Fraser Sugden joined the CNSUK in 2014 as a Research Fellow. He is a social science researcher specializing in the political economy of agriculture and water management. His specific research interests include the impact of farm size, landlord-tenant relations, and migration on agrarian change and irrigation uptake. Other interests include the intersection between climate change, gender and class relations, as well as opportunities for equitable adaptation and collective action. With the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) he has worked extensively in the eastern Gangetic plains, with a focus on the Nepal Tarai and Bihar, and is also engaged in research in Nepal’s eastern and far-western hills. He was previously a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Stirling where he worked for a cross country project (HighARCS) on highland aquatic resources and livelihoods in upland regions of India, Vietnam and China. His PhD in Geography was completed from the University of Edinburgh, focusing on agrarian transition and land relations in the Nepal Tarai.
PhD Geography, Thesis title: Agrarian Change and Pre-capitalist Reproduction on the Nepal Terai, University of Edinburgh
Political economy; Agrarian Change; Migration; Climate change vulnerability; Irrigation management; Marxist theory
Sugden, F. 2014. Landlordism, tenants and the groundwater sector: Lessons from Terai-Madhesh of Nepal. IWMI Research Report 162
Sugden, F, Maskey, N, Clement, F, Ramesh, V, Philip, A, & Rai, A. 2014. Agrarian stress and climate change in the Eastern Gangetic plains: Gendered vulnerability in a stratified social formation. Global Environmental Change. 29. 258-269
Sugden, F. Shrestha, L. Bharati, L. Gurung, P., Maharjan, L. Janmaat, J., Price, J., Sherpa, T., Bhattarai, U., Koirala, S. Timilsina, Basu. (2014). Climate change, out-migration and agrarian stress: The potential for upscaling small-scale water storage in Nepal. IWMI Research Report 159
Sugden, F. and Punch, S. 2014. The Challenges and Benefits of Employing a Mobile Research Fellow to Facilitate Team Work on a Large, Interdisciplinary, Multi-sited Project. Research in Comparative and International Education. Special issue: Methodological Issues in Intercultural, International and Comparative Research. 9 (4). 441-453
de Haan, N., and Sugden, F. 2014. Social Inclusion. In van der Bliek, J., McCorknick, P., and Clark, J. (eds) On target for people and planet: Setting and achieving water-related Sustainable Development Goals. International Water Management Institute (IWMI), Colombo
Sugden, F., de Silva, S., Clement, F., Maskey, N., Ramesh, V., Philip, A., Bharati, L. A Framework to Understand Gender and Structural Vulnerability to Climate Change in the Ganges Basin: Lessons from Bangladesh, India and Nepal. IWMI Working Paper 159.
Sugden, F and Punch, S. 2013. Capitalist expansion over common property ecosystems: Lessons from China, Vietnam and India. Development and Change, 45 (4), 656–684
McCornick, P., Smakhtin, V., Bharati, L., Johnston, R., McCartney, M., Sugden, F., Clement, F., McIntyre, B. 2013. Tackling change: Future-proofing water, agriculture, and food security in an era of climate Uncertainty. International Water Management Institute (IWMI), Colombo
Punch, S and Sugden, F. 2013. Work, education and out-migration among children and youth in upland Asia: changing patterns of labour and ecological knowledge in an era of globalization. Local Environments. 18 (3), 255-270(16)
Sugden, F., 2013, Pre-capitalist reproduction on the Nepal Terai: Semi-feudal agriculture in an era of globalisation, Journal of Contemporary Asia. 43 (3), 519-545
Sugden, F. And Gurung, G. 2012. Absentee landlordism and agrarian stagnation in Nepal: A case from the Eastern Tarai. Nepal Institute of Development Studies, Kathmandu
Sugden, F., 2011, Mapping the trajectory of Nepal’s transition, New Angle: Nepal Journal of Social Science and Public Policy. 1 (1), 1-16.
Sugden, F., 2009, Neo-liberalism, markets and class structures on the Nepali lowlands: The political economy of agrarian change, Geoforum, 40 (634–644)