About the project
This project examines the resilience strategies of small and medium-sized enterprises in Mumbai, India, facing climate change impacts. Through ethnographic fieldwork and interdisciplinary analysis, it explores how SMEs navigate environmental uncertainties and resource constraints. The project also includes policy research to inform strategies for enhancing SME resilience in Global South.
This interdisciplinary research project focuses on exploring and mapping the everyday resilience strategies employed by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Mumbai, India's most international city, which faces threats to its sustainable future due to the impacts of climate change. By integrating perspectives from environmental anthropology, the sociology of entrepreneurship, and policy engagement, the project aims to understand the challenges posed by the Anthropocene era and the strategies employed by SMEs to respond to these challenges.
The project will employ ethnographic fieldwork methods, with supervision from an anthropologist (KC) with extensive experience conducting long-term fieldwork in India. The candidate will study the daily activities and social interactions of low-end SME communities in Mumbai. Through this approach, the research aims to uncover the diverse strategies these communities employ to cope with environmental uncertainties, resource constraints, market dynamics, and political changes. Additionally, a sociologist specialising in entrepreneurship in constrained contexts (MVV) will provide supervision for innovative theoretical analysis of the entrepreneurial dynamics within these communities. This integrated supervision approach ensures a comprehensive understanding of the complex factors influencing SME resilience.
Furthermore, the project incorporates a policy research component in collaboration with an expert in policy analysis and development in India (YY). This collaboration will enable the generation of policy recommendations based on insights from the fieldwork and interdisciplinary analysis. By bridging the gap between academic research and real-world impact, the project aims to inform policymakers and practitioners about effective strategies to enhance SME resilience, particularly in the context of the Global South.
