Pranav Kuttaiah

Migration, international development, political economy, labour studies, science and technology studies.

I am a researcher and writer from Bengaluru, India currently pursuing a PhD in City and Regional Planning (with designated emphases in Political Economy and Science and Technology Studies) at UC Berkeley. I hold a master's degree from the Institut D'études Politiques (Sciences Po), Paris with a specialisation in Urban Studies and a research emphasis in Sociology, supported by grants from the JN Tata Endowment and the Fondation Palladio. I have also worked previously as a researcher at the Centre for Policy Research (New Delhi) and as a Fellow at the Indian Institute for Human Settlement (Bengaluru).

My work broadly looks at understanding changing urban environments and labour markets through a socio-historical and spatial lens. I am currently working on a dissertation project examining labor matching processes structuring India's current urban transition using a mixed-methods approach inspired by economic geography, public choice theory, anti-caste political history and contemporary ethnographies of state action. I have also worked previously on electoral politics and questions of governance and political economy, and have authored a number of articles on a wide range of subjects in the popular press.

Berkeley Fellowship, UC Berkeley Graduate Division, 2021-26
John L Simpson ABD Fellowship, UC Berkeley Institute for International Studies, 2024
Bhattacharya Graduate Fellowship on Contemporary India, UC Berkeley Institute for South Asian Studies, 2024
Andrew and Mary Thompson Rocca Fellowship for Pre-dissertation Research, UC Berkeley Center for African Studies, 2023
Laureate, Fondation Palladio, Paris, 2020
Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata Memorial Scholar, JN Tata Endowment, 2019-21
Abdul Hameed Ansari Memorial Scholar for Highest Ranking Student, St. Xavier's College Mumbai, 2015

Kuttaiah, P. (2022). To Go or Not to Go: Unpacking Mobility Decisions in Mumbai During the COVID-19 Lockdown of 2020. NCCR -- On The Move Working Paper #30

Kuttaiah, P. (2020). Of Travels and Travails: Stories of Migration, Work and Hope from an Indian smalltown. In A. Srivathsan, S. Khanwalkar, & K. Mehta (Eds.), Dwelling in Asian Cities: CEPT Essay Prize 2019 (pp. 73-84). Ahmedabad, Gujarat: CEPT University Press.

Kuttaiah, P. (2019). Kaala and Raees: A Film Review. Urbanisation (SAGE), 4(1). doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/2455747119878345 

Kuttaiah, P. (2018). Are Linguistic Nationalisms Killing South Indian Federalism? Economic & Political Weekly, 53(46).