The library staff of the ISS has compiled this web dossier to coincide with the awarding of an Honorary Doctorate to Professor Bina Agarwal on the occasion of the 55th Dies Natalis (2007) of the Institute of Social Studies.

This is followed by a selection of books, and articles and chapters, available in the ISS library. Many titles are linked directly to the corresponding record in the library's catalogue, which provides further details and, in many cases, a content page and an abstract. Full-text links are provided where available. Please note that for some full-text links have restricted access. A selection of titles which are not available online or in the ISS library is also presented.

The dossier concludes with some web resources.

 

In 2011, Bina Argawal was also awarded an Honorary doctorate from the University of Antwerp. She was awarded the Honorary doctorate 'for her eminent and internationally highly valued contribution to the development of theoretical insights in the area of gender, environment and development, and for the translation of these socially relevant insights into national and international policy'.

• Introduction
• Profile and CV
• Bibliography
  • books available in the ISS library
  • articles and chapters available in the ISS library
  • publications not available in the ISS library
• Web resources

 

Introduction

By Ben White:

On 18 October 2007, on the occasion of its 55th Dies Natalis, the Institute of Social Studies will award Professor Bina Agarwal an honorary doctorate. Bina Agarwal (Professor of Economics at the Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi University) is an economist with a keen interest in interdisciplinary and inter-country explorations. Her academic work has made major contributions in many key areas of the interdisciplinary field of development studies, including land, livelihoods and property rights; gender theory and political economy; environment and development; and agriculture, technological change and rural transformation. Her academic achievement is combined with active engagement in policy debates and campaigns, most notably in the recent successful campaign for reforming India’s inheritance laws in which she played a leading role.

In particular, her award-winning book A Field of One’s Own: Gender and Land Rights in South Asia (1994) has had major impact on government policy, NGO thinking and international donor agency approaches to issues of gender and land rights. More than a decade later, and after four reprintings, it remains a landmark reference for scholars and activists concerned with women’s land rights in all parts of the world, and has inspired similar work in other regions. Probably no single scholar has done more than Bina Agarwal to put women’s land and property rights on development policy agendas.

Following the award of the Honorary Doctorate, on 19 October a short workshop Gender and Land Rights in Context: An Inter-Continental Conversation has been organized in honour of Bina Agarwal (see: workshop background and programme).

Bibliography

Books available at ISS library:

Capabilities, Freedom and Equality: Amartya Sen’s Work from a Gender Perspective / ed. by Bina Agarwal, Jane Humphries, Ingrid Robeyns. - Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2006.

Psychology, Rationality and Economic Behaviour: Challenging Standard Assumptions / ed. by Bina Agarwal and Alessandro Vercelli.- London: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2005.

A Field of One's Own: Gender and Land Rights in South Asia / Bina Agarwal. - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Women's work in the world economy / ed. by Nancy Folbre, Barbara Bergmann, Bina Agarwal and Maria Floro / N. FOLBRE. - Basingstoke : Macmillan, in assoc. with the International Economic Association (IEA), 1993.

Women, Poverty and Ideology in Asia: Contradictory Pressures, Uneasy Resolutions / ed. by Haleh Afshar and Bina Agarwal. - Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1989.

Structures of patriarchy : state, community and household in modernising Asia / ed. by Bina Agarwal .London: Zed Books, 1988.

Cold Hearths and Barren Slopes: The Woodfuel Crisis in the Third World / Bina Agarwal. London: Zed Books, 1986 (repr. 1988).

Articles and chapters

“Gender Inequality, Cooperation and Environmental Sustainability”, paper presented at a workshop on “Inequality, Collective Action and Environmental Sustainability”, Working Paper 02-10-058, Santa Fe Institute, New Mexico, November 2002; also in an edited volume (eds. J-M Baland, S. Bowles, P. Bardhan), Princeton University Press, 2006.
Full-text link

“Marital Violence, Human Development and Women’s Property Status in India” (coauthored with Pradeep Panda), World Development, May 2005.
Full-text link

“Children’s Welfare and Mother’s Property”, special panel in The State of the World’s Children Report, UNICEF, New York, 2005 (pp. 24-31).
Full-text link

“Feminist Economics as a Challenge to Mainstream Economics”, IAFFE Newsletter, 14(3): 1-6 (October 2004).
Full-text link

“Challenging Mainstream Economics: Effectiveness, Relevance and Responsibility”, IAFFE Newsletter special edition, 14(3) (October 2004).
Full-text link

“Women Land Rights and the Trap of Neo-Conservatism: A Response to Jackson”, Journal of Agrarian Change 3(4), 2003.
Full-text link (restricted access)

“Gender and Land Rights Revisited: Exploring New Prospects via the State, Family and Market”, Journal of Agrarian Change 3(1&2) 2003.
Full-text link

“The Hidden Side of Group Behaviour: A Gender Analysis of Community Forestry Groups in South Asia”,
Ch. 9 in: J. Heyer, F. Stewart, and R. Thorp (eds), Group Behaviour and Development, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002.

“Economics and Other Social Sciences: An Inevitable Divide?” in Contributions to Indian Sociology 35(3), 2002.

“Disinherited Peasants, Disadvantaged Workers: A Gender Perspective on Land and Livelihood”, in Thorner, A. (ed), Land, Labour and Rights: The Daniel Thorner Lectures, Delhi: Tulika, 2002.

“Are We Not Peasants Too? Land Rights and Women’s Claims in India”, SEEDS volume (New York: Population Council, 2002). Also published in Hindi and Gujarati.
Full-text link

“ ‘Bargaining’ and Legal Change: Gender Equality and Inheritance Laws in India”, Discussion Paper No. 165, October 2002, Institute of Development Studies (Sussex).
Full-text link

“Environment: South Asia”. Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women (4 vols), Routledge: New York, 2000.

“Conceptualizing Environmental Collective Action: Why Gender Matters”, Cambridge Journal of Economics 24(3), May 2000.
Full-text link (restricted access)

“Participatory Exclusions, Community Forestry and Gender: An Analysis and Conceptual Framework”, World Development 29(10): 1623–1648 (2001).
Full-text link

“Environmental Management, Equity, and Ecofeminism: Debating India's Experience”, Journal of Peasant Studies 25(4), July 1998.
Also in: Feminism and Race / ed. Kum-Kum Bhavnani. Oxford University Press, New York, 2001.

“Bargaining and Gender Relations: Within and Beyond the Household”, Feminist Economics 3(1): 1-51, Spring 1997. (Spanish translation in Historia Agraria, No. 17: 13-58.)
Full-text link
Also published as ch. 21 in: Gender and Development: Theoretical, Empirical and Practical Approaches, L. Beneria & S. Bisnath (eds), Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2001.

“Group Functioning and Community Forestry in South Asia: A Gender Analysis and Conceptual Framework”, UNU/WIDER, Working Paper No. 172, Helsinki: WIDER, 2000.
Full-text link

1999 “Women's Legal Rights in Agricultural Land in India”, Economic and Political Weekly, March 1995.
Also in: Sites of Change, N. Rao, L. Rurup, R. Sudarshan (eds), Delhi: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, 1996;
and published as a booklet “Gender and legal rights in landed property in India”, Delhi: Kali for Women, 1999.

“Widows vs Daughters or Widows as Daughters: Property, Land and Economic Security in Rural India”, Modern Asian Studies 1 (Part I), 1998.
Also in: Widows in India, M. Chen (ed.), Delhi: Sage Publishers, 1998.

“The Gender and Environment Debate: Lessons from India”, Feminist Studies 18(1), 1992.
Full-text link
Translated into Spanish and German (for edited volumes).
Also published as ch. 4 in: Population and Environment: Rethinking the Debate, L. Arizpe, M.P. Stone, D. Major (eds), Colorado: Westview Press, 1994;
and, as ch. 10 in: Political Ecology: Global and Local, D. Bell et al. (eds) , London: Routledge, London, 1998.

“Environmental Action, Gender Equity, and Women's Participation”, Development and Change 28(1), Jan. 1997.
full-text link (restricted access)
A different version of this paper has also appeared as follows: “Gender Perspectives in Environmental Action: Issues of Equity, Agency and Participation”, in Transitions, Environments and Translations, J. Scott and C. Kaplan (eds), London: Routledge, 1997.

“Gender, Environment and Poverty Interlinks: Regional Variations and Temporal Shifts in Rural India: 1971-1991”, World Development 25(1), Jan. 1997.
Full-text link (restricted access)

Longer version appeared as: “Gender, Environment and Poverty Interlinks in Rural India: Regional Variations and Temporal Shifts, 1971-1991”, UNRISD (Geneva), Discussion Paper, April 1995.
Full-text link

“Editorial: Resounding the Alert: Gender, Resources and Community Action”, World Development 25(9), 1997.
full-text link (restricted access)

“Gender and Command Over Property: A Critical Gap in Economic Analysis and Policy in South Asia”, World Development 22(10), Oct. 1994.
Full-text link
Also published as ch. 26 in: Gender and Development: Theoretical, Empirical and Practical Approaches, L. Beneria and S. Bisnath (eds), Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2001;
and published as a booklet, “Gender and command over property : an economic analysis of South Asia”, Delhi: Kali for Women, 1996.
Shorter version entitled: “Gender, Property and Land Rights: Bridging a Critical Gap in Economic Analysis and Policy” in:
Women and International Human Rights Law : vol. 3, Kelly D. Askin and Dorean M. Koenig (eds), NY: Transnational Publishers, 1999.

“Gender, Resistance and Land: Interlinked Struggles Over Resources and Meanings in South Asia”, Journal of Peasant Studies 22(1), Oct. 1994.

“Gender relations and food security: Coping with seasonality, drought, and famine in South Asia”, in: S. Feldman and L. Beneria (eds), Unequal burden : economic crises, persistent poverty, and women's work, Colorado: Westview Press, 1992.
“Engendering the Environment Debate: Lessons from the Indian Subcontinent”, Discussion Paper No. 8, Distinguished Speaker Series, CASID, Michigan State University, 1991.

“Agricultural Mechanization and Labour Use: A Disaggregated Approach”, International Labour Review 120(1), Jan-Feb 1981.
Full-text link

“Social Security and the Family: Coping with Seasonality and Calamity in Rural India” Journal of Peasant Studies 17(3), April 1990.
Also published as ch. 5 in: E. Ahmed, Amartya Sen, et al. (eds), Social Security in Developing Countries, Oxford: Clarendon Press,1991.

Engendering Adjustment for the 1990s, Report of the Commonwealth Expert Group on Structural Adjustment and Women, co-authored with other expert group members London: Commonwealth Secretariat, 1989.

“Work Participation of Rural Women in the Third World: Some Data and Conceptual Biases”, Economic and Political Weekly, 21 Dec. 1985.
Also in Serving Two Masters: Third World Women in Development, K. Young (ed.), Delhi: Allied Publishers, 1989.

“Women, Land and Ideology in Asia”, in: H. Afshar and B. Agarwal (eds), Women, Poverty and Ideology in Asia, London: Macmillan Press, 1989.

“Who Sows? Who Reaps? Women and Land Rights in India”, Journal of Peasant Studies 15(4), July 1988.

“Patriarchy and the Modernizing State”, in: B. Agarwal (ed.), Structures of Patriarchy, London: Zed Books, 1988.

“Neither Sustenance nor Sustainability: Agricultural Strategies, Ecological Imbalances and Women in Poverty”, chapter in: B. Agarwal (ed.), Structures of Patriarchy, London: Zed Books, 1988.

“Under the Cooking Pot: The Political Economy of the Domestic Fuel Crisis in South Asia”, IDS Bulletin 18(1) 1987.
Also: Discussion Paper No. E/122/86, Institute of Economic Growth, 1986.

“The Woodfuel Problem” (1986), ch. 12 in: Stuart Corbridge (ed.), Development studies : a reader, London: Arnold, 1995.

“Women, Poverty and Agricultural Growth in India”, Journal of Peasant Studies 13(4), July 1986.
Also Discussion Paper No. E/112/85, Institute of Economic Growth, June 1985.

“Women and Technological Change in Agriculture: Asian and African Experience”, Discussion Paper No. E/103/84, Institute of Economic Growth, July 1984.

“Rural Women and the High Yielding Variety Rice Technology in India”, Economic and Political Weekly 19(13), March 1984.
Also: Discussion Paper No. E/99/84, Institute of Economic Growth, Jan. 1984.

"Women's Studies in Asia and the Pacific", Occasional Paper No. 4, United Nations Asian and Pacific Development Center, Kuala Lumpur, 1984.

“Tractors, Tubewells and Cropping Intensity in the Indian Punjab”, The Journal of Development Studies 20(4), July 1984.
Full-text link

“The Diffusion of Rural Innovations: Some Analytical Issues and the Case of Wood-burning Stoves”, in: World Development 11(4) April 1983.
Full-text link

“Tenancy, Input Intensity and Productivity”, Discussion Paper No. E/82/83, Institute of Economic Growth, Jan. 1981.

“Tractorization, Productivity and Employment: A Reassessment”, in: Journal of Development Studies 16(3), 1980.

Titles not available online or in ISS Library

Environmental Governance and Gender (manuscript in progress)

“Gender Inequality”, in (ed) Kaushik Basu The Oxford Companion to Economics in India. Delhi: Oxford University Press, forthcoming.

“Succession: Hindu Law”, in Encyclopedia of Legal History. New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming.

“Gender and Land Rights”, International Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioral Sciences, 46, 2004.

“Gender Inequality: Neglected Facets and Hidden Dimensions” Malcolm Adisheshiah Memorial Lecture, Madras Institute for Development Studies, Chennai, 2004. Also in the MIDS journal.

“Gender and Environmental Management in South Asia: Can Romanticized Pasts help Model Desirable Futures?” Macalester International (Minnesota), May 1998.

Report of the Committee for Gender Equality in Land Devolution in Tenurial Laws, Chair of Committee, B. Agarwal, Ministry of Rural Areas and Employment, Govt. of India, 1998.

“Gender and Land Rights in Sri Lanka”, International Labour Organization (Geneva), Working Paper No. WEP 10/WP49, 1991.

“Tribal Matriliny in Transition: Changing Patterns of Production, Property and Gender Relations in North-East India”, ILO (Geneva) Working Paper WEP 10/WP 50, 1991.

“Rural Women, Poverty and Natural Resources: Sustenance, Sustainability and Struggle for Change”, Economic and Political Weekly (Bombay), Oct. 28, 1989.

“Why are Stoves Resisted?” Unasylva (Rome), 35 (140) 1983.

“Water Resource Development and Rural Women”, mimeo, Institute of Economic Growth, 1981.

“Agricultural Modernisation and Third World Women”, International Labour Office (Geneva), Working Paper No. WEP 10/WP 21, 1981.

“Effect of Agricultural Mechanization on Crop Output”, Indian Economic Review (Delhi), Jan.-March 1980.

“Rural Challenge: Agriculture”, Seminar (Delhi), July 1978.

“The Family in Public Policy: Fallacious Assumptions and Gender Implications”, Golden Jubilee Lecture No. 9, National Council for Applied Economic Research, Delhi, 2000. Also in Facets of the Indian Economy, ed. Rakesh Mohan (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002).

“The Idea of Gender Equality: From Legislative Vision to Everyday Family Practice”, in India : Another Millennium, ed. Romila Thapar (Penguin Books, Delhi), 2000.

Mechanization in Indian Agriculture. Delhi: Allied Publishers, 1983. Reprinted 1986.

“Exploitative Utilization of Educated Womanpower”, Journal of Higher Education (Delhi), 2 (2), 1976.

“Exploitative Utilization of Educated Womanpower”, Journal of Higher Education (Delhi), 2 (2), 1976.

Web resources

Bina Agarwal's personal website
The website includes complete listings of Professor Agarwal's books, academic papers and popular writings.

This page has been composed by ISS Library staff using multiple sources, with many thanks to its authors. Should a visitor to our site believe that the information provided is inaccurate or incomplete or we wrongly make use of a work whose copyright does not belong to ISS we urgently request the visitor to contact us.