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Subarna De predominantly conducts research on the transformations of the environment and society, focusing on bioregionalism and indigeneity. Her research is situated at the interface of cultural anthropology, human geography, environmental history, and the environmental humanities. At Ideate Design Studio, where she is a research associate, she applies bioregional research to work on field-based environmental, architectural, and conservation practices. She has taught Indian and English literature, bioregional studies, green studies, and academic writing at Mazoon College, Oman (Affiliated to Purdue University, Northwest, US), and Madras Christian College, India. Her doctoral thesis, funded by the Central University Doctoral Fellowship (India), focused on the environmental history and ecological practices of Indian coffee plantations and was supported with a research stay at Queen’s University, UK. In her current project, she focuses on postcolonial environmental discourses of indigenous communities in India using mixed methods, including archival research, fieldwork, interviews, literary texts, and qualitative ethnographic data for bioregional analysis.
RCC Research Project: Reinhabiting Kodagu: Coffee, Ecology, and Indigenous Knowledge
Selected Publications:
- “Kodagu Walking Trails and Indigenous Heritage Making: A Bioregional Study.” Pathways: Exploring the Routes of a Movement Heritage, edited by Daniel Svensson, Katarina Saltzman, and Sverker Sörlin. London: White Horse Press, 2022, pp. 221–239. DOI: 10.3197/63787710662654.ch11.
- “The Taste of Place: Food, Ecology, and Culture in Kodagu.” In Anthropocene Ecologies of Food: Notes from the Global South, edited by Simon C. Estok, S. Susan Deborah, and Rayson K. Alex. New York: Routledge, 2022, pp. 36–56. DOI: 10.4324/9781003282976-4.
- “Sensing Landscape: From Ethnographic Walks to Heritage Making”. Environmental History Now. 7 April 2022. https://envhistnow.com/?p=9716&preview=1&_ppp=9904e90de9