Vasna Ramasar

Biography

I am currently a Senior Lecturer in the Division of Human Ecology, Department of Human Geography and a Research affiliate at the Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies (LUCSUS) in Sweden. I am also the Programme Director for the Culture, Power and Sustainability internaitonal Masters. I was born and raised in South Africa, a dynamic country, where I learnt important lessons of freedoms, people’s roles in nature and about inequality. I have 10 years research, consulting and teaching experience across southern and eastern Africa, Asia, Europe and north America.  In the past, my work has focused on water governance, environmental assessment and policy, HIV/AIDS and the environment and sustainability but being a generalist at heart, I am most interested trying to understand the big picture of how people and planetary dynamics come together and the complexity of these interactions. I do so to support a resistance to the unsustainable hegemonic system and the creation of radical alternatives.

Current Research

My work is framed within the broad field of political ecology and I seek to bring an interdisciplinary perspective to questions of development and sustainability. I have recently focused my research on the politics of scale within development and environmental governance in the areas of the energy crisis, health and the environment and water governance. I am also interested in feminist and decolonail approaches to environment and development.

My currently funded research is focused on social and environmental justice looking at just transitions and alternatives to development. Funded projects look at women's resistance to extractivism (PI); workers as agents of change (researcher); and navigating justice claims in the energy transition (co-PI).

Networks

I approach research with a view to having a societal impact. I am a core group member of the Global Tapestry of Alternatives and the Post-Development Academic-Activist Group, PEDAGOG. I also facilitate Adelante: a dialogue of global process for systemic change and am on the steering group for Women Against Destructive Extractivism in Africa (WoMin). I am also a founding member of the Collective Against Environmental Racism and a coordinator of the Anticolonial Academy, a network at Lund University.  I am a research fellow of the Earth System Governance project and a member of the conceptual taskforces on Planetary Justice and ESG Teaching. I was a fellow of the Swedish Institute for Global Health Transformations and am the chair of the South Africa-Sweden University Forum theme on social transformations. I am often invited to speak publicly on several environmental and social justice issues.

Key areas of expertise

• Environmental and social justice and human rights
• Decolonial alternatives to development
• Development and sustainability
• Politics of sustainability
• Environmental governance
• Energy transition
• Water politics and governance
• Feminist  and decolonial research methods
• Environmental assessment and management
• Health and the environment
• Environmental policy
• Project management

My PhD research focused on the political economy of water and how cross-scalar interactions influence inequitable water allocations.

See my thesis

Teaching

I teach, supervise and examine students at undergraduate, Masters and doctoral levels in courses covering environmental governance, development and sustainability, health, theory of science, and sustainability science. I also have a particular interest in qualitative research methods education, research ethics and theory of science - particularly a feminist and decolonial approach to knowledge. I have been the Director of studies for the Lund University Masters in International Development and am currently the Programme Manager for the Culture, Power and Sustainability Masters programme in Human Ecology. I have supervised and examined over fifty Masters students in Human Ecology and Environmental Management and Sustainability Science.