Biography
Dr Yamini Narayanan is a Senior Lecturer in International and Community Development. Her work makes substantive contributions to the rapidly emergent field of South Asian Animal Studies through a twin focus on animals in political, and urban life in India. It addresses species as an explicit identity category in Indian national politics, through the intersections of anthropocentrism, sectarianism, and casteism. Her forthcoming book Mother Cow, Mother India (Stanford University Press) will offer one of the first empirical critiques of India’s cow protectionism discourse and politics from a critical animal studies standpoint, examining bovine realities in both sites of production and protection.
Yamini’s work on urban animals is the first to theorise species as part of populations in urban informal spaces. This has consequences for a fuller theorising of urban animal geographies and informalities, particularly in the Global South. Her current work theorises animal labour in Indian brick kilns. Yamini's work is published in leading journals including Environment and Planning A, D and E; Urban Geography; Geoforum; Hypatia; and South Asia.
Yamini’s research is supported by two Australian Research Council grants. Yamini is the founding Convenor of the Deakin Critical Animal Studies Network, and is a lifelong Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, an honour that is conferred through nomination or invitation only.
In 2019, Yamini was awarded Deakin University's Vice Chancellor’s Award for Mid-Career Research Excellence.
Yamini serves as Special Issues Editor of Urban Geography; Associate Editor of Environmental Humanities; and South Asia Editor for Asian Studies Review.
Yamini publishes widely in media on issues related to animal rights, including the Animal Liberation Currents, The Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy, Huffington Post and Animal People Forum. She has been interviewed by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, BBC Brazil, and for documentaries on cow protection politics in India, and animal advocacy in India.
Biography summary
At the cutting edge of the ‘animal turn’ that is emerging across disciplines in the academe, Yamini’s research is focussed on bringing forth animals as subjects and stakeholders of our co-shared and co-produced social, ecological and political worlds. Specifically, she addresses animals as stakeholders in urban spaces, and as subjects and instruments of nationalist politics in India, and elsewhere in South Asia.
Career highlights
Deakin University Vice Chancellor’s Award for Mid-Career Research Excellence, 2019
Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics [FOCAE] - 2017-ongoing
Australian Research Council DECRA Senior Research Fellow - 2014-2017
Affiliations
American Association of Geographers
Australasian Animal Studies Association
Units taught
ADS701 - Introduction to International and Community Development
ADS723 - Development Project Cycle
ADS753 - International and Community Development Internships
AIX701 - Research Project
Knowledge areas
- Animals and urban informality
- Animals and authoritarian politics
- Speciesism, casteism and racism
- Ecofeminism and animals
- South Asian/Indian cities
Professional activities
Convenor, Deakin Critical Animal Studies Network
Co-Convenor, Governance, Development and Peace Stream, Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation
Special Issues Editor, Urban Geography
Associate Editor, Environmental Humanities
South Asia Editor, Asian Studies Review
Board of Directors, International Sustainable Development Research Society [ISDRS] (2013-2016)
Media appearances
ABC live ‘The World’ 30th May 2017 – ‘The politics behind India’s ban on the sale of slaughter cattle’ - http://www.abc.net.au/news/programs/the-world/2017-05-31/the-politics-behind-indias-ban-on-the-sale-of/8574158
Research groups
Deakin Critical Animal Studies Network
Governance, Development, Peace stream, Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation
Awards
Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics [FOCAE]
ARC DECRA Fellow, 2014-2017, 'Religion and Urban Development in India: Planning Sustainable Cities'
Visiting Fellow, School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, May 2017
Incoming Leader Fellow, Australia India Institute @ Delhi, University of Melbourne, November 2016.
Projects
Yamini Narayanan leads an ARC Discovery grant (2018-2021), with Prof. Jennifer Wolch, University of California Berkeley, for the project titled "Animals and urban planning: Indian cities as Zoöpolises". In an era of rapid urbanisation and urban biodiversity decline in India, the project aims to address animals as crucial constituents of urban societies. Designed in the final years of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets 2011-20, the project will examine the everyday realities of selected wild, commensal, and commoditised species who live close to humans in ecologically diverse, rapidly growing, medium-sized cities. It will show how these realities are also outcomes of being enmeshed in social frameworks to offer an expanded empirical basis for planning to sustain urban biodiversity, and devise species-inclusive zoöpolises as successful cities of the future.
Yamini Narayanan also led an ARC DECRA project (2014-17) titled 'Religion and Urban Development in India: Planning Sustainable Cities'. The project argued religion influences urban development in India, and must inform policy. Conducted at a time of intensified right-wing politics around cow protectionism in India, the project developed new insights on how animals are enmeshed in religious and fundamentalist narratives around space, place, and power in Indian cities. Numerous publications have arisen from this project in leading forums including Environment and Planning D; South Asia; Geoforum; and Society and Animals, among others. Arising out of her DECRA project, her new book Mother Cow, Mother India (Stanford University Press) will be published in US Winter 2022.
Publications
Y Narayanan
(2024), pp. 1-21, Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, Cambridge, Eng., C1
Mother Cow, Mother India A Multispecies Politics of Dairy in India
Yamini Narayanan
(2023), Stanford, Calif., A1
Theme issue introduction: The species turn in Indian identity politics
Yamini Narayanan, Krithika Srinivasan
(2023), Vol. 6, pp. 1-14, Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, London, Eng., C1
Yamini Narayanan
(2023), Vol. 2, pp. 179-190, Progress in Environmental Geography, London, Eng., C1
Global Atmospheres of Violence: Shifting Terrains of Othering in Feminist Multispecies Witnessing
Kathryn Gillespie, Yamini Narayanan
(2022), pp. 335-353, Ecofeminism : feminist intersections with other animals and the earth, New York, N.Y., B1
Animating caste: visceral geographies of pigs, caste, and violent nationalisms in Chennai city
Yamini Narayanan
(2021), URBAN GEOGRAPHY, C1
Yamini Narayanan
(2021), pp. 1-20, Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, London, Eng., C1
Yamini Narayanan, Yamini Narayanan
(2020), pp. 1-10, Engendering cities : designing sustainable urban spaces for all, New York, N.Y., B1
Recognizing animal personhood in compassionate conservation
A Wallach, C Batavia, M Bekoff, S Alexander, L Baker, D Ben-Ami, L Boronyak, A Cardilin, Y Carmel, D Celermajer, S Coghlan, Y Dahdal, J Gomez, G Kaplan, O Keynan, A Khalilieh, H Kopnina, W Lynn, Y Narayanan, S Riley, F Santiago-Ávila, E Yanco, M Zemanova, D Ramp
(2020), Vol. 34, pp. 1097-1106, Conservation Biology, United States, C1
Y Narayanan, S Bindumadhav
(2019), Vol. 106, pp. 402-410, Geoforum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, C1
Y Narayanan
(2019), Vol. 34, pp. 195-221, Hypatia, C1
Jugaad and informality as drivers of India's cow slaughter economy
Y Narayanan
(2019), Vol. 51, pp. 1516-1535, Environment and planning a - economy and space, London, Eng., C1
Cow protection as 'casteised speciesism': Sacralisation, commercialisation and politicisation
Y Narayanan
(2018), Vol. 41, pp. 331-351, South Asia: Journal of South Asia Studies, C1
Cow Protectionism and Bovine Frozen-Semen Farms in India
Y Narayanan
(2018), Vol. 26, pp. 13-33, Society and Animals, C1
Y Narayanan
(2018), Vol. 57, pp. 133-149, Sophia, Dordrecht, The Netherlands, C1
Y Narayanan
(2017), Vol. 35, pp. 475-494, Environment and planning D: society & space, London, Eng., C1
Religion, urbanism and sustainable cities in South Asia
Y Narayanan
(2016), pp. 1-23, Religion and urbanism: reconceptualising sustainable cities for South Asia, Abingdon, Eng., B1
Y Narayanan
(2016), pp. 291-307, Urban Heritage, Development and Sustainability International Frameworks, National and Local Governance, Abingdon, Eng., B1
Y Narayanan
(2016), pp. 143-161, Religion and Urbanism: Reconceptualising sustainable cities for South Asia, Abingdon, Eng., B1
Religion and urban policy for South Asia: where next?
Y Narayanan
(2016), pp. 201-210, Religion and Urbanism: Reconceptualising sustainable cities for South Asia, Abingdon, Eng., B1
Hindu and Muslim women's everyday relations and agency: Gender and the Ganga-Jamni tehzib in Jaipur
Y Narayanan
(2016), Vol. 57, pp. 22-29, Women's studies international forum, Amsterdam ,The Netherlands, C1-1
Religion, sustainable development and policy: principles to practice
Y Narayanan
(2016), Vol. 24, pp. 149-153, Sustainable development, London, Eng., C1
Y Narayanan
(2016), Vol. 24, pp. 172-180, Sustainable development, London, Eng., C1
Religion, heritage and the sustainable city : Hinduism and urbanisation in Jaipur
Y Narayanan
(2015), Abingdon, Eng., A1
Women's 'right to sustainable development': integrating religion and a rights-based approach
Y Narayanan
(2015), pp. 404-415, Routledge international handbook of sustainable development, Abingdon, Eng., B1
Quo vadis, Delhi? Urban heritage and gender: towards a sustainable urban future
Y Narayanan
(2014), Vol. 20, pp. 488-499, International journal of heritage studies, Abingdon, Eng., C1-1
Religious symbolism and the politics of urban space development
Y Narayanan
(2013), pp. 326-337, Handbook of research on development and religion, Cheltenham, Engand, B1
Religion and sustainable development : analysing the connections
Y Narayanan
(2013), Vol. 21, pp. 131-139, Sustainable development, Oxford, England, C1-1
Y Narayanan
(2013), Vol. 8, pp. 301-323, Nature and culture, Oxford, England, C1-1
Violence against women in Delhi: a sustainability problematic
Y Narayanan
(2012), Vol. 7, pp. 1-22, Journal of South Asian development, Thousand Oaks, California, C1-1
Sustainable consumption as a means to self-realization: a Hindu perspective on when enough is enough
Y Narayanan
(2010), Vol. 18, pp. 252-259, Sustainable development, Chichester, England, C1-1
Entrepreneurship and sustainable tourism: the global gypsies approach
J Macbeth, Y Narayanan
(2009), pp. 239-251, Making ecopreneurs: developing sustainable entrepreneurship, Surrey, England, B1-1
Deep in the desert: merging the desert and the spiritual through 4WD tourism
Y Narayanan, J Macbeth
(2009), Vol. 11, pp. 369-389, Tourism geographies: an international journal of tourism space, place and environment, Abingdon, England, C1-1
In a city like Delhi: urban spirituality, sustainability and women
J Kenworthy, D Marinova, Y Narayanan
(2006), Vol. 3, pp. 1-22, Portal: journal of multidisciplinary international studies, Sydney, NSW, C1-1
Funded Projects at Deakin
Australian Competitive Grants
Religion and Urban Development in India: Planning Sustainable Cities
A/Prof Yamini Narayanan
ARC DECRA - Discovery Early Career Researcher Award
- 2016: $121,015
- 2015: $135,135
- 2014: $124,253
Animals and urban planning: Indian cities as Zoopolises
A/Prof Yamini Narayanan, Prof Jennifer Wolch
ARC - Discovery Projects
- 2020: $111,624
- 2019: $83,480
- 2018: $82,417
Animals and geopolitics in South Asian borderlands
A/Prof Yamini Narayanan
ARC Fellowships - Future Fellowships
- 2024: $75,763
- 2023: $124,387
Supervisions
Davita Coronel
Thesis entitled: Learning to Live with Flying-foxes: an Argument for Feminist and Indigenous Ethics of Care
Doctor of Philosophy, School of Humanities and Social Sciences