Broadly, I study agrarian life-worlds in contemporary India. My research explores the intersection of rural aspirations, agrarian capitalism, and climate change in the global South.

My current book project, titled, The Monsoon and the Market: Economies of Risk in Rural India, explores lived experiences of uncertainty among farmers, and the moral and political economies of risk and responsibility emerging in the current moment. It asks how farmers, insurers, traders, and government officials engage - assess, avoid, capitalize on - the emerging and endemic risks of agriculture, and with what social and ecological effects. Based on 14 months of ethnographic fieldwork in the Malwa region of central India, this research traces the socio-material life of risk across five distinct sites: the monsoon rain, insurance claims, market speculation, groundwater extraction and caste distinction. Across these sites, this project connects global climate change and financial flows to the everyday aspirations and anxieties of rural communities.

You can follow me on Twitter @TanyaMatthan or contact me at t.r.matthan@lse.ac.uk