A Feminist Lens on Forests and Fields: A Conversation with Bina Agarwal

Bina Agarwal is Professor of Development Economics and Environment at the Global Development Institute, University of Manchester, UK. She was earlier Director and Professor, Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi, India, where she is still affiliated.

She has been President, International Society for Ecological Economics; President, International Association for Feminist Economics; Vice-President, International Economic Association; and held distinguished visiting positions at Harvard, Princeton, and Cambridge, among other universities. Agarwal’s books and academic papers cover diverse subjects in agriculture, environmental change, land rights and law, especially from a gender and political economy perspective. Her writings on gender inequality in property and on environmental governance have had global impact. Among her notable books are the award-winning, A Field of One’s Own (CUP, 1994); Gender and Green Governance (OUP, 2010); and Gender Challenges (OUP, 2016), a three volume compendium of her selected papers. 

In 2005 she also led a successful civil society campaign to make the Hindu Inheritance law gender equal. Agarwal’s many awards include a Padma Shri in 2008, from the President of India; three book prizes; the 2010 Leontief Prize, USA for ‘advancing the frontiers of economic thought’; the 2017 Louis Malassis International Scientist Prize, France, for “a distinguished career in agricultural economics”; the International Balzan Prize 2017 “for challenging established premises in economics and the social sciences by using an innovative gender perspective”; the Kenneth Boulding award in Ecological Economics 2023; and the first Global Inequality Research Award, 2024, France.