Nithya Natarajan

Dr Nithya Natarajan is a Lecturer in International Development. Her work focuses on South India and Cambodia, and explores agrarian change, rural-urban livelihoods, labour precarity, gender and debt.

She completed an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)-funded PhD at SOAS, University of London, and a postdoctoral research position at Royal Holloway as part of the ESRC-Department for International Development (DfID)-funded ‘Blood Bricks’ research project.

Nithya is a co-investigator on the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF)-funded project ‘Depleted by debt? Focusing a gendered lens on climate, credit and nutrition in translocal Cambodia and South India.’

Her work features in a range of journal articles, book chapters and edited volumes. She has also engaged with policy and activist outputs in disseminating her research, notably in Open Democracy, through a Home Affairs Select Committee submission regarding the UK Modern Slavery Act. Additionally, she is part of a team working to submit a petition to the United Nations Business and Human Rights Working Group with regard to her work on the Cambodian construction sector.

She also has extensive teaching experience, having taught in the Development Studies and Politics and International Studies departments at SOAS, University of London and in the Department of Geography, King’s College London prior to joining in the Department of International Development.