Staff Profiles

He received his Phd. from Cambridge University in 1982 and has taught at Cambridge University, UK, Stockholm University, Sweden, University of British Columbia, Canada, Northwestern University, USA, Ado Bayero University, Nigeria and Dhaka University, Bangladesh. Bob has also carried out field research in Nigeria, India and Bangladesh.

Consultancies

2000-2003

Preparation of report for the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies as part of World Bank

funded Fourth Fisheries Project (see publications)

Professional institutions/societies

Australian Anthropological Society. Fellow. Executive Committee member, 1997-

Australian and Oceanic Network for rural social research and community development (AON), affiliated to the International Rural Sociology Association

Anthropological Society of Western Australia. Secretary 1988-1990. Executive Committee member, 1997-8

Asian Studies Association of Australia

South Asian Studies Association of Australia. Executive committee member, 2000-present

Nordic Association for South Asian Studies

European Association of Social Anthropologists

International Association for the Study of Common Property

Awards

2000 - Executive Dean’s Award, Division of Humanities, Excellence in research programmes, 2000, South Asia Research Unit.

Current research interests:

• Fisheries and aquaculture in India and Bangladesh;
• Coastal development in South Asia;
• Disasters and development;
• The global food system.

Research grants and projects:

Bob Pokrant was appointed to the International Advisory Board of the newly-established International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD), which had its first Board meeting in Bangladesh in February 2009. This Centre has received seed money of 500,000 GBP from the UK Department for Internatioal Development (Bangladesh Office). The Centre is based at the Independent University of Bangladesh (IUB) as a joint venture between the International Institute for Environment and Development (London), the Independent University of Bangladesh (IUB) and the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies (BCAS).

2005-6
Division of Humanities Research Productivity Fund grant. Title: Strengthening SARU’s national and international research profile. 6th India Update conference. $10,000. For conference organisation, preparation of competitive grant application and preparation of conference proceedings for publication.
Division of Humanities Research Productivity Fund grant. Title: Mainstreaming climate change in the development agenda. $8,000. For conference organisation, preparation of competitive grant application, preparation of one article for publication and preparation of conference proceedings for publication.
2004-2005
International trade, global governance and the transformation of community: consumers, producers and regulators in the European-Bangladesh shrimp trade sector.
Division of Humanities Liveable Communities Fund, Curtin University of Technology, $18,000. Chief Investigator.

2004
Shrimp, salt and the emergence of a regional economy in Cox’s Bazar District, Southeast Bangladesh.
National University of Singapore grant. Chief investigator, Professor Peter Reeves. Sing$17,770. Associate investigator.

2001-2004
Globalising production and local impacts: changing business practices, Labour organisation and local environments in export-oriented aquaculture in Bangladesh.
Australian Research Council Large Grant, $93,000. Chief Investigator.

2000-2003
The global and the local: responses of local economic sectors to global integration in developing countries.

1997-1998
Joint SARU-Curtin Business School Project led by Professor Samir Chatterjee of the Curtin Business School. $3,000. Development of videos to use in teaching South Asian history. CUTSD National Teaching
development grant. $29,227. Co-recipient with Associate Professor Eamon Murphy and Emeritus Professor Pete Reeves.

1996-1997
The politics of economic liberalisation: The case of West Bengal. ARC large grant. Chief
researchers: Associate Professor John McGuire and Professor Peter Reeves. Associate researcher
examining the impact of economic liberalisation policies and processes on West Bengal fisheries,
particularly aquaculture.

1995-1996
The organisation and development of inland fisher communities incontemporary Bangladesh.
AUSAID Small Activities Scheme grant. $16,000. Co-researcher with Professor Anwarul Chowdhury and Professor Shahed Hassan, Department of Anthropology, University of
Dhaka, Bangladesh Field work in Bangladesh.

1993-1995
The effect of capitalist penetration on the artisanal fishers of colonial India,1793-1947. ARC
large grant. $105,000. Co-researcher with Professor Peter Reeves and Associate Professor John
McGuire. Archival work in India and Bangladesh; fieldwork in Bangladesh.

International fieldwork/ research experience
2000-05
Field work in Chakoria, Bangladesh for ARC-funded project entitled: Globalising production and local impacts: changing business practices,labour organisation and local environments in export-oriented aquaculturein Bangladesh

1999
Document collection and interviewing for Bangladesh aquaculture project.

1995, 1996
Fieldwork in Bangladesh. Organisation and development
of inland fishing communities in Munshiganj, Kishoreganj and Chandpur.
AUSAID small grant.
Field work in West Bengal on coastal fishing communities and aquaculture
in Digha.

1993-1995
Documentary/archival research and ethnographic field work for ARC- funded project entitled:
The effect of capitalist penetration on the artisanal fishers of colonial India,1793-1947.

1974-1976
2 years field work in Kano, Northern Nigeria for PhD. Degree. Thesis title: The survival of indigenous tailoring among the Hausa-speaking people of the Old City of Kano, Northern Nigeria.

1967
10 months field work in Kano, Northern Nigeria for Master’s degree. Thesis title: Urban migration and community organisation among Hausaspeaking residents of Gwagwarawa residential area, Kano, Nigeria.

Current research projects

2006-2008 (ARC Discovery Grant application under consideration)
The integration of fisheries and aquaculture into coastal management strategies in post-tsunami Bangladesh and Tamil Nadu

This project examines the impact of post-1990 coastal management strategies (ICM) on capture fisheries and shrimp aquaculture in Bangladesh and Tamil Nadu State, India. It pays particular attention to government policy shifts in the 1990s towards so-called integrated coastal management (ICM) strategies; to the ways in which fisheries and aquaculture are being integrated into such strategies; to fishers’ and shrimp farmers’ understandings of and responses to these strategies; and to the social, economic and environmental impact of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami on fisheries and aquaculture and on the policy and practice of integrated coastal management.

2004-
Globalising production and local impacts: changing business practices,labour organisation and local environments in export-oriented aquaculture in Bangladesh. On-going field work and document collection.

2004-6
International trade, global governance and the transformation of community: cross-continental food commodity chains.
This project grows out of earlier work on the Bangladesh shrimp export sector and focuses on a key aspect of globalisation, namely, the growth of new patterns of global trade which act to functionally integrate internationally dispersed production and other activities. It takes a multi-sited field site approach through an examination of the flow of seafood commodities, mainly shrimp, through selected inter-continental trading circuits looking mainly at Bangladesh shrimp exports to wholesale and retail markets in Europe.
Research undertaken in Europe and Bangladesh from July to December 2004 and in Bangladesh during January 2005.

2005-6
Preparation of draft of book manuscript based on ARC Large Grant research in Bangladesh and on current research on north-south commodity trade links. Preliminary title: From small fry to global shrimp: consumers, producers and regulators in the Bangladesh shrimp export sector.
Preparation of draft of book manuscript on the state and fisheries in colonial India. This book draws together the work of Pokrant, McGuire and Reeves on Indian colonial fisheries. It consists of eight published papers and two unpublished papers together with an extensive introduction and sections linking the various papers.
Electronic Access to Seminal Documents: Rare, Colonial, Post-colonial. ARC Linkage-Infrastructure Equipment & Facilities (LIEF) Grant, 2003: $100,000, J. McGuire, R.Jeffrey, P.Friedlander (La Trobe), H. Brasted (UNE), T. Allender (U of Sydney). Working with Chief Investigator Professor John McGuire on digitising the unpublished work of James Wise who wrote extensively on the peoples of Eastern Bengal in the late 19th century. James Wise was Civil Surgeon in Dhaka and his private research was central to the colonial Indian Government’s chief ethnographer and census administrator Herbert Risley’s major two volume work entitled The tribes and castes of Bengal. The digitised document will include an extensive introduction co-authored by McGuire and Pokrant and be made available electronically as part of SARU’s role as the South Asia Regional Team for the Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative (ECAI) with the University of California, Berkeley.

Research associateships
2004
Institute of Geography, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, July-October 2004.

2000-present
Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies, Bangladesh.

2000-2003
Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, Bangladesh

2000-01
Department of Development Studies, School of Oriental and African
Studies, University of London, England

1995
Department of Anthropology, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh.

1991, 1995
Department of Anthropology, University of Stockholm, Sweden.

Book Chapters (Authored, Research Quality)

• Haward, M, O'Toole, K, Stocker, L, Harvey, N, Wood, D, Smith, T, and Pokrant, R. 2010. Australian Unviersities, Government Research and the Application of Climate Change Knowledge in Australian Coastal Zone Management. In Climate Change Management - Universities and Climate Change, eds Professor Walter Leal Filho, 31-46. Berlin, Germany: Springer Heidelberg Dordrecht.
• Pokrant, R, and Gillan, M. 2009. The Social Impact of of Trade and Production Networks on Labour and Local Communities in Asia.. In Trade Labour & Transformation of Community in Asia, eds Michael Gillan and Bob Pokrant, 3-23. Great Britain: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Pokrant, R. 2009. Work, Community, Environment and the Shrimp Export Industry in Bangladesh, India and Thailand. In Trade Labour & Transformation of Community in Asia, eds Michael Gillan and Bob Pokrant, 71-101. Great Britain: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Pokrant, R. 2007. The Organisation and Development of Coastal Brackish-Water Export-Oriented Shrimp Production in Bangladesh: A Critical Review of the Literature. In Shrimp Farming and Industry: Sustainability, Trade and Livelihoods, eds A Atiq Rahman, A H G Quddus, Bob Pokrant, Md Liaquat Ali, 300-320. Dhaka, Bangladesh: The University Press Limited.
• Pokrant, R. 2006. Globalisation and the International Market for Shrimp: Trends and Challenges in Production, Trade and Consumption. In Shrimp Farming and Industry: Sustainability, Trade and Livelihoods, eds A Atiq Rahman, A H G Quddus, Bob Pokrant, Md Liaquat Ali, 35-45. Dhaka, Bangladesh: The University Press Limited.
• Pokrant, R. 2005. Report of the Working Group on Tsunamis to the Prime Minister's Science, Engineering and Innovation Council. In Tsunamis: does anybody have to die?, 1-45. on line: on line.

Refereed Articles (Scholarly Journals)

• Pokrant, R, and Alam, N. 2009. Re-organizing the shrimp supply chain: aftermath of the 1997 European union import ban on the Bangladesh shrimp. Aquaculture Economics and Management 13(1): 53-69.
• Phillips, M, Pokrant, R, Nazmul, A, and Yakupitiyage, A. 2007. Economic returns of disease-affected extensive shrimp farming in southwest Bangladesh. Aquaculture International 15: 363-370.
• Pokrant, R, and Byskov, S. 2006. Reviews of John G. Butcher, The closing of the Frontier: A History of the Marine Fisheries of Southeast Asia, c. 1850-2000 with a Response by John G. Butcher. International Journal of Maritime History 18(1): 355-359.
• Reeves, P, and Pokrant, R. 2003. Work and labour in the Bangladesh brackish-water shrimp export sector. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 26(3): 359-390.
• Pokrant, R, Reeves, P, and McGuire, J. 1999. The Auction Lease System in Lower Burma's Fisheries, 1870-1904: Implications for Artisanal Fishers and Lessees. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 30(2): 249-262.