Writing nature, culture, and conscious change
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Biographical Sketch
Seema’s work spans over three decades of engagement at the interface of societies, ecosystems and development. Geographically and people wise, it spreads across small family farms situated in the peri urban zones, the vast production landscapes and in the forest peripheries. Her career evolved from that of an agricultural field officer to an empirical researcher, to a conceptual explorer, eventually moving towards action research and advocacy. Seema worked with academic institutions for 25 years and the rest with voluntary agencies, consultancy entities, and a state line agency. At her two recent workplaces -Azim Premji University and Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, she integrated concepts and lived realities in teaching and action research.
A bachelor’s degree (1982−86) from Kerala Agricultural University provided her with a multi-disciplinary base that kindled a strong aptitude towards economics, agrarian social relations and ecology. Leaving a position with Government of Kerala, she then pursued Master's in Agricultural Economics and published her dissertation on the economic impact of industrial pollution on farmers. This study trained Seema’s interest towards Environmental Economics, then a newly emerging field. In 1990, while working at the Institute of Economic Growth Delhi, she secured a Ford Foundation scholarship to join the Environmental Economics programme at University College London. Thus began her long journey with the concept and practice of sustainability.
Seema’s journey as an environmental economist became visible in 1991, through a global scale economic valuation of tropical forests, co-authored with Prof. David Pearce. This pioneering work led to a decade long involvement in water and forest related issues in various parts of India. Later, her doctoral thesis on the economics of tribal land use applied Environmental Economics to study adivasi communities of southern India. This was the beginning of her involvement with the rights and livelihoods of indigenous communities.
Seema’s empirical work and engagement with the discourse on sustainable development, and her association with networks like SANDEE (South Asian Network for Development and Environmental Economics), BRICS Initiative on Critical Agrarian Studies, Network on Rural and Agrarian Studies, and the Global Land Initiative of The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) has been infusing social-institutional, distributional, educational and political dimensions of sustainability in her work.
Seema’s interdisciplinary academic orientation was instrumental in consolidating her attention towards Ecological Economics. She has been active in the Indian Society for Ecological Economics (INSEE) for over two decades now, holding various responsibilities including the Presidency from 2024 to 2026. She is an active member of the leadership board of the Global Alliance for Inter and Transdisciplinarity (ITD).
Long engagement with field realities in India and familiarity with related contexts in other parts of the Global South, collaboration with various academic networks, international organisations, the Indian voluntary sector as well as constant conversations with small farmer communities continue to catalyse and reinforce the action researcher cum real time educator in Seema.
