Hita Unnikrishnan

Warwick

Dr. Hita Unnikrishnan is an Assistant Professor at The Institute for Global Sustainable Development, The University of Warwick. She is also an affiliate at The Urban Institute, The University of Sheffield, a visiting faculty at Azim Premji University,India; and an external affiliate of the Ostrom Workshop, Indiana University. Previously she was a Research Associate and Newton International Fellow (British Academy) at the Urban Institute, Sheffield and a researcher at Azim Premji University, India. She has been one of the founding members of and has (co)led the Early Career Network of The International Association for the Study of the Commons (IASC-ECN) from 2021-2024. She has been associated with various urban collectives and development organisations such as the UN Habitat and the World Bank. She is also an academic podcaster with the In Common Podcast. Her research takes three distinctive themes which coalesce around environmental governance, social justice, and environmental change. Hita Unnikrishnan has over 12 years of experience in conducting research with particular focus on urban blue and green commons in India and on energy issues in Africa using multiple perspectives such as those emerging from social ecological systems, urban political ecology, resilience, intersectionality, and environmental history. Hita’s research interests lie in the interface of urban ecology, systems thinking, resilience, urban environmental history, public health discourses, and urban political ecology as it relates to the evolution, governance, and management of common pool resources in cities of the global south. A biologist by training and having transitioned into the environmental social sciences, she further draws on a range of qualitative and quantitative methods in her research including historical GIS, field ecology, textual analysis (of historical and other documents), semi structured and oral history interviews, and participatory approaches.