Chetan Choithani
Chetan Choithani is Assistant Professor in Inequality and Human Development Programme of School of Social Sciences, National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS). Prior to his present employment at NIAS, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Urban Studies Institute of Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
Chetan obtained his PhD in Development Geography from the University of Sydney in 2016 as a recipient of Australian Government’s competitive Prime Minister Postgraduate Award. Before his PhD, he completed Master of Population Studies from the International Institute of Population Sciences, and Master of Arts in Globalisation and Labour from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences.
The broad disciplinary domain of Chetan’s work is development studies. Within this area, his research and teaching interests include migration and urbanization, food and nutrition, livelihoods, gender, and social policy and how they relate to development, particularly in the Indian context. He has published his work on these issues in peer-reviewed journals including World Development, Gender, Place and Culture, Geographical Research, Journal of Peasant Studies, and Economic and Political Weekly. Chetan has done extensive fieldwork in remote parts of India, and his research uses primary, field-based insights to engage with and inform larger issues of development.
Chetan has been involved in two major research projects. The first of these included Australian Research Council funded project on food security in India with colleagues from Australian and Indian academic institutions. The second project, funded by Dutch National Science Foundation, looked at urbanisation and development linkages at the lower echelons of India’s urban hierarchy, at rural-urban transition zones, and lives and livelihoods at these transition places with colleagues from University of Amsterdam and Georgia State University.
At NIAS, Chetan is currently working on research that looks at inequality, migration and development linkages in India, with a focus on those who are left behind.
Books
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Pritchard, Bill , Anu Rammohan, Madhushree Sekher, S Parasuraman, and Chetan Choithani. 2014. Feeding India: livelihoods, entitlements and capabilities. Oxon : Earthscan (Routledge).
Journal Articles
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Choithani, Chetan , Robbin Jan van Duijne, and Jan Nijman. 2021. “Changing livelihoods at India’s rural–urban transition”. World Development 146(105617). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2021.105617.
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Choithani, Chetan . 2020. “Gendered livelihoods: migrating men, left behind women and household food security in India”. Gender, Place and Culture 27(10): 1373-1394.
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van Duijne, Robbin Jan, Chetan Choithani, and Karin Pfeffer. 2020. “New urban geographies of West Bengal, East India”. Journal of Maps 16 (1 ): 172-183. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17445647.2020.1819899.
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Choithani, Chetan . 2017. “Understanding the linkages between migration and household food security in India”. Geographical Research 55 (2 ): 192-205.
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Pritchard, Bill , Jane Dixon, Elizabeth Hull, and Chetan Choithani. 2016. “Stepping back and moving in’: the role of the state in the contemporary food regime”. Journal of Peasant Studies 43(3 ): 693-710.
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Choithani, Chetan , and Bill Pritchard. 2015. “Assessing Bihar’s coupons-based Public Distribution System: importance of local context”. Economic and Political Weekly 50 (3 ): 61-68.
Migration narrative in India (with Reshma Roshania), talk delivered in undergraduate seminar course on ‘Narrating Migration’ of Department of Media, Culture and Communication, New York University – Steinhardt School (November 4, 2020).
Exploring India’s emergent urban formations: case studies of West Bengal and Bihar (with Jan Nijman and Robbin Jan van Duijne), talks at Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta (September 03, 2019), and Indian Institute of Technology, Patna (September 04, 2019).
Migration, food security and development, talk delivered as part of Urban Studies Institute Speaker Series, Georgia State University (September 06, 2018).
Food and nutrition security: a global perspective, lecture delivered for the students of Master in International Public Health, University of Sydney, Australia, 2014.
Right to food: an unfinished agenda, lecture delivered for the students of Master in International Human Rights, University of Sydney, Australia, 2013.
- Choithani, C., and Roshania, R. (2020). ‘Why do we treat internal migrants differently from international migrants?’, published in The Wire on May 28, 2020.
- Choithani, C. (2020). ‘What happens to the wives of male migrant workers, who run entire households in villages?’, published in The Wire on April 01, 2020.
- Choithani, C (2018). ‘Why India needs to urgently worry about migration caused by climate change’, published in Business Standard on June 25, 2018.
- Choithani, C (2018). ‘How will India respond to internal climate migration?’, published in The Wire on June 24, 2018.
- Choithani, C., and Pritchard, B. (2015). ‘The significance of local power structures in Bihar’s coupon-based PDS’, published in Ideas for India on August 17, 2015.
- Pritchard, B., and Choithani, C. (2015). ‘PDS and political power in Bihar’, published in Livemint on August 17, 2015.
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Pritchard, B., and Choithani, C. (2014). ‘Hunger games: changing targets and politics of global nutrition’, published in The Conversation on September 26, 2014.