Transdisciplinary Sustainability Scholar & Educator
PhD. Anth (2021) & PhD. Psyc (2013)
Prof. transdisciplinary research and psychology, Sister Nivedita University, Kolkata
International officer & India-lead- Marine Social Sciences Network
Human animal conflict advisor- Sundarban tiger widow welfare association.
All content ©️ Raj Sekhar Aich
rajsekhar.aich@gmail.com +91 90518 75180
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ABOUT ME
I am a Sustainability Educator and Transdisciplinary Researcher working at the intersection of human–environment relations, education, and collaborative knowledge-making. My work explores how people learn to engage with ecological uncertainty, multispecies coexistence, and socio-environmental change, and how education can support meaningful sustainability transformations. Trained in psychology and anthropology, I bring together environmental social science, sustainability education, and the environmental humanities. I approach sustainability not only as an environmental challenge, but as a pedagogical one, shaped by emotion, ethics, culture, and lived experience. My research draws on ethnography, participatory and experiential methods, qualitative and quantitative analysis, and multimodal documentation.
Over the past fifteen years, I have conducted field-based research in diverse and fragile environments, including coastal India and Aotearoa New Zealand. Much of my empirical work uses human–shark relations as a lens to understand conflict, care, fear, and coexistence in sustainability contexts. Education is central to my scholarly identity. I design and teach interdisciplinary, experiential learning environments informed by project-, problem-, and challenge-based learning and transformative learning theory, with a strong commitment to knowledge for the common good. If you want an even sharper homepage one-liner or a LinkedIn version, I can do that next.
MarSocSci | India
The Marine Social Science Network (MarSocSci) aims to increase awareness and understanding of the integral role that social sciences can have in management and decision making for our global seas and coastline.It attempts to create an interdisciplinary and international network bringing together a growing community and facilitate knowledge exchange between diverse stakeholders from across the marine and coastal sectors. It represents and facilitates collaboration among researchers and practitioners from a diverse set of topics, research areas and disciplines considered under the umbrella term of “marine social sciences”, including psychology, sociology, human geography, anthropology, governance and planning, economics, sustainable development, culture and heritage, arts and humanities and more. Founded in 2018, the Network has continued to grow its membership, with over 2000 people engaging through the monthly newsletter and the Network’s social media platforms and having two chapters established in Italy and Australia.
What a great honor it is to be given the responsibility of being the international officer for the Marine Social Sciences Network (voluntary). I look forward to contributing to the global movement of marine social sciences.
As the Indian Lead it is my pleasure to announce the launch of the Indian regional chapter of MarSocSci. Embraced by the Indian ocean, the 7516.6 km of the Indian coastline touches 13 states and union territories with the Bay of Bengal and Andaman sea flanked to the left; and the Arabian sea to its right. Over thousands of years sailors and fishermen has called this water spaces there home and have harvested the immeasurable resources of flora and fauna of this tropical waterscape. This waterscape is an agentive entity, and the environment, the animals and it's features shapes the lives of the humans sustaining around it, as much it is shaped by the varied anthropogenic activities taking part in and around it. Hence to understand and bring positive chance to the marine environment this dynamic relationship has to be explored, and that is were social sciences need to play as significant part as natural sciences. The aim of the Indian chapter of MarSocSci is to bring attention to these interactions from a social scientific and interdisciplinary perspective. You may be a natural scientist or a social scientist working with the Indian marine environment, or a policy maker, or an expert in a specialized marine field. If you want to make connections with people like you who are driving the field of marine social science in India, from those just starting out to those at the top of their careers, you are welcome to be member of our group. Together we will be part of a national community, supporting articulation and communication of the complicated relationship between the society and the sea in India, and connect to marine social scientists across the globe.