Shangrila Joshi
Dr. Shangrila Joshi is a scholar interested in the human dimensions of global climate change, with a focus on environmental and climate justice, and institutions of commons governance. Her academic preparation is in the fields of Environmental Studies, Geography, and International Affairs. Her research has examined global climate policy and politics, within a political ecology theoretical framework. She is interested in continuing these investigations through the lens of Newa Indigeneity.
Subjects: Environment and Sustainability, Geography
Biography
Dr. Joshi is a Member of the Faculty in Climate Justice at The Evergreen State College. She has a doctoral degree in Environmental Sciences, Studies, and Policy, with Geography as the focal discipline, from the University of Oregon; a Master’s degree in International Affairs from Ohio University; and a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Environmental Sciences from St. Xavier’s College, Kathmandu University. Her dissertation 'Justice, Development, and India's Claim to Environmental Space: A Postcolonial Political Ecology of the Atmospheric Commons' examined North-South climate politics leading up to the Copenhagen Climate Conference, focused on the position of India on debates and negotiations to create a fair burden-sharing agreement for global climate mitigation. Her post-Ph.D. research has critically examined the Clean Development Mechanism and REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) as they have been implemented within Nepal, with an eye towards understanding how they are transforming social relations in the local context, particularly as they relate to the forest commons. Shangrila is a Newar from Lalitpur, Nepal, and spent her formative years there, as well as in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Kabul, Afghanistan. She is fluent in Nepali, Nepal Bhasa (Newa Bhaye), Hindi, and English. She is the proud mother of a delightful young man who has cheerfully accompanied her on most research journeys; and who amazes her everyday with his thoughtfulness, intelligence, creativity, and self-discipline.Education
-
Ph.D., University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, 2011
M.A., Ohio University, Athens, OH, 2004
B.Sc. St Xavier's College, Kathmandu University, Nepal, 2001
Areas of Research / Professional Expertise
-
Dr. Joshi's academic expertise is in the areas of environmental and climate justice, political ecology, critical development studies, and global climate politics.
Personal Interests
-
"As of 2021, I realize I have spent an equal number of years, 19, in my home country of Nepal, and in my adoptive country of the United States," says Dr. Joshi, adding that she has also lived in Bangladesh and Afghanistan for five years. "The tensions between rootedness and mobility, and the connections between place, ritual, and identity are of immense interest to me. While growing up in Nepal, I was immersed in Newar culture and traditions at home, but was steeped in Western epistemological and ontological approaches of understanding the world within spaces of formal education." Having lived and worked in the 'West' for almost two decades, she now feels "a burning desire to advance my scholarly knowledge and understanding of Newar identity, culture, and ecological practices. I have started to research the Guthi, which I understand as a multi-faceted Newar cultural institution that shapes much social and cultural life in the Kathmandu Valley, and historically served as a form of resource governance." Dr. Joshi is currently interested in studying the history of the Guthi, in order to understand its broader significance for social and ecological resilience.
Books
Articles
North-South Relations: Colonialism, Empire and International Order.
Published: Mar 25, 2022 by Routledge Handbook of Global Environmental Politics, edited by Paul Harris, 2nd edition.
Authors: Shangrila Joshi
Subjects:
Political Science, Geography , Environment and Sustainability
This book chapter provides an updated overview of the history and contemporary status of North-South relations, with a particular focus on how these dynamics have been shaped by and in turn how they have shaped prospects for addressing global environmental change. It surveys the development of global environmental politics and scholarly debates about the validity of the geographical categories Global North and Global South and how they intersect with conversations in critical development theory.
The Poetics and Politics of Nature
Published: Feb 07, 2020 by Talisman: A Journal of Contemporary Poetry and Poetics
Authors: Shangrila Joshi
Subjects:
Geography , Environment and Sustainability
This article reviews poet and fellow Evergreen faculty member Professor Leonard Schwartz' books of poetry IF, At Element, Capitol Forest, and The New Babel. It reads and analyzes Schwartz' eco-poetics through a lens of political ecology; discusses the complementarity of the two approaches of seeking to understand and articulate nature-society dynamics; and reflects on the worthwhile challenges of interdisciplinary collaboration between these two seemingly incommensurable intellectual endeavors.
REDD+ and the Forest Commons in Nepal
Published: Nov 22, 2019 by Voices from the Sylff Community
Authors: Shangrila Joshi
Subjects:
Geography , Environment and Sustainability
Shangrila Joshi held workshops and a forum on REDD+, one of the climate mitigation initiatives, for forest community users in Nepal, with funding from Sylff Leadership Initiatives. Although REDD+ is widely promoted as a global effort to reduce carbon emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, Joshi argues that the implementation of associated projects often lacks informed consent by all stakeholders, and it is often the case that community forest users are left out from the discussion.
Collaborative Teaching and Interdisciplinary Learning in Graduate Environmental Studies
Published: Jan 30, 2018 by Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences
Authors: Kevin Francis, Martha Henderson, Erin Martin, Kathleen Saul, and Shangrila Joshi
Subjects:
Environment and Sustainability
This article discusses strategies for fostering interdisciplinary and collaborative learning goals in the field of Environmental Studies. The authors, who are faculty members in The Evergreen State College’s Graduate Program on the Environment, have designed and team-taught numerous graduate programs together. In this article, they reflect on 30 years of graduate teaching, learning, and collaborations, including the challenge of creating equitable social dynamics in teaching teams.
Household Use of Biogas Systems in the Developing World
Published: May 02, 2016 by Center for Sustainable Infrastructure
Authors: Shangrila Joshi
Subjects:
Geography , Environment and Sustainability
This article presents an overview of a climate mitigation program, the Clean Development Mechanism, as it has been implemented in Nepal in the context of alternative energy projects, specifically biogas. Drawing on fieldwork conducted during 2013, it describes how the biogas projects are understood to contribute to global greenhouse gas reduction as well as locally relevant sustainable development, before going on to raise critical questions about their implementation and purported benefits.
Visceral Geographies of Whiteness and Invisible Microaggressions
Published: Jul 17, 2015 by ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies
Authors: Shangrila-Priscilla-Elizabeth Joshi-McCutcheon-Sweet
Subjects:
Geography
This article draws on Critical Race Theory, and theories of racial microaggressions and visceral geographies to analyze the experiences of geographers of color in the United States, showing how whiteness permeates the social, institutional, and intellectual spaces of geography at multiple scales. The article is the outcome of an AAG/NSF funded collaborative research project involving focus group interviews conducted at the 2012 Race, Ethnicity, and Place Conference held in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Postcoloniality and the North-South Binary Revisited: The Case of India’s Climate Politics
Published: Apr 11, 2015 by Handbook of Political Ecology, edited by Raymond Bryant, Edward Elgar.
Authors: Shangrila Joshi
Subjects:
Geography , Environment and Sustainability
This book chapter takes stock of various strands of argument within postcolonial theory, bringing them in conversation with one another and with critical geopolitics and global environmental politics to elucidate the ways in which North-South power dynamics are being contested and re-inscribed in the context of global climate politics. The author invites political ecologists and other critical scholars to be reflexive about their possible complicity with the status quo.
Environmental Justice Discourses in Indian Climate Politics
Published: Mar 19, 2014 by Geojournal
Authors: Shangrila Joshi
Subjects:
Geography , Environment and Sustainability
This paper examines the Indian government's position in climate mitigation debates, drawing on key-informant interviews conducted in Delhi in December 2008, January 2009, and Copenhagen in December 2009. The historical responsibility, per capita equity, and right to development arguments are interrogated in light of domestic inequities as well as the question of what is meant by development. The article highlights the importance of scale in assessing environmental and climate justice claims.
North-South Relations: Colonialism, Empire and International Order.
Published: Sep 26, 2013 by Handbook of Global Environmental Politics, edited by Paul Harris, Routledge.
Authors: Shangrila Joshi
Subjects:
Political Science, Geography , Environment and Sustainability
This book chapter provides an overview of the history and contemporary status of North-South relations, with a particular focus on how these dynamics have been shaped by and in turn how they have shaped prospects for addressing global environmental change. It surveys the development of global environmental politics as well as scholarly debates about the validity of the geographical categories Global North and Global South and how they intersect with conversations in critical development theory.
Understanding India’s Representation of North-South Climate Politics
Published: May 01, 2013 by Global Environmental Politics
Authors: Shangrila Joshi
Subjects:
Political Science, Geography , Environment and Sustainability
This article provides insight into the spatial politics of climate policy negotiations, showing how the categories North and South, developed and developing, or First World and Third World constitute powerful spatial imaginaries that strongly influence the negotiating positions of Indian officials in global climate politics, even as India's image as a developing country is increasingly questioned in light of its status as an emerging economy and major emitter.
News
Event: Climate Justice in Global Context, Climate Justice and Resilience Speaker Series (Virtual)
By: Shangrila Joshi
Subjects: Environment and Sustainability
First Learning Session of WA Climate Assembly
By: Shangrila Joshi
Subjects: Environment and Sustainability
Event: From Forest Commons to Carbon Commodities: Lessons from REDD+ in Nepal, Dr. Shangrila Joshi (Olympia, WA)
By: Shangrila Joshi
Subjects: Environment and Sustainability
SLI Awards for Projects to Empower the Local Community and Facilitate Climate Justice
By: Shangrila Joshi
Subjects: Environment and Sustainability
2017 Indigenous Climate Justice Symposium
By: Shangrila Joshi
Subjects: Environment and Sustainability
2015 Indigenous Climate Justice Symposium
By: Shangrila Joshi
Subjects: Environment and Sustainability
Not Just Another Political Ecology Handbook(?)
By: Shangrila Joshi
Subjects: Environment and Sustainability, Geography
Cross Cultural Poetics: New Episodes Part 2
By: Shangrila Joshi
Subjects: Environment and Sustainability, Media and Cultural Studies, Media, Journalism and Communications
Episodes 327, 348, and 349
UO doctoral candidate, others attending climate conference in Copenhagen
By: Shangrila Joshi
Subjects: Environment and Sustainability, Geography
Videos
Published: Jan 10, 2021
In this presentation given to the Washington Climate Assembly, Dr. Joshi describes climate justice as a multi-faceted and multi-scalar notion, arguing for a commons-oriented climate policy framework. She discusses various approaches for understanding climate inequalities and envisioning just solutions in global and local contexts, and offers numerous examples and a vision for how to avoid tragedies of the atmospheric and local resource commons.
Published: Feb 24, 2021
In this public lecture, Dr. Joshi focuses on the question of how to think of the notion of climate justice as racial justice -- as prevalent in the United States -- in a broader global context. Inviting the audience to transcend US-centric conceptualizations of climate and racial justice, she suggests that the structure of North-South inequality should be viewed as a manifestation of institutionalized, systemic racism on a global scale.
Published: Sep 20, 2021
In this bilingual conversation (English and Newa Bhaye), UK-based Pasa Puchah Guthi past-president Sanyukta Shrestha interviews Dr. Joshi about her book and the resonance of the notion of the commons with Guthi, an ancient resource governance structure practiced in the Kathmandu valley by the Newah. Dr. Joshi discusses various ways in which Newa rituals, traditions, and mythologies have meaning and relevance for climate resilience in historical and contemporary contexts.