Student Details

Project Title: Sustainable Households and Sustainable Futures. A Cross-Cultural Analysis

of Western India and Victoria, Australia

Supervisors: Prof. Ahonaa Roy (IIT Bombay) and Prof. Jo Lindsay (Monash University)

Ph.D. candidate at the IITB Monash Research Academy, focusing on gendered energy transitions.

Energy transition is often narrated through the language of innovation, infrastructure, and inevitability; my research begins from its absences: the silences of domestic labour, the gendered invisibilities of care, and the socio-material negotiations buried within everyday lives. This project undertakes a transnational ethnographic analysis of household energy transitions across rural Western India and regional Victoria, Australia, foregrounding the intimate, affective, and infrastructural dimensions of sustainability as lived practice. By unsettling dominant techno-managerial framings of climate governance and interrogating the scalar disjunctures between global sustainability agendas (SDGs 5, 7, and 13) and their local actualizations, the project aims to articulate a decolonial, situated transition, one that the looks into relational, embodied, and often invisible work through which sustainable futures are materially and politically constituted.

I hold a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Gauhati University, where I first began exploring issues of power, representation, and social justice. This foundation was further expanded during my Master’s in Development Studies at IIT Guwahati, where I critically examined the junctures between policy discourse and lived realities, particularly in the context of marginalized communities. Professionally, I worked as a Research Associate at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, where I contributed to two key projects: one examining the gendered dynamics of India’s Mid-Day Meal Scheme, and another under the GATI project, focused on institutional pathways toward gender equity in STEM environments. These experiences sharpened my understanding of how gender operates across scales, from everyday acts of care and labour to structural inequalities embedded within policy and institutional frameworks.

Outside of academia, I enjoy reading, I am an avid movie-watcher, and have a deep love for debating.

If my work resonates with yours or sparks an idea, I’d love to connect. Feel free to reach out at debashree.hazarika@monash.edu