Oxford Department of International Development

Profile

Barbara Harriss-White's research interests have developed from the economics of agricultural markets to India's socially regulated capitalist economy and corporate capital; and from the malnutrition caused by markets to many other aspects of deprivation: notably poverty, gender bias and gender relations, health and disability, destitution and caste discrimination. She has a long term interest in agrarian change in S. India and has also tracked the economy of a market town there since 1972.

She has held research posts in the Centre for South Asian Studies, Cambridge, the Overseas Development Institute, London and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, before coming to QEH in 1987 to teach rural development and peasant economy. In 1995, she became the founder-director of the M. Phil in Development Studies and was Director of QEH from 2003-2007. Since 1969 she has spent a total of 6 years in the field in South Asia and 6 months in francophone West Africa. She has carried out policy research for 7 UN agencies - including food, disability, social security and post harvest technology.

A trustee of ActionAid for many years, she will serve on the Board of Trustees of IFPRI from late 2006. She is the first chair of the subpanel assessing Development Studies for the 2007 RAE.

Latest books: 2003: India Working, CUP; 2004 (with S. Janakarajan and others) Rural India facing the 21st Century, Anthem; 2005, India's Market Society, Three Essays Press; 2006 (with A. Sinha and others) Trade Liberalisation and India's Informal Economy; 2007 Rural Commercial Capital and the Left Front, OUP