Kavya Michael

Doctor at Environmental Systems Analysis

Kavya Michael is an environmental social scientist with expertise in analyzing the ‘natural environment’ through a social science lens. Her research and professional experience broadly lie in examining global environmental change and energy-related issues through a human rights and justice lens. Within this domain, questions of class, caste, and gender have been central to her analysis. She also studies the multiple intersections of climate change/environmental hazards, urban inequality, informality, and inter and intra-regional migration with a special focus on the Global South. Her current work examines how the various structural elements of gendered injustices and the resultant forms of exclusion in different sectorial contexts, interact with the impacts of climate change as well as climate action and energy transitions across the globe.



Prior to joining Chalmers, Kavya has worked as an Associate Fellow at The Energy and Resources Institute, researching how communities plan and adapt to climate change across multiple scales and regions. While at TERI, Kavya also conducted an in-depth analysis of climate change policies at the national and sub-national levels in India. She was the lead coordinator of the Adaptation Futures 2020 conference, the world’s largest conference in the climate change adaptation space hosted by TERI and the World Adaptation Science Program. Kavya has also worked as the lead of the urban research team of the Adaptation at Scale in Semi-Arid Regions (ASSAR) project at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements. Her research in the ASSAR project examined how the experiences of climate change by the most marginalized groups (in this case Bengaluru’s informal settlement dwellers) are filtered through existing socio-economic-political-cultural dynamics. Her work has theorized the differentiated experiences of vulnerability within informal settlements as well as the emergence of grass-roots resistance movements and insurgent citizenship practices within these communities.



Kavya is a recipient of the IDRC Climate Leadership Fellowship and was hosted at the Political Economy Research Institute, Amherst, USA as a visiting scholar with Prof James K Boyce researching urbanization and climate change in the Global South. She is also an author of the recently launched urban background paper of the Global Commission on Adaptation which underscored the need for urban climate change adaptation measures to be underpinned by justice, equity, and nature for ensuring transformative action. Theoretically, Kavya’s research falls within the domains of political ecology, feminist post-colonial theories, and social inclusion/justice.













Source: chalmers.se
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Showing 16 publications

2024

A conceptual analysis of gendered energy care work and epistemic injustice through a case study of Zanzibar’s Solar Mamas

Kavya Michael, Helene Ahlborg
Nature Energy. Vol. 9 (8), p. 947-954
Journal article
2024

Thirty-five years of research on energy and power: A landscape analysis

Helene Ahlborg, Kavya Michael, Samuel John Unsworth et al
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews. Vol. 199
Review article
2023

Climate change, migration and inequality in contemporary India

Kavya Michael, Juhi Bansal
Handbook on forced migration, p. 208-215
Book chapter
2023

Just Transitions: Gender and Power in India’s Climate Politics

Seema Arora-Jonsson, Kavya Michael, Manish Kumar Shrivastava
Book
2023

Dismantling Power and Bringing Reflexivity into the Eco-modern Home

Olufolahan Osunmuyiwa, Helene Ahlborg, Martin Hultman et al
Buildings and Cities. Vol. In press
Other text in scientific journal
2023

Gender and India’s climate policy: Bridging the disconnects

Manish Kumar Shrivastava, Seema Arora-Jonsson, Kavya Michael
Just Transitions: Gender and Power in India’s Climate Politics, p. 55-73
Book chapter
2023

Climate Justice in the Majority World: Vulnerability, Resistance, and Diverse Knowledges

Neil J.W. Crawford, Kavya Michael, Michael Mikulewicz
Edited book
2023

Migration as a Climate Change Adaptation Strategy: What Role do Emotions Play?

Kavya Michael
Emotion Review. Vol. 15 (4), p. 267-270
Journal article
2023

Caring for energy, energy to care: Exploring the energy-care nexus through examples from Sweden and India

Angelica Wågström, Kavya Michael
Energy Research and Social Science. Vol. 99
Other text in scientific journal
2023

Barriers and enablers of gender-just climate action: Examples from India

Kavya Michael
Just Transitions: Gender and Power in India’s Climate Politics, p. 226-242
Book chapter
2023

CONCLUSION: Towards Justice in Climate Justice Research - Feedback from Chapter Contributors

Michael Mikulewicz, Kavya Michael, Neil J.W. Crawford
Climate Justice in the Majority World: Vulnerability, Resistance, and Diverse Knowledges, p. 255-263
Book chapter
2023

INTRODUCTION: Climate Justice beyond the Minority World - Towards Decolonial Knowledges

Kavya Michael, Michael Mikulewicz, Neil J.W. Crawford
Climate Justice in the Majority World: Vulnerability, Resistance, and Diverse Knowledges, p. 1-17
Book chapter
2023

Voices from the field: Working for a just climate in India

Seema Arora-Jonsson, Srestha Bannerjee, Shloka Nath et al
Just Transitions: Gender and Power in India’s Climate Politics, p. 74-92
Book chapter
2019

A two-step approach to integrating gender justice into mitigation policy: Examples from India

Kavya Michael, Manish Kumar Shrivastava, Arunima Hakku et al
Climate Policy
Journal article
2018

Examining vulnerability in a dynamic urban setting: The case of Bangalore’s interstate migrant waste pickers

Kavya Michael, Tanvi Deshpande, Gina Ziervogel
Climate and Development
Journal article

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Showing 1 research projects

2021–2025

Empowering all. Gender in policy and implementation for achieving transitions to sustainable energy

Anna Åberg Science, Technology and Society
Helene Ahlborg Environmental Systems Analysis
Olufolahan Osunmuyiwa Environmental Systems Analysis
Martin Hultman Science, Technology and Society
Kavya Michael Environmental Systems Analysis
Swedish Energy Agency

2 publications exist
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