Sharma, Aviram |India | IFZ | Interdisziplinäres Forschungszentrum für Technik, Arbeit und Kultur

Aviram Sharma is an Assistant Professor at the School of Ecology and Environment Studies, Nalanda University, India. He completed his Ph.D. from the Centre for Studies in Science Policy, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India. His doctoral work analysed the regulation making for bottled water quality standards in India. Before joining NU, he worked in different capacities with STEPS (Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability) Centre, University of Sussex, UK and Jawaharlal Nehru University, India during October 2014 to July 2015. He was a visiting research scholar at the Centre for Research in Economic Sociology and Innovation (CRESI), Department of Sociology, University of Essex, United Kingdom (UK) during June-July 2011. His research primarily employs an inter-disciplinary approach, and lies on the interface of science and technology studies, environmental studies, public understanding of science, and heterodox economics.

Project at IAS-STS: Changing Irrigation Practices and Emerging Sustainability Challenges in Southern Bihar, India: A Dialogue between Policy and Practice

“Sustainability” discourse over natural resources use has drawn attention of academicians, policy makers, civil society and other social groups over the last two decades. However, the theories of “sustainability” debated and formulated at international and national levels rarely engage with the “context” or “place” where the idea is practiced or otherwise.

This research work engages with sustainability challenges emerging due to changing agricultural pattern, specifically irrigation practices (shift from surface based indigenous system to canal based irrigation and more recent dependence on ground water) in South Bihar, India. It tries to problematise the “science based” “expert” led understanding of “sustainability” that is pushed through policy discourses at national and international fora and attempts to situate the ideas of “sustainability” in the ground realities of socio-economic transformation happening at local and regional level. It specifically attempts to understand, that how “sustainability” related challenges and issues are “framed” and understood by different actors (primarily, farmers and labourers at the grassroots level and policy makers and academicians at the international and national level).

The research work employs an interdisciplinary approach, drawing conceptual framework from Science and Technology Studies, Environmental Studies and Public Understanding of Science. It is based on extensive review of secondary literature, government reports and individual interviews in selected (ten) villages in two different blocks of Gaya district of Bihar, India. The research work argues for incorporation of public understanding of environmental phenomenons in regional and national policies and advocate for continuous dialogue between the local and global actors on issues of “sustainable” use of natural resources. Situating the debate on “sustainability” in specific geographical, ecological, socio-political and socio-technological realities is crucial for understanding ‘new’ agronomic knowledge produced at the margins, which can feed into the larger policy debates.

Selected Publications

Sharma, A & Harvey, M. 2015, “Divided Delhi: Bricolage Economies and Sustainability Crises”, in Mark Harvey, Drinking Water: A Socio-economic Analysis of Historical and Societal Variation, Routledge, London, UK.

Sharma, A. (2015). Sustainable and Socially Inclusive Development of Urban Water Provisioning: A Case of Patna. Environment and Urbanization Asia, 6(1), 28-40.

Bhaduri, S., Sharma, A., & Talat, N. (2015). Growth of Water Purification Technologies in the Era of ‘Regulatory Vacuum’ in India. Current Science, 108(8), 1421.

Bhaduri, S., & Sharma, A. (2014). Public Understanding of Participation in Regulatory Decision-Making: The Case of Bottled Water Quality Standards in India. Public Understanding of Science, 23(4), 472-488.

Sharma, A., & Bhaduri, S. (2013). Consumption Conundrum of Bottled Water in India: An STS Perspective. Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 33(5-6), 172-181.