a haroon akram-lodhi

professor emeritus of economics, global justice and development

Haroon Akram-Lodhi is Professor Emeritus of Economics, Global Justice and Development at Trent University in Peterborough, Canada, where he worked from 2006 to 2025. Currently, he is an Associate Editor of Feminist Economics and a member of the Board of Directors of the International Association for Feminist Economics. He is also: a Fellow of the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study in Stellenbosch, South Africa; a Professorial Research Associate in the Department of Economics at SOAS, University of London, United Kingdom; an Associated Research Professor of the Academic Unit in Development Studies at the Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas, Zacatecas, Mexico; Adjunct Professor in International Development Studies in the Faculty of Graduate Studies at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada; Adjunct Member to the Graduate Program in Political Science at York University in Toronto, Canada; Adjunct Professor of Economics in the Master's in Development Practice program at the James T. Laney School of Graduate Studies, Emory University, Atlanta, USA; and a Visiting Scholar in that School's Institute for Developing Nations. Previously, Haroon Akram-Lodhi has been: a Fellow of Food First, the Institute for Food and Development Policy; the Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Journal of Development Studies; a member of the Advisory Board for the Women's Rights Programme of the Open Society Foundations; and a member of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Association for the Study of International Development. 

Trained as an economist, the focus of Haroon Akram-Lodhi's research interest is on the feminist political economy of agrarian change, rural livelihoods and food systems in the countries of the global South. For this research he has conducted fieldwork in China, Ethiopia, Fiji, Kenya, Malawi, Pakistan, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, Vietnam and Uganda. This research focuses upon the economic dimensions of gender relations in small-scale farming, but as a result of using an analytical framework derived from feminist economics he has also undertaken research on feminist macroeconomic theory and policy. Haroon Akram-Lodhi has acted as a feminist economics advisor to the World Food Programme, the United Nations Capital Development Fund, the United Nations Environment Programme, UN Women, the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Development Fund for Women. Haroon Akram-Lodhi has lived, taught, and conducted research in numerous countries, published extensively in peer-reviewed journals, and has undertaken advisory services for a wide variety of multilateral, bilateral and non-governmental international development organizations.

In 2015 Haroon Akram-Lodhi received Trent University's Distinguished Research Award. He had previously received a Merit Award for Research from Trent University in 2008, 2010, 2013 and 2018.

In May 2025 Haroon Akram-Lodhi was part of a webinar on "Power and resistance in the food system", organized by the UNESCO Chair on Food, Biodiversity and Sustainability Studies in the Laurier Center for Sustainable Food Systems at Wilfred Laurier University in Kitchner, Canada:

Haroon Akram-Lodhi's most recent book, co-edited with Kristina Dietz, Bettina Engels and Ben M. McKay, is the Handbook of Critical Agrarian Studies.

The Handbook offers interdisciplinary insights from both leading scholars and activists to understand agrarian life, livelihoods, formations and processes of change. An ambitious undertaking, its 72 chapters highlight the development of the field of critical agrarian studies, which is characterized by theoretical and methodological pluralism and innovation. Furthermore, the Handbook presents critical analyses of, and examines controversies about, historical and contemporary social structures and processes in agrarian and rural settings from a wide range of perspectives. A much-expanded 2nd edition of the Handbook will be published in 2026.

In May 2022 Haroon Akram-Lodhi delivered a keynote address on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Rural Sociology Group at Wageningen University entitled "From peasant studies to critical agrarian studies". Click on the link below to watch the keynote in full:

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