Bina Agarwal

In 2011, Bina Argawal was also awarded an Honorary doctorate from the University of Antwerp. She was awarded the Honorary doctorate 'for her eminent and internationally highly valued contribution to the development of theoretical insights in the area of gender, environment and development, and for the translation of these socially relevant insights into national and international policy'.

On 18 October 2007, on the occasion of its 55th Dies Natalis, the Institute of Social Studies awarded Professor Bina Agarwal an honorary doctorate. Bina Agarwal is an economist with a keen interest in interdisciplinary and inter-country explorations. Her academic work has made major contributions in many key areas of the interdisciplinary field of development studies, including land, livelihoods and property rights; gender theory and political economy; environment and development; and agriculture, technological change and rural transformation. Her academic achievement is combined with active engagement in policy debates and campaigns, most notably in the recent successful campaign for reforming India’s inheritance laws in which she played a leading role.

In particular, her award-winning book A Field of One’s Own: Gender and Land Rights in South Asia (1994) has had major impact on government policy, NGO thinking and international donor agency approaches to issues of gender and land rights. More than a decade later, and after four reprintings, it remains a landmark reference for scholars and activists concerned with women’s land rights in all parts of the world, and has inspired similar work in other regions. Probably no single scholar has done more than Bina Agarwal to put women’s land and property rights on development policy agendas.