Latest UpdatesFor SSP Registration Link 2025, Click here

Dr. Soundarya Iyer

Associate Professor, School of Liberal Arts and Sciences

About

Dr. Soundarya Iyer is an Assistant Professor at RV University, Bangalore and Associated Researcher at the French Institute of Pondicherry, India. She is interested in interdisciplinary approaches to the study of agrarian change, climate change, gender, and livelihoods in India. She was the Sir Ratan Tata Post-Doctoral Fellow 2018-19 at the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK. She was a post-doctoral fellow at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements, Bangalore in the IDRC funded climate change project on Adaptation at Scale in Semi-arid Regions (ASSAR). She is currently Principal Investigator on a collaborative project with Prof. Nitya Rao funded by the Azim Premji University Research Funding Programme – 2019 which aims to understand the sociology of the decline in female labour force participation in rural Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

Dr. Iyer defended her doctoral dissertation in 2017 from Manipal University, for which she worked at the National Institute of Advanced Studies in Bangalore. Her doctoral dissertation traced the processes of rural transformation in three villages of Karnataka using mixed methods such as household surveys and semi-structured interviews.

“A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his own image.” - Joan Didion

    Journal Publications

  • Iyer, S. and Rao, N. (2024) Inclusion or Exclusion?: Gendered experiences and strategies of migrants in informal settlements in Bengaluru. Indian Journal of Human Development. 18 (1). DOI: 10.1177/09737030241238821
  • Iyer, S. and Rao, N. (2022) Skills to Stay: Social processes in agricultural skill acquisition in rural Karnataka. Third World Quarterly. DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2022.2132929
  • Iyer, S. and Kunale, B. P. (2022) Karnataka Land Reforms 2020: What is in it for Dalits? Area Development and Policy. DOI: 10.1080/23792949.2022.2129703
  • Iyer, S.; Srinivasan, S. and Rao, N. (2022) Women’s work participation in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu: A Review of the Literature. Economic and Political Weekly. 57 (7): 23-27. https://www.epw.in/journal/2022/7/commentary/womens-work-participation-rural-karnataka-and.html
  • Singh, C.; Iyer, S.; New, M. G.; Few, R.; Kuchimanchi, B.; Segnon, A. C. and Morchain, D. (2021) Interrogating ‘effectiveness’ in climate change adaptation: 11 guiding principles for adaptation research and practice, Climate and Development, 14 (7): 650-664. DOI: 10.1080/17565529.2021.1964937
  • Singh, C.; Solomon, D.; Bendapudi, R.; Kuchimanchi, B.; Iyer, S. and Bazaz, A. (2019) What shapes vulnerability and risk management in semi-arid India? Moving towards an agenda of sustainable adaptation. Environmental Development. 30: 35-50. DOI: 10.1016/j.envdev.2019.04.007
  • Iyer, S. (2017) Circular Migration and Localized Urbanization in Rural India. Environment and Urbanization ASIA 8 (1): 105-119. DOI: 10.1177/0975425316683866
  • Pani, N. and Iyer, S. (2015) Towards a Framework to Determine Backwardness: Caste, Inequality and Reservations in India. Journal of South Asian Development. 10 (1): 48-72. DOI: 10.1177/0973174114567349

    • Other Publications

  • Book review: Mukherji, P. N., Jayaram, N. and Ghosh, B. N. (eds.) 2019: Understanding Social Dynamics in South Asia: Essays in Memory of Ramkrishna Mukherjee. Progress in Development Studies. 21 (3): 321-322.
  • Book review: Ellison, S. H. 2018: Domesticating Democracy: The Politics of Conflict Resolution in Bolivia. Progress in Development Studies. 19 (4): 329-330.

Agrarian studies

Gender and development

Sustainable livelihoods

Climate and development

  • Sir Ratan Tata Fellowship 2018-19

    London School of Economics and Political Science, UK

  • Principal Investigator of a three-year research grant from the Azim Premji University Research Funding Programme

    2019 with Prof. Nitya Rao, University of East Anglia, UK for the project titled ‘Understanding the Sociology of Declining Rural Female Labour Force Participation Rate in India’ from November 2019 - October 2022.

  • Awarded the Small Opportunities Grant under the ASSAR project

    funded by START International, Inc., for a research exchange to work with Prof. Nitya Rao, University of East Anglia, in 2018 on a project on migrant workers in Bangalore.

Associate Professor, School of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Ph.D., National Institute of Advanced Studies (Manipal University)