Aparna Parikh is a feminist urban geographer whose work focuses on gendered dimensions of urban environmental belonging in South Asian cities. Her ongoing research in Mumbai examines how a multi-faceted view of climate — in its ecological, political, social, and linguistic registers — can provide important insights about life-making amidst rapid urban development and environmental change. She emphasizes indigenous fisherwomen’s understanding of climate in dialogue with environmental conceptions undergirding Mumbai’s climate action plan and ongoing social movements to demonstrate limitations and inequities imbued in existing, top-down visions of climate change mitigation, and offers a heuristic to formulate more just and sustainable urban futures.
She is also the co-convener of the South Asian Urban Climates collective, an international and interdisciplinary community of scholars, educators, artists, grassroots actors, and other practitioners looking closely and critically at the intersections of climate, politics, and urbanism in South Asia: https://www.southasianurbanclimates.com/