(Updated August 2021)
Appointments: 2021 - present: Docent (Associate Professor) & Senior Lecturer in Rural Development of the Global South. Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala. 2017 - 2021: Biträdande Universitetslektor (Assistant Professor) in Rural Development of the Global South. Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala. 2016 - 2019: New Generation Network (NGN) Fellow, Australia India Institute, University of Melbourne. 2016 - 2017: Associate Lecturer (Postdoc), Department of Social Inquiry, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. 2015 - 2016: Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Public Policy at the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad, India. Education: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign - PhD in Geography (2010-2014) Dissertation: Reframing citizenship by decentralizing development under India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign - MA in Geography (2008-2010). Thesis: Protesting Conservation by Protecting the Environment: A case study from the Indian Himalayas. Maryville University, St. Louis, Missouri - Bachelor of Fine Arts summa cum laude (painting and photography) (2002-2006) Publications: Fischer, Harry, Ashwini Chhatre, Apurva Duddu, Nabin Pradhan, and Arun Agrawal. 2023. Community forest governance and synergies among carbon, biodiversity and livelihoods. Nature Climate Change. Khatri, Dil, Kristina Marquardt, Harry Fischer, Sanjaya Khatri, Devanshi Singh and Dilli Prasad Poudel. 2023. Why is farming important for rural livelihood security in the Global South? COVID-19 and changing rural livelihoods in Nepal’s mid-hills. Frontiers in Human Dynamics 5:1143700. Fleischman, Forrest, Eric Coleman, Harry Fischer, Prakash Kashwan, Marion Pfeifer ,Vijay Ramprasad, Claudia Rodriguez Solorzano, Joseph Veldman. 2022. Restoration prioritization must be informed by marginalized people. Nature. Nichols, Carly, Falak Jalali, and Harry Fischer. 2022. “Corona warriors”? Experiences of India's community health workers (ASHAs) in India's COVID-19 response. Political Geography 99: 102770. Bill Schultz, Dan Brockington, Eric A. Coleman, Ida N. S. Djenontin, Harry W. Fischer, Forrest Fleischman, Prakash Kashwan, Kristina Marquardt, Marion Pfeifer, Rose Pritchard, Vijay Ramprasad. 2022. Recognizing the equity implications of restoration priority maps. Environmental Research Letters 17: 114019. Coleman, E., Schultz, W., Ramprasad, V., Fischer, H., Rana, P., Filippi, A., Güneralp, B., Ma, A., Rodriguez Solorzano, C., Guleria, V., Rana, R., Fleischman, F. 2021. Limited effects of tree planting on forest canopy cover and rural livelihoods in Northern India. Nature Sustainability. Fischer, Harry, Ashwini Chhatre, Sripad Devalkar, and Milind Sohoni. 2021. Institutions, social networks, and self-organized adaptation to climate change. Environmental Research Letters. Fischer, Harry. 2021. Decentralization and the governance of climate adaptation: Situating community-based planning within broader trajectories of political transformation. World Development. Saxena, Alark, Anwesha Dutta, Harry Fischer, Alder Keleman, and Patrick Jantz, 2021. The Role of Forests in a “Green Recovery” from the COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond. Forest Policy and Economics 131: 102550. Gupta, Divya, Harry Fischer, Suchita Shrestha, Syed Shoaib Ali, Ashwini Chhatre, Kamal Devkota, Dil Khatri, Pushpendra Rana. 2021. Dark and bright spots in the shadow of the pandemic: Rural livelihoods, state support, and local governance in India and Nepal. World Development. Dutta, A., Allen, J., Worsdell, T., Duffy, R., Kumar, K., Rai, N., Fischer, H., Shimray, G., Sherpa, P., 2021. Re-thinking the Global Safety Net: Local leadership in Global Conservation. Science Advances. Fleischman, Forrest, Basant, S., Fischer, H., Gupta, D., Garcia-Lopez, G., Kashwan, P., Powers, J., Ramprasad, V., Rana, P., Rastogi, A., Rodriguez Solorzano, C., Schmitz, M. 2021. How politics shapes the outcomes of forest carbon finance. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability. Dutta, Anwesha, and Harry Fischer. 2021. The local governance of Covid-19: Disease prevention and social security in rural India. World Development. Fleischman, F., Basant, S., Chhatre, A., Coleman, E,. Fischer, H., Gupta, D., Güneralp, B., Kashwan, P., Khatri, D., Muscarella, B., Powers., J., Ramprasad, V., Rana, P., Rodriguez Solorzano, C. Veldman, J. 2020. Pitfalls of tree planting show why we need people-centered natural climate solutions. Bioscience. Nichols, Carly, Falak Jalili, Syed Shoaib Ali, Divya Gupta, Suchita Shrestha, and Harry Fischer. 2020. The gendered impacts of COVID-19 amidst agrarian distress: Opportunities for comprehensive policy response in agrarian South Asia. Politics and Gender. Fischer, Harry. 2020. Policy innovations for pro-poor climate support: Social protection, small-scale infrastructure, and active citizenship under India’s MGNREGA. Climate and Development 12(8): 689-702. Fischer, Harry, and Syed Shoaib Ali. 2019. Reshaping the public domain: Decentralization, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), and trajectories of local democracy in rural India. World Development 120: 147-158. Balls, Jonathan and Harry Fischer. 2019. Electricity-centered clientelism and the contradictions of private solar micro-grids in India. Annals of the American Association of Geographers 109(2): 465-475. Fischer, Harry. 2017. Harnessing the state: social transformation, infrastructural development, and the changing governance of water systems in Himachal Pradesh, India. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 107(2): 480-489. Fischer, Harry. 2016. Beyond participation and accountability: Theorizing representation in local democracy. World Development 86: 111–122. Fischer, Harry and Ashwini Chhatre. 2016. Assets, livelihoods, and the ‘profile approach’ for analysis of differentiated social vulnerability in the context of climate change. Environment and Planning A 48(4): 789-807. Fischer, Harry, N. L. Narasimha Reddy, and M.L Sanyasi Rao. 2016. Can more drought resistant crops promote more climate secure agriculture? Prospects and challenges of millet cultivation in Ananthapur, Andhra Pradesh. World Development Perspectives 2: 5-10. Fischer, Harry and Ashwini Chhatre. 2013. Environmental Citizenship, Gender, and the Emergence of a New Conservation Politics. Geoforum 50: 10-19. Persha, Lauren, Harry Fischer, Ashwini Chhatre, Arun Agrawal, Catherine Benson. 2010. Biodiversity conservation and livelihoods in human-dominated landscapes: Forest commons in South Asia. Biological Conservation 143(12): 2918-2925. Selected Grants and Fellowships: "Can community forest governance improve rural prosperity and well-being from forest restoration?" funded by FORMAS, 2023-2026 (4 million Swedish Kronor, €400,000) Fischer as lead investigator. “Building synergies between biodiversity, carbon sequestration, and rural prosperity through community forest governance” funded by the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet), 2023-2026 (4.5 million Swedish Kronor, €450,000) Fischer as lead investigator. Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet) (2019-2021): 5.6 million Swedish Kronor (€560,000) “Institutional networks and self-organized adaptation: Tracing the democratic architectures of climate response”. Lead investigator, with co-investigators Forrest Fleischman (U. of Minnesota), Dil Khatri (Southasia Institute of Advanced Studies, Kathmandu), Divya Gupta (Indian School of Business, Hyderabad). FORMAS (Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development) Urgent Grant (2020-21): 1.2 million Swedish Kronor (€120,000) “Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Forest Resource Use by Rural Communities in India” as lead investigator. FORMAS (Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development) Special call ‘Societal effects and opportunities for transition after Covid-19’ (2020-21): 1 million Swedish Kronor (€100,000) for project “Creating evidence for forest based resilience during COVID-19”. Fischer as lead investigator. FORMAS (Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development) (2021-2024): 4 million Swedish Kronor (€400,000) “How forest management, disturbance and restoration affect below-ground diversity and ecosystem functioning”. Project led by Mohammad Bahram (Department of Ecology, SLU). National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), USA (2017-20): $750,000 ‘Impacts of Afforestation on Sustainable Rural Livelihoods in India’. Collaboration with Forrest Fleischman (PI, Texas A&M), Pushpendra Rana (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), Ashwini Chhatre (Indian School of Business), Burak Güneralp (Texas A&M), Claudia Rodriguez-Solorzano (Darthmouth), and Eric Coleman (Florida State). Postdoctoral Fellowship, New Generation Network (NGN) Scholar, Australia India Institute, joint affiliation with the University of Melbourne and La Trobe University, 2016-2019. Research Fellow for the “Sentinel Landscapes” research project, a multi-collaborator effort to study joint human-environmental outcomes in several major forested landscapes around the world, led by Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), 2016. Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, India, 2014-16, to work with the Revitalizing Rainfed Agriculture Network. |