Prof. Rishi Jha is Assistant Professor – Public Policy at FLAME University. He holds a Doctorate Degree in Social Work from Lund University, Sweden. He also has a Master’s Degree in Philosophy and a Master’s Degree in Arts from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. He has completed Bachelor’s Degree in Agriculture from Indian Council of Agricultural Research, Delhi.

He completed pre-doctoral studies and Masters of Arts in Social Work (Community Organisation and Development Practice) from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture from Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New Delhi, and MAU, Maharashtra.

His doctoral dissertation is titled “Unsettled City”. It explores the urban political economy of dispossession, transforming governance, and people’s struggles for housing within redeveloping Mumbai. Shortlisted for Lund University’s prestigious Oscar (II) Award in 2024, it reflects his profound research contributions.

His areas of interests are urban studies, public and social policy, inequality and governance, neoliberal state, politics and social change, employing qualitative methods. He is currently writing a monograph titled “Rehousing the City” with an international publisher.

He has over three years of professional experience in development governance, consultancy, and research. He served as a Young Professional in the World Bank-supported and Bihar government-coordinated poverty alleviation mission in Bihar. He has collaborated with civil society organisations in rural and urban India, and partnered in research with the University of Chicago, University of East London, Western Sydney University, Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group, and Tata Institute of Social Sciences.

Monograph (Dissertation)

• Jha, R. (2023). Unsettled City: Neoliberal redevelopment, state crisis, slum resettlement & biopolitical struggle in Mumbai. [Doctoral Thesis (compilation), School of Social Work]. Lund University. ISBN 978-91-89604-75-9. Online access here https://lucris.lub.lu.se/ws/portalfiles/portal/144463766/Rishi_Jha_Dissertation_Kappa_.pdf 

Journal Articles

• Jha, R. (2025). Urban practice in extremis: Resettlement policy, life-threatening housing, and social change in Mumbai, The British Journal of Social Work: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcaf082


• Jha, R. (2023). Necrosettlements: Life-threatening housing, necropolitics, and the poor’s deadly living in Mumbai. Political Geography. 100. 102815. Pp. 1–12. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2022.102815


• Jha, R. (2020). Civilizing the political society? Redevelopment regime and urban poor’s rights in Mumbai, Community Development Journal. Oxford University Press. 55(2), pp. 199–217. https://doi.org/10.1093/cdj/bsy016

Book Chapter

• Jha, M. K. & Jha. R. (2022). Transforming urban form and emergent extrastatecraft: Data centres in Navi Mumbai. In M. Jha & R. Sengupta (Eds.) Data centres as infrastructures: Frontiers of digital governance in contemporary India. (pp. 128-165). Hyderabad, India: Orient Blackswan.

Review activities

• Geoforum, Housing Studies, Political Geography, Community Development Journal, Urban Planning, Indian Journal of Social Work

Awards and Fellowships

• Faculty of Social Sciences, Lund University (PhD funding; 2018-23)


• Global Research Program on Inequality (GRIP) at the University of Bergen, Norway, project award (2022)


• Nordic Council of India, research travel grant (2019-20)


• Erasmus + (European Union), visiting fellowship grant (2017)


• Robert Bosch Stiftung (Germany), visiting fellowship (2016)


• National Eligibility Test and Junior Research Fellowship, Ministry of Human Resource Development, India (2015)


• Ford Foundation (India), fieldwork and internship grant (2013)

Popular publications

• Jha, R. (2022). Documents of the governed in Mumbai. Shuddhashar, Volume 30. ISSN: 2535-7476. https://shuddhashar.com/documents-of-the-governed-in-mumbai/


• Banerjee, S. & Jha, R. (u. d.). Civil society organizations under pressure in the world ’s biggest democracy, The Loop, European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR). https://theloop.ecpr.eu/civil-society-organisations-under-pressure-in-the-worlds-biggest-democracy/

Art and Exhibition

• Jha, R. (2022). Exploring Inequality through visual art: The imaging Inequality Project, Global Research Programme on Inequality, University of Bergen, Norway. https://gripinequality.org/exploring-inequality-through-visual-art-the-imaging-inequality-project-2022/

Conferences and workshops (selected)

• "Locating Racialized Geographies of Life and Death: Experiences and Epistemes in Redeveloping Mumbai,” Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) Annual International Conference, Birmingham, UK (2025).


• “The question of land in Mumbai’s redevelopment governance”, 8th India Land and Development Conference, FLAME University, Pune (2024).


• “Urban Un/inhabitability Concerns, Housing, and Policy Negotiation from Below”, Indian Public Policy Network Conference, IIT Mumbai, India (2024).


• Crisis and resilience workshop, Lund University (2024, 2023).


• “Governing preventable death”, SASNET South Asia Symposium, Lund, Sweden (2023).


• “Densifying dwelling: Accumulation, accommodation and affliction through formal housing in megacity Mumbai”, RC21 Conference, Harokopio University, Athens, Greece (2022).


• “Evaluating the State of Urban Redevelopments in an Indian Metropolis”, Swedish South Asian Studies Network, Lund University, Sweden (2022).


• Radical Housing Encounters: Translocal conversations on knowledge and praxis, Radical Housing Journal collective and Antipode Foundation, Barcelona, Spain (2020)


• Slum clearance, urban restructuring, and (re)emergent communities in Mumbai, University of Chicago, Delhi, India (2020)


• “Necrosettlements: Urban poor ’s rehousing and death-worlds in Mumbai”, University College London, London, United Kingdom (2019).


• “Mumbai ’s lifeline and pipeline: Narratives of accumulation, dispossession, and resistance”, Frontiers of accumulation, University of Copenhagen, Centre for South Asian Studies, Copenhagen, Denmark (2019).


• “Substandard resettlement: State-market interplay in Mumbai”, South Asia Across Nordic Region, Uppsala, Sweden (2019).


• “Data, society, and the city: Technology, territory, and population”, Infrastructure Across Frontiers: Logistics, Governance and Society, Maharnirvan Calcutta Research Group, Kolkata, India (2018).


• “The politics of urban renewal and rights of the urban poor in Mumbai”, Ireland India Institute, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland (2017).