Personal Statement
Dr Nikhil Mathew was awarded a PhD in International Development at the University of Edinburgh in March 2026. He is currently the 2026 Neil Davidson Postdoctoral Writing Fellow at the University of Glasgow and is an Honorary Fellow in Geography and Planning at the University of Liverpool's School of Environmental Sciences. His forthcoming monograph 'Reproducing Extraction' (2027) is to be published by Brill (hardcover) and Haymarket Books (paperback).

His research examines the political economy of extraction in contemporary India, drawing on ethnographic-archival methods. His doctoral work, based on 12 months of fieldwork in Jharkhand's coalfields, documented understudied institutions including illegal coal economies and land acquisition brokerage networks. Dr Mathew's current research extends questions of extraction and labour to energy transitions, infrastructure mega-projects, and informal resource economies, with particular focus on how the labour-capital dialectic structures access to livelihoods, energy, and urban-rural development. His work bridges critical geography, Marxist political economy, and development studies whilst engaging questions of applied policy relevance for just transitions and resource governance.