Damayanti Banerjee

Current Research

Studies in social justice inform my current research interest in environmental inequality, environmental justice movements, natural resource management, globalization and environment, gendered understanding of environment and cultural studies of environment.  My focus on social justice primarily draws upon the political philosophical tradition of human rights theory.  My research focuses on both distributive analysis of social justice theory and the institutional framework of democracy-building.  

Drawing upon my theoretical interests in social justice and human rights, I am also involved in multiple research projects.  I am conducting research on questions of environmental health conflict among migrant laborers in the shipbreaking industry in India with particular emphasis on globalization, transfer of environmental waste, inequality in exposure to environmental hazards, and emerging environmental health crisis in the developing world.  I am also working on a project on the dilemmas of global conservation practices which often ignore local concerns for place and people.  In the course of this project, I examine the cultural politics of place and environment in a forest community in Land Between the Rivers in western Kentucky.  Finally, I am engaged in research on colonized discourses of conservation and management in the deltaic region called Sundarbans in eastern India with particular emphasis on tiger conservation practices in the region.

Recent and Forthcoming Publications

Banerjee, Damayanti. 2008. “Environmental Rights.” In Judith Blau, David Brunsma, Catherine Zimmer, and Alberto Moncada (eds.). The Leading Rogue State: The US and Human Rights. Paradigm Publishers.

Banerjee, Damayanti and Michael M. Bell. 2008. “Environmental Justice.” In Richard T. Schafer (ed.) Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Society. Sage Publications.

Banerjee, Damayanti and Michael M. Bell. 2007. “Ecogender: Constructing Gender in Environmental Social Sciences.” Society and Natural Resources. Volume 20 (1): 3-19.

Banerjee, Damayanti. 2007. “(Re)imagining the Local in Global Environmental Narratives: The Story of Between the Rivers.” In S. Dasgupta (ed). Understanding Global Environments. Pearson Publications.

Gasteyer, Stephen P., Cornelia B. Flora, Edith Fernandez-Baca, Damayanti Banerjee, Stacy Bastian, and Silvia Aleman, Margaret Kroma and Alison Mears. 2002. “Community Participation for Conservation and Development of Natural Resources: A Summary of Literature and Report of Research Finding.” Delta Development Journal. Vol 1 (2): p. 57-75.

Contact Information

Damayanti Banerjee
Assistant Professor
Ph.D. 2006, University of Wisconsin, Madison

The University of Tennessee
917 McClung Tower
Knoxville, TN 37996-0490

Email: dbanerj2@utk.edu