Research

Dr. Heather Plumridge Bedi’s interdisciplinary social science research examines human-environmental injustices linked to climate change, the energy transition, and land grabbing. She researches issues across various scales. Dr. Plumridge Bedi analyzes the local development and economic costs of environmental change and evaluates related policies and activism. One current project investigates climate change policy, municipal renewable energy adoption, and how Colorado promotes agrivoltaics. Globally, she examines climate governance and assesses how India uses solar diplomacy to extend its soft power. Her climate diplomacy and governance work links local and global efforts, incorporating policy, sustainable development, and livelihood impacts. Grant funding currently supports her collaborative project with a non-profit to expand residents’ access to New York state climate policy programs. Her research has been funded by the Fulbright Program, the Cambridge Political Economy Society Trust, New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, the UK-India Education Research Initiative, the Foundation for Pennsylvania Watersheds, and Mellon Foundation grants at Dickinson College. Dr. Plumridge Bedi received the American Association of Geographers Harm de Blij Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. She is a Research Affiliate at the University of Colorado Boulder, Environment & Society Program and the Center for the Governance of Natural Resources.

Published Work:

Bedi, H. P. 2024. India’s solar soft power. Energy Research & Social Science, 109, 103396.

Nielsen, K. B., Bedi, H. P., & Da Silva, S. 2022. The Great Goan Land Grab. Goa 1556: Saligao.

Bedi, H.P. 2022. A Just Energy Transition in India? In Energy Democracies for a Sustainable Future. M. Nadesan, M.J. Pasqualetti, and J. Keahey,  eds. Elsevier

Bedi, H. P. 2021. Solar power for some? Energy transition injustices in Kerala, India. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space.

Da Silva, S. D., Nielsen, K. B., & Bedi, H. P. 2020. Land use planning, dispossession and contestation in Goa, India. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 1-26

Bedi, H. P. 2019. “Lead the district into the light”: Solar energy infrastructure injustices in Kerala, India. Global Transitions, 1, 181-189

Bedi, H.P. and J. Levitt-Cea. 2019. Women and Development-forced Evictions: Realities, Responses and Solidarity. Development in Practice

Bedi, H. P. 2018. ‘Our Energy, Our Rights’: National Extraction Legacies and Contested Energy Justice Futures in Bangladesh. Energy Research Social Science, 41

Oskarsson, P. and H.P. Bedi. 2018. Extracting Environmental Justice: Countering Technical Renditions of Pollution in India’s Coal Industry. The Extractive Industries and Society

Nielsen, K. B., & Bedi, H.P. 2017. The Regional Identity Politics of India’s New Land Wars: Land, Food, and Popular Mobilization in Goa and West Bengal. Environment and Planning A, 49 (10), 2324-2341

Bedi, H.P.  2016. Contested Land, Reimagined Sovereignties and Special Economic Zones in India. In Industrializing Rural India: Land, Policy and Resistance. Nielsen, K. B. and P. Oskarsson, eds. Routledge

Bedi, H.P. 2015. Right to Food, Right to Mine? Competing Human Rights Claims in Bangladesh. Geoforum 59: 248-257

Thieme, T., H.P. Bedi, and B. Vira. 2015. Geographies of Corporate Practice in Development: Contested Capitalism and Encounters. Geoforum 59: 215-218

Bedi, H. P. 2015. Judicial Justice for Special Economic Zone Land Resistance. Journal of Contemporary Asia, 45(4), 596-617

Bedi, H. P., & L. Tillin. 2015. Inter-state Competition, Land Conflicts and Resistance in India. Oxford Development Studies, 43(2), 194-211

Bedi, H.P. 2013. Environmental Mis-assessment, Development and Mining in Orissa, India. Development and Change 44(1): 101-123 

Bedi, H.P. 2013. Special Economic Zones: National Land Challenges, Localized Protest. Contemporary South Asia 21(1): 38-51

Co-editor, Geoforum special theme issue: Corporations and Development: Contested Capitalism and Encounters (2015)

Research Funding:

Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Grant

Food, Poverty, and Place. Dickinson College Mellon Foundation Grant, Civic Learning/Engagement Curricular Development Project

Foundation for Pennsylvania Watersheds Grant (with Penn State Rural Sociologist, Kathy Brasier and citizen science non-profit, ALLARM)

The Cambridge Political Economy Society Trust Scholar, University of Cambridge

UK-India Education Research Initiative, Visiting Fellowship. King’s College London, Indira Gandhi Institute for Development Research, Mumbai and University of California, Berkeley