’ (MeJARa) project and will include primary data collection and analysis conducted in collaboration with the Center for Research on Environment, Health and Population Activities in Nepal.
The following questions will guide the research:
1. What influences norms and beliefs regarding menstruation in Nepal?
2. How do menstrual norms and beliefs affect adolescent girls’ menstrual experiences?
3. How can the Nepali government support menstrual health?

The last decade has witnessed a concentrated Israeli strategy to increase the financial inclusion of its two million Palestinian citizens. Policies implemented as part of this strategy include the doubling of granted mortgages and increasing access to credit and microcredit loans through newly established funds. Official documents discursively frame financial inclusion as a means of elevating the socio-economic status of Palestinian Citizens Israel (PCI) and weaken the role of organised Palestinian criminal institutions.

In this research project I will inquire into the Israeli state’s financial inclusion strategies and policies targeting PCI, to understand their history, character and implications for the Palestinian housing sector and class formations, as well as their relationship to the ongoing practices of Israeli settler-colonialism.

My research adopts participatory methods to investigate how Palestinian women engage in resistance and how they perceive settler colonial violence and acts of resistance to impact their mental health. In understanding the intersections between resistance, settler colonial violence and mental health from the perspectives of Palestinian women, my research challenges Western, biomedical notions of mental health and, instead, centre resistance and Indigenous sovereignty as central tenants to the attainment of wellbeing.

Pakistan has made pledge of clean energy transition (CET) targeting (i) 60% share of renewable energy, 30% of electricity vehicles, doubling energy efficiency, 50% reduction in projected emissions by 2030 (ii) electricity market transformation from “Single Buyer” to “Multiple Buyers Wholesale Market” to promote efficiency in electricity delivery services. Being energy sector practitioner, under my research project, I will endeavour to address multifaceted macro-economic, market compatibility, grid infrastructure, socioeconomic, institutional, and regulatory challenges which may hinder implementation of pledge and come up with suitable combination of policies, regulatory incentive frameworks and technological interventions for successful implementation of CET in Pakistan.

I aim to explore the functioning of the family reunification process for married couples where one spouse is a Palestinian residing in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the other spouse is a foreign national. The state of Israel, as an occupying power, governs the process of family reunifications. In Jerusalem, it is possible, yet difficult, to obtain a family reunification where the foreign spouse obtains a residency status. In the West Bank, foreign spouses can only obtain temporary spouse visas. In both cases, the state of Israel creates a legal border between Palestinian and foreign spouses, aiming at preventing foreign spouses from living in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Moving away from Western / Eurocentric perspectives and focusing on Afrocentric death perspectives. My PhD research aims to draw to the mainstream; foster  understanding of Afrocentric perspectives on death, funerary rituals, and practices; their role within multi-cultural structures in shaping social cultural attitudes; policy, and regulations within the dominant discourse in the UK. I argue that Western narratives and models of theorising death matters have pigeonholed Afrocentric deaths, grief, bereavement  and losses in the UK. The gap in academic literature  has perpetuated power, authority, and marginalization by creating homogenized attitudes towards migrant communities  in death matters in the UK.

George’s most recent blog piece can be found here.