Alex Russo

Graduate Student Research Funding | 2021 - 2022 Academic Year

Imagining Agrarian Alternatives: Sustainable Agriculture, Gender, and Cooperatives in India

Rural India currently faces intersecting economic and ecological crises that have exacerbated social inequalities. This project analyzes how various actors seek to address India’s agrarian challenges through forms of sustainable agriculture, with the cooperative as a key structure of implementation and women as pivotal agents of change. Russo investigates how different actors envision sustainable agrarian futures in India as well as the practices and ideals of labor, gender, and sociality that constitute a sustainable cooperative. This project also analyzes how policy networks shape the gendered imaginings and practices of sustainable agriculture and cooperatives.

Alexa Russo, Department of Anthropology

Alexa Russo’s research focuses on the role of cooperatives and sustainable agriculture in addressing agrarian crisis in India. She is interested in India’s many agrarian imaginaries, on-the-ground practices that comprise economic and ecological alternatives, and the role of gender in visions and formations of economic futures. Russo is currently a 4th year PhD student in Stanford’s anthropology department. She holds an MSc with distinction in gender at the London School of Economics and Political Science and a BA in religion and economics from Amherst College. She is also a 2021 recipient of the King Center’s graduate student research funding and received the 2020 Community Impact Award for her graduate student advocacy work with Santa Clara County. Russo was a Fulbright-Nehru Student Research Fellow in India.

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