Kenneth Bo Nielsen

• Bäckström, Daniel Mohseni Kabir; Hansen, Mette Halskov & Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2026). Ecologies of Gods and States: Theogenic Soils and Forests in the Blang Mountains, China. I Hansen, Mette Halskov & Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (Red.), Religion and Ecological Crisis: Responses from Asia. Leiden University Press. ISSN 9789087285081. s. 201–221. doi: https:/muse-jhu-edu.ezproxy.uio.no/pub/293/oa_edited_volume/chapter/4305167. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This chapter traces how relations between Blang communities and their upland environment has changed with the recent arrival of the Chinese state. It begins by analyzing how the change from swidden/shifting to paddy cultivation has transformed soil fertility from being theogenic (caused by gods) to anthropogenic. It then analyzes how these changes have created competing conceptualizations of what constitutes a forest, and the resultant effects on biodiversity. The chapter then explores the underlying change in the logic of how to solve environmental problems, from a relational to a manufacturing logic. Finally, it analyzes how Blang communities’ perceived lack of ability to change these relations are related to state curtailment of the previous techniques used to create freedom of action.

• Aamodt, Solveig; Standal, Karina; Sarangi, Gopal K; Andrew, Robbie M; Batra, Bhavya & Nielsen, Kenneth B [Vis alle 9 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2026). India’s role in energy transition. Oxford Open Energy. 5. doi: 10.1093/ooenergy/oiag009. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This article takes stock of energy transition developments in India at different governance levels to offer examples and draw lessons-learned that can enhance our understanding of India’s potential role in the low-carbon energy transition, with particular focus on how to make transitions more inclusive of opportunities and address challenges in global South contexts. Being the world’s most populated country and the third-largest energy user and greenhouse gases emitter, India is key to the global transition from fossil to renewable energy. Energy efficiency, energy access, just transition, and renewable energy expansion are core objectives in India’s climate policies, but reaching climate, energy, and development goals simultaneously is challenging and often entails trade-offs. This article analyses the complexity of factors that influence opportunities and challenges to energy transition in India, and shows how India’s diversity and strong development-first emphasis is mirrored in energy developments around coal use and renewable energy expansion projects. The article further demonstrates a duality in India’s energy transition, from the local to the international level. On the one hand postponing the economic and societal costs of reducing coal, while on the other hand benefitting from the opportunities of new renewables, also connected to aspirations for a broader global role. As an experimental ground for renewable energy deployment and related international networks, India has shown the way in achieving co-benefits from early new renewable expansion, but several challenges remain to moving beyond low-hanging fruits and ensuring a transition that incorporates needed social redistribution of wealth and rights.

• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo & Nilsen, Alf Gunvald (2026). The Violence of Hindu Nationalist Statecraft. Current history (1941). ISSN 0011-3530. 125(870), s. 127–132. doi: 10.1525/curh.2026.125.870.127. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  The Hindu nationalist movement’s ideological vision has been systematically pursued through the use of state-sanctioned violence. Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party, this strategy has relied on both grassroots activism and vigilantism and a form of statecraft implemented through legislation at state and federal levels to marginalize Muslims and other minorities. In the process, India’s secular democracy has been transformed into an authoritarian ethnostate.

• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo & Gokhale, Nihar (2026). Agroecology as Christian Environmentalism in a Hindu Majoritarian Context. I Hansen, Mette Halskov & Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (Red.), Religion and Ecological Crisis: Responses from Asia. Leiden University Press. ISSN 9789087285081. s. 155–175. doi: https:/lup.nl/publications/academic-research/religion-and-ecological-crisis/. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  How and why do religion and spirituality motivate individuals and collectivities in contemporary Asia to engage in environmental action? This question is at the heart of Religion and Ecological Crisis: Responses from Asia. Across nine chapters, the book examines a wide range of environmental initiatives, ranging from agroecology, waste recycling and dietary change, to a broader cultivation of ecological values and ethics. With case studies from India, China, Taiwan, and Vietnam, the book brings out the complex ways in which religious and spiritual institutions and movements become repositories of alternative ways of knowing and acting on the world, complementing and sometimes also providing more radical alternatives to scientific forms of reasoning and materialist modes of living. Religion and Ecological Crisis also crucially demonstrates how the power of religious and spiritual forms of environmentalism to accelerate the transformation towards more sustainable ways of producing, consuming, and living is conditioned by wider structural relationships. While there may be no immediate ecological revolutions on the horizon in the contexts and communities analyzed in this book, the case studies powerfully portray a rich landscape of collective environmental agency that points towards an ongoing search for more ecologically sustainable and ethically sound futures.

• Hansen, Mette Halskov & Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2026). Introduction. Religion and Ecological Crisis: Responses from Asia. I Hansen, Mette Halskov & Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (Red.), Religion and Ecological Crisis: Responses from Asia. Leiden University Press. ISSN 9789087285081. s. 11–28. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  In this introductory chapter, we situate the book and its case studies from Taiwan, China, India and Vietnam in the wider literature on spiritual ecology, global sustainability, transcendence, and grassroots environmental movements in the Asian context. We identify conjuncture, future-orientation, and dynamics between self and collective as three specific interlocking dimensions in the spiritually and religiously inspired movements and initiatives that the book is concerned with. A focus on these dimensions, we argue, can reveal specificities, commonalities and variations within a highly diverse field of spiritually and religiously inspired movements and initiatives that operate in very different cultural and political contexts.

• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo; Nilsen, Alf Gunvald & Selvaraj, M. Sudhir (2025). Relocations of Hindutva: Hindu Nationalism Under Modi 3.0. Forum for Development Studies. ISSN 0803-9410. doi: 10.1080/08039410.2025.2599112. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  In this special issue introduction, we use the 2024 Indian national elections as our entry point for critically assessing the configuration and direction of Hindu nationalism as a hegemonic project under Modi 3.0 – a project that has forged an intimate connection between neoliberal accumulation strategies and ‘Hindutva’ as a vehicle for ideological legitimation. Rather than seeking to determine whether the elections mark a setback or a consolidation for Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), we ask how and to what effect they signal a more profound geographical and sociological relocation of the wider Hindu nationalist project. Working with the notion of ‘relocations’, we seek to capture the simultaneous yet uneven contraction and expansion of Hindutva’s footprint across multiple geographies and demographic categories, both prior to and after 2024. Drawing on the granular state-level analyses contained in the contributions to this special issue, we argue that while contemporary Hindu nationalist politics displays a considerable degree of flux, fluidity, and in some cases even vulnerability, its unfolding relocations in crucial ways contribute to the continued reproduction of Hindu nationalist hegemony under Modi 3.0.

• Selvaraj, M. Sudhir & Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2025). Hindutva and anti-Christian violence in contemporary India. Commonwealth and Comparative Politics. ISSN 1466-2043. 63(1), s. 1–12. doi: 10.1080/14662043.2025.2521918. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  In this special issue introduction, we analyse the trajectory and forms of anti-Christian violence in India and its role in the wider Hindu nationalist project today. Inspired by Galtung’s work on direct, structural, and cultural violence, we show how different forms of anti-Christian violence have waxed, waned, and combined in shifting constellations at different moments of India’s postcolonial political history and in different state contexts. At the current conjuncture, however, the imagined threat of ‘the Christian Other’ has acquired an unprecedented centrality to Hindu nationalist politics, producing a systemic escalation in anti-Christian violence across many states. This violence is, we argue, characterised by a strong convergence of direct, structural, and cultural forms of violence, involving vigilante attacks and police complicity, but also an increasingly coercive use of state law, coupled with the production of a wider cultural common sense about the anti-national essence of non-Hindu religious minorities.

• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo; Gokhale, Nihar & Shringare, Alaknanda (2025). Goa: A Hardening of Hindutva. Forum for Development Studies. ISSN 0803-9410. doi: 10.1080/08039410.2025.2525260. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Kaiser, Nidah; Nielsen, Kenneth Bo & Selvaraj, M. Sudhir (2025). A deeper state? Anti-Christian violence in contemporary Chhattisgarh. Commonwealth and Comparative Politics. ISSN 1466-2043. 63(1), s. 33–51. doi: 10.1080/14662043.2025.2521914. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This article analyses the violence directed towards Adivasi Christians in Chhattisgarh in India between 2018 and 2023, under the governance of the Indian National Congress (INC). With Chhattisgarh as a case study, this article pursues a two-fold agenda. First, it maps the anti-Christian violence in the state perpetrated by Hindutva groups. Second, it analyses the persistence of such violence under an INC state government. The INC is a supposedly secular party competing electorally with the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Engaging with Jaffrelot’s concept of a deeper state, this article demonstrates how Chhattisgarh’s ‘deeper state’ exists even when the BJP is not in power. The interaction between the INC’s ‘soft’ Hindutva and anti-Christian violence at a local level in Bastar district is assessed, foregrounding the interplay of governance, vigilante groups and community members.

• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2025). ‘Wipe away the remaining signs’: Hindu nationalist assemblage politics and the Christian other in Goa. Commonwealth and Comparative Politics. ISSN 1466-2043. 63(1), s. 72–93. doi: 10.1080/14662043.2025.2500794. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This article analyses the consolidation of Hindu nationalist politics in the Indian state of Goa, with a particular emphasis on political transformations occurring over the last decade. Unlike in many other parts of India, where Indian Muslims have been cast as the prime ‘antagonistic other’ of Hindu nationalism, the article shows how in Goa it is Goan Christians who have increasingly come to occupy this position. This argument is substantiated through an analysis of recent Hindu nationalist mobilisations centred on anti-Christian tropes and issues. Building on this, the article suggests that Hindu nationalism in contemporary Goa may be understood as a form of assemblage politics that is highly attuned to the local context and coarticulates with regional histories, circumstances, and symbolic registers. This politics, crucially, advances through a flexible alignment of organisations, institutions, and actors across the political and civil society divide, effectively connecting mainstream and so-called ‘fringe’ Hindu nationalist groups in the pursuit of a shared political mission across scales.

• Sengupta, Urmi & Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2025). The Politics of Urban Land in South Asia. I Sengupta, Urmi & Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (Red.), The Politics of Urban Land in South Asia Current Challenges and New Directions. Routledge. ISSN 9781032870465. s. 1–16. doi: https:/www.routledge.com/The-Politics-of-Urban-Land-in-South-Asia-Current-Challenges-and-New-Directions/Sengupta-Nielsen/p/book/9781032870465. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo & Nilsen, Alf Gunvald (2024). The Kisan Andolan and India’s Roll-Over Neoliberalism. I Singh, David & Moliner, Christine (Red.), The Indian Farmers’ Protest of 2020–2021: Agrarian Crisis, Dissent and Identity. Routledge. ISSN 9781032637068. s. 44–57. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo; Selvaraj, Sudhir & Nilsen, Alf Gunvald (2023). Hindu Nationalist Statecraft, Dog-whistle Legislation and the Vigilante State in Contemporary India. kritisk etnografi - Swedish Journal of Anthropology. ISSN 2003-7201. 6(2), s. 20–37. doi: 10.33063/diva-519033. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  The ideology and politics of Hindu nationalism has always been predicated on an antagonistic discursive construction of ‘dangerous others,’ notably Muslims but also Christians. This construct has served to define India as first and foremost a Hindu nation, thereby de facto relegating religious minorities to the status of not properly belonging to the nation. However, under the leadership of the current Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Hindu nationalism has acquired an unprecedented political force. A key consequence of this has been that the discursive construction of dangerous others is now increasingly being written into law, through a process of Hindu nationalist statecraft. The result is, we argue, not just a de facto but increasingly also a de jure marginalization and stigmatization of religious minorities. We substantiate this argument by analysing the intent and effect of recent pieces of legislation in two Indian states regulating, among other things, religious conversions, inter-faith relationships, and population growth. Conceiving of such laws as dog-whistle legislation, we argue that they are, in fact, geared towards the legal consolidation of India as a Hindu state. We also analyse the intimate entanglement between these laws and the collective violence of vigilante groups against those minorities that Hindu nationalists frame as dangerous, anti-national others.

• Hansen, Arve & Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2023). Consumption, Sustainability and Everyday Life. I Hansen, Arve & Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (Red.), Consumption, Sustainability and Everyday Life. Palgrave Macmillan. ISSN 9783031110696. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Das, Ritanjan & Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2023). Consolidating a political dynasty: Abhishek Banerjee, the Trinamool Congress, and the 2023 panchayat elections in West Bengal. Contemporary South Asia. ISSN 0958-4935. doi: 10.1080/09584935.2023.2296899. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ruud, Arild Engelsen; Nielsen, Kenneth Bo & Das, Ritanjan (2023). Dynastic dilemma in South Asia: influence, networks and shamefacedness. Contemporary South Asia. ISSN 0958-4935. 31(3), s. 355–370. doi: 10.1080/09584935.2023.2227591. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Both Narendra Modi and Rodrigo Duterte stand out as leaders that epitomise their respective reigns in ways that previous leaders did not. A juxtaposition of their political personae allows us to investigate a contemporary political phenomenon, that of the elected strongman leader. This article makes three points from this juxtaposition: (a) They presided over a period of ‘democratic backsliding’. (b) They came with social media. (c) They are their own message and that message is that they are extraordinary leaders, above ordinary constraints. This article concludes that they represent strongman politics—where they as their people’s representative engage in acts symbolic of the people’s sovereignty. In an age of discontent with democracy, new and social media have allowed them to portray themselves as true defenders of ‘the people’.

• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo & Wilhite, Harold Langford (2023). The People’s Car Without a People?: Mobility, Aspirations and Status in ‘New India’. I Hansen, Arve & Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (Red.), Consumption, Sustainability and Everyday Life. Palgrave Macmillan. ISSN 9783031110696. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo; Silva, Solano Jose Savio Da & Bhattacharya, Jigisha (2022). Hindutva and Communal Polarization in Goa. Contemporary South Asia. ISSN 0958-4935. doi: 10.1080/09584935.2022.2142519. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nilsen, Alf Gunvald; Nielsen, Kenneth Bo & Vaidya, Anand (2022). Theorizing Law, Social Movements, and State Formation in India. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East. ISSN 1089-201X. 42(1), s. 20–35. doi: 10.1215/1089201X-9698047. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Venkatachalam, Meera; Nielsen, Kenneth Bo & Modi, Renu (2022). The politics of gifts and reciprocity in South–South Cooperation: The case of India's Covid-19 diplomacy. Journal of International Development. ISSN 0954-1748. doi: 10.1002/jid.3705. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo & Nilsen, Alf Gunvald (2022). India’s Evolving Neoliberal Regime of Dispossession: From the Anti-SEZ Movement to the Farm Law Protests. Sociological Bulletin. ISSN 0038-0229. 71(4), s. 582–600. doi: 10.1177/00380229221116932. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  What do the protests against the farm laws of the Modi regime tell us about the trajectory of neoliberalisation in India? In this article, we address this question through a comparative analysis of the farm law protests and movements against land dispossession that mushroomed in many parts of India in the wake of the passing of India's SEZ Act in 2005. Both movements have explicitly targeted neoliberal policies that aggressively sought to remove obstacles to capitalist accumulation. However, the two movements are separated by roughly 15 years, and in effect target two distinctly different forms of dispossession—one predominantly coercive, the other predominantly market-driven. This begs questions as to whether the emergence of the farm law protests is indexical of new shifts in Indian neoliberalism? We argue that the answer to this question is a qualified yes. Through comparison and discussion of anti-dispossession struggles and the anti-farm laws protests, carried out in dialogue with the literature on regimes of dispossession, we develop a heuristic periodisation of Indian neoliberalisation and argue that the now-repealed farm laws and the strong farmers' resistance to them are indexical of India moving towards a 'rollover' form of neoliberalism.

• Sen, Moumita & Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2022). Gods in the public sphere: political deification in South Asia. Religion. ISSN 0048-721X. doi: 10.1080/0048721X.2022.2094780. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This article proposes the idea of ‘political deification’ as a useful analytical concept to theorize the efficacy of religious icons, symbols, and objects in the political field of social movements and electoral politics in South Asia. This article uses the insight from various ethnographic studies to understand comparatively what political deification does, that is, what it is productive of. Some forms of political deification operate at the scale of the nation and sovereign authority; other forms operate at the scale of more localised caste-based communities within relatively established political orders; while yet other forms are scaled in ways that enable them to partake in countercultural formations that work to bring new political communities into being in opposition to an established order. We argue that political deification is fundamentally productive of political communities at different scales, in different contexts, and different parts of South Asia.

• Jakobsen, Jostein & Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2022). Bovine meat, authoritarian populism, and state contradictions in Modi's India. Journal of Agrarian Change. ISSN 1471-0358. doi: 10.1111/joac.12495. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  While authoritarian populism and its relationship to the rural world have gained analytical prominence recently, few have attempted a systematic exploration of how various authoritarian populisms emerge from, and are embedded within, dynamics of capital accumulation, state, and class struggle. Drawing on Poulantzas' approach to “state contradictions,” we focus on the ways by which bovine meat figures in Narendra Modi's authoritarian populist project in contemporary India. On the one hand, violent authoritarianism in the country uses beef eating as a powerful tool for subjugating subaltern groups to Hindutva rule. On the other hand, the country houses a rapidly expanding beef meat agro-industry, accounting for as much as 20% of global exports and based on corporate concentration around dominant class interests. We argue that this points to state contradictions in Modi's India witnessing strained accumulation patterns. These contradictions, we emphasize, have distinct ramifications for India's classes of labour in the countryside, as certain groups experience what we describe as a process of “double victimization.”

• Jakobsen, Jostein & Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2021). Bovine Contradictions: The Politics Of (De)Meatification And Hindutva Hegemony In Neoliberal India. I Hansen, Arve & Syse, Karen Lykke (Red.), Changing Meat Cultures: Food Practices, Global Capitalism, and the Consumption of Animals. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ISSN 9781538142653. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo; Oskarsson, Patrik & Becker, Sören (2021). Indiens neue Kohlegeographie: Importe, private Akteure und neue Infrastrukturen. I Becker, Sören; Klagge, Britta & Naumann, Matthias (Red.), Energiegeographie. UTB Verlag. ISSN 9783825253202. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo & Nilsen, Alf Gunvald (2021). Love jihad and the governance of gender and intimacy in hindu nationalist statecraft. Religions. 12(12), s. 1–17. doi: 10.3390/rel12121068. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  What role does the Islamophobic theory of “love jihad” play in the politics of Hindu nationalist statecraft—the legal codification of Hindu nationalist ideology—in India today? In this article, we address this question through a critical analysis of how the idea of “love jihad” relate to both (a) a conservative politics of governing gender and intimacy in which women are constituted as subjects of protection and (b) an authoritarian populism grounded in a foundational opposition between true Indians and their anti-national enemies within. The article begins by exploring how “love jihad” has transformed from an idea that was used to legitimize extra-legal violence by Hindu nationalist vigilantes to the status of law, with a particular focus on the BJP-ruled state of Uttar Pradesh. We then situate the “love jihad” laws in relation to a regime of gender governance that constitutes women as subjects of protection - and specifically protection by state and nation—and discuss how this resonates with a pervasive patriarchal common sense in Indian society. Finally, we show how “love jihad” laws and the wider conservative politics of gender and intimacy within which it is embedded feeds into the authoritarian politics of the Modi regime, in which Muslims are consistently portrayed as enemies of the Indian nation, and reflect on what this entails for the country’s secular political order.

• Oskarsson, Patrik; Nielsen, Kenneth Bo; Lahiri-Dutt, Kuntala & Roy, Brototi (2021). India's new coal geography: Coastal transformations, imported fuel and state-business collaboration in the transition to more fossil fuel energy. Energy Research & Social Science. ISSN 2214-6296. 73, s. 1–10. doi: 10.1016/j.erss.2020.101903. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  The advance of renewable energy around the world has kindled hopes that coal-based energy is on the way out. Recent data, however, make it clear that growing coal consumption in India coupled with its continued use in China keeps coal-based energy at 40 percent of the world’s heat and power generation. To address the consolidation of coal-based power in India, this article analyses an energy transition to, rather than away from, carbon-intensive energy over the past two decades. We term this transition India’s new coal geography; the new coal geography comprises new ports and thermal power plants run by private-sector actors along the coastline and fuelled by imported coal. This geography runs parallel to, yet is distinct from, India’s ‘old’ coal geography, which was based on domestic public-sector coal mining and thermal power generation. We understand the development of coastal thermal power as an outcome of long-term electrical energy shortages and significant public controversy within the old coal geography. By analysing the making of the new coal geography at a national level, and scrutinizing its localised manifestation and impact through a case study of Goa state, we outline the significant infrastructural investment and policy work of a dispersed network of public- and private-sector actors that slowly enabled this new coal energy avatar. We argue that the enormous effort to establish India’s new coal geography further entrenches the country’s reliance on coal. The result is that for India, energy security is a choice between domestic and imported coal.

• Sareen, Siddharth; Nielsen, Kenneth Bo; Oskarsson, Patrik & Remme, Devyn Helen Avhild (2021). The pandemic as a rupture that follows rules: Comparing governance responses in India, USA, Sweden and Norway. Frontiers in Human Dynamics. 3. doi: 10.3389/fhumd.2021.636422. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  How a country responds to a rupture such as the COVID-19 pandemic can be revelatory of its governance. Governance entails not only the exercise but also the constitution of authority. The pandemic response thus presents a real-world disruption to verify or problematize some truisms about national governance and produce novel comparisons and insights. We present a comparative analysis across four established democratic nation-states. First, we identify concerns of relevance for national pandemic responses and map them to state characteristics. Next, we conduct thematic analyses of recent ruptures in India, the United States, Sweden and Norway, to form a baseline of truisms about governance responses to frontier moments such as this pandemic, and hypothesize their relative propensities across the concerns. We then compile comparative data on emergent pandemic responses during the first 90 days of respective, temporally proximate outbreaks. This combination enables us to link response characteristics to national propensities across the relevant concerns. We identify similarities and differences between what the pandemic responses reveal and the truisms of scholarship about the four countries state characteristics. We argue that ruptures in democratic governance contexts embody temporally discontiguous and country-specific patterns. They are conjunctures of particular possibilities for bounded reconfiguration. Such reconfiguration can intensify or shift the course of what the state is becoming. We argue that in our cases it accelerates shifts to authoritarianism (India and the United States), raises stark questions of national identity (Norway and Sweden) and underscores tensions between the reemergence of welfare states and the global project of neoliberalism. By revealing what sort of rules show resurgence across ruptures, our comparative analysis deepens a timely understanding of punctuated politics of reconfiguration of authority.

• Dutta, Anwesha & Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2021). Autocratic Environmental Governance in India. I Widmalm, Sten (Red.), Routledge Handbook of Autocratization in South Asia. Routledge. ISSN 9781003042211. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo; Sareen, Siddharth & Oskarsson, Patrik (2020). The Politics of Caste in India's New Land Wars. Journal of Contemporary Asia. ISSN 0047-2336. doi: 10.1080/00472336.2020.1728780. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo; Bedi, Heather P. & Silva, Solano Jose Savio Da (2020). Land use planning, dispossession and contestation in Goa, India. Journal of Peasant Studies. ISSN 0306-6150. 47(6), s. 1301–1326. doi: 10.1080/03066150.2020.1822822. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This article seeks to understand the role of land use planning in India's neoliberal regime of dispossession. Analyzing the relationship between planning and land dispossession in the state of Goa, we view planning processes and documents as constitutive parts of state-specific regimes of dispossession. We argue that planning in Goa emerges as a terrain of struggle between a state-capital nexus seeking to dispossess and convert land, and an organized citizenry seeking to use planning for alternative purposes. We show how the long-term trend in regional planning is one in which planning documents function predominantly to assemble land for private investments.

• Bennike, Rune Bolding; Rasmussen, Mattias Borg & Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2020). Agrarian crossroads: rural aspirations and capitalist transformation. Revue canadienne d'études du développement. ISSN 0225-5189. 41(1), s. 40–56. doi: 10.1080/02255189.2020.1710116. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Aspirations bring different versions of the future into the present. This introductory essay asks what we can learn by attending to the myriad ways in which rural subjects and collectivities articulate and institutionalise aspirations. We argue that aspirations are conditioned by constellations of power, which shape what can be done and what can be imagined. These visions of alternative futures can be either affirmative or transformative, but will always entail negotiations over the meaning of self and community. This conceptualisation cautions against policymaking based on individualised aspirations, and invites readers to inquire into how rural populations negotiate and embrace, accommodate or reject rural transformations.

Se alle arbeider i NVA

• Hansen, Mette Halskov & Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2026). Religion and Ecological Crisis: Responses from Asia. Leiden University Press. ISBN 9789087285081. 233 s. doi: 10.24415/9789087285081. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  How and why do religion and spirituality motivate individuals and collectivities in contemporary Asia to engage in environmental action? This question is at the heart of Religion and Ecological Crisis: Responses from Asia. Across nine chapters, the book examines a wide range of environmental initiatives, ranging from agroecology, waste recycling and dietary change, to a broader cultivation of ecological values and ethics. With case studies from India, China, Taiwan, and Vietnam, the book brings out the complex ways in which religious and spiritual institutions and movements become repositories of alternative ways of knowing and acting on the world, complementing and sometimes also providing more radical alternatives to scientific forms of reasoning and materialist modes of living. Religion and Ecological Crisis also crucially demonstrates how the power of religious and spiritual forms of environmentalism to accelerate the transformation towards more sustainable ways of producing, consuming, and living is conditioned by wider structural relationships. While there may be no immediate ecological revolutions on the horizon in the contexts and communities analyzed in this book, the case studies powerfully portray a rich landscape of collective environmental agency that points towards an ongoing search for more ecologically sustainable and ethically sound futures.

• Sengupta, Urmi & Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2025). The Politics of Urban Land in South Asia Current Challenges and New Directions. Routledge. ISBN 9781032870465. 266 s. doi: 10.4324/9781003530664. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Jakobsen, Jostein & Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2024). Authoritarian Populism and Bovine Political Economy in Modi's India. Routledge. ISBN 9781032709345. 112 s. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Hansen, Arve & Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2023). Consumption, Sustainability and Everyday Life. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9783031110696. 387 s. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo; Silva, Solano Jose Savio Da & Bedi, Heather P. (2022). The Great Goa Land Grab. Goa1556. ISBN 9788195632923. 256 s. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nilsen, Alf Gunvald; Nielsen, Kenneth Bo & Vaidya, Anand (2019). Indian Democracy: Origins, Trajectories, Contestations. Pluto Press. ISBN 9780745338927. 193 s. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv

Se alle arbeider i NVA

• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo & Bäckström, Daniel Mohseni Kabir (2026). Gods and the State: Environmental Change in the Blang Mountains, China - New Books Network. doi: https:/newbooksnetwork.com/gods-and-the-state-environmental-change-in-the-blang-mountains-china. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  What happens to the environment when the state enters previously self-governed villages in rural China? We explore this question in the Blang mountains in southwestern China, a region that was incorporated into the nascent people’s republic of China from 1953 onwards, with immense consequences for Blang communities and ecologies. Our guest Daniel Mohseni Kabir Bäckström disentangles how the arrival of the state disrupted long-standing relations between Blang communities and the local mountain gods, making the land sick. And what Blang people can teach us about tackling the ongoing climate crisis.

• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo & Wellens, Koen (2026). Spirituality, Science and Environmentalism in Taiwan - New Books Network. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Who is Shennong, the Divine Farmer? And how can he help us understand the intricate relationships between spirituality, science and environmentalism in Taiwan today? These questions are at the heart of new research by the University of Oslo’s Koen Wellens and Mette Halskov Hansen. In this episode, we are joined by Koen Wellens for a conversation on religious responses to environmental change, community temples, and reconnecting to nature via the Divine Farmer in the context of contemporary Taiwan.

• Jakobsen, Jostein & Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2025). Indisk klassekamp ovenfra. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Modi-regjeringens nye arbeidsreformer møter kraftig motstand og kritikk.

• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo & Jakobsen, Jostein (2025). Når frihandel møter virkeligheten i Modis India. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ruud, Arild Engelsen & Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2025). Å skyte en elefant. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Eide, Elisabeth; Dutta, Anwesha; Nielsen, Kenneth Bo; Ruud, Arild Engelsen & Frøystad, Kathinka (2024). Paneldebatt: Valg i India - Hvilken vei går verdens største demokrati? Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ruud, Arild Engelsen; Jensenius, Francesca R. & Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2024). India votes 2024. [Internet]. Nordic Asia podcasts. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo & Jakobsen, Jostein (2024). Rahul Gandhi marsjerer igjen. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Münster, Daniel & Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2024). Agroecological Movements in India: Mobilizing Religion and Spirituality in the Context of Hindu Nationalist Hegemony. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo; Standal, Karina; Mittal, Shivika & Aamodt, Solveig (2024). Green transition in the world’s most populous country: Where is India headed? Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo; Ruud, Arild Engelsen & Jensenius, Francesca R. (2024). Hvor ble det av opposisjonen? Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Jakobsen, Jostein & Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2024). Authoritarian Populism And Bovine Political Economy. Progress in Political Economy. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo & Jakobsen, Jostein (2023). Slutt på halal i Nord-India. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo; Jakobsen, Jostein & Samuelsen, Guro Warhuus (2023). Første skritt mot en folkebevegelse? Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Samuelsen, Guro Warhuus & Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2022). Er India i ferd med å innføre positiv særbehandling for høykastene? Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Sen, Moumita; Stausberg, Michael & Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2022). Political deification in south Asia. [Internet]. The Nordic Asia Podcast. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Standal, Karina; Aamodt, Solveig & Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2022). Solheims problematiske lovprising av Indias statsminister Modi og BJP. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Jakobsen, Jostein & Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2022). Indisk proteksjonisme og den globale matkrisen. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo & Jakobsen, Jostein (2022). Personlig triumf for Narendra Modi i delstatsvalg. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Jakobsen, Jostein & Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2022). Russlands utenriksminister i New Delhi utfordrer Indias balansegang. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo; Samuelsen, Guro Warhuus; Ruud, Arild Engelsen; Moon-Little, Edward; Ranjan, Rahul & Sinha, Shreya (2022). India's Five State Elections and their Implications. [Internet]. Nordic Asia Podcast. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Samuelsen, Guro Warhuus & Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2022). Delstatsvalg i India: En viktig test for statsminister Modi. Transit magasin. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Jakobsen, Jostein & Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2022). Kan Kongresspartiets nye president utfordre Narendra Modi? Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo & Jakobsen, Jostein (2022). Indias ukrainske dilemma. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Jakobsen, Jostein & Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2021). Nyliberalismen har mutert. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Jakobsen, Jostein & Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2021). Narendra Modi, krisenes mann. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Jakobsen, Jostein & Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2021). Pegasus-skandalen rammer India. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo & Jakobsen, Jostein (2021). India: landet uten opposisjon? Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Jakobsen, Jostein & Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2021). Uro i Nagaland. Væpnet konflikt har preget regionen i flere tiår. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo & Jakobsen, Jostein (2021). Akademisk frihet under press i India. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo & Jakobsen, Jostein (2021). India: COP, kull og den vanskelige grønne omstillingen. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo & Jakobsen, Jostein (2021). Diplomati og nasjonalisme i en vaksinetid. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo & Jakobsen, Jostein (2021). India brenner: Åkrene i nord står i flammer – igjen. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo & Jakobsen, Jostein (2021). Dype riper i Modis teflon. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Pannu, Bikramdeep Singh; Jakobsen, Jostein & Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2021). Et opprør på rullende hjul. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo & Jakobsen, Jostein (2021). Dystre skygger over pave-møtet. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo & Jakobsen, Jostein (2021). Volden i Uttar Pradesh viser regjeringspartiets harde linje mot bondeopprøret. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Jakobsen, Jostein & Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2021). Den indiske bondeseieren. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ruud, Arild Engelsen; Nielsen, Kenneth Bo; Chatterjee, Niladri & Samuelsen, Guro Warhuus (2021). Den vise kongen - eller et politisk mesterstykke? Asiapunkt. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Chatterjee, Niladri; Nielsen, Kenneth Bo; Samuelsen, Guro Warhuus & Ruud, Arild Engelsen (2021). Modi: The Sage King? Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Jakobsen, Jostein & Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2021). Narendra Modi's authoritarian neoliberalism. Terra Nullius: Repossessing the Existent. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Samuelsen, Guro Warhuus; Nielsen, Kenneth Bo; Ruud, Arild Engelsen & Chatterjee, Niladri (2021). Modi - The Sage King? [Internet]. Nordic Asia Podcast. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo; Jakobsen, Jostein & Nilsen, Alf Gunvald (2020). Liberalising Indian Agriculture. Terra Nullius: Repossessing the Existent. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2019). Interviewet om det indiske valget i NRK P2, Alltid Nyheter. [Radio]. NRK P2. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2019). Kjemper om makt og velgere i India. [Journal]. Dagsavisen. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2019). Reddito minimo a tutti: va in campagna pure il nipote di Gandhi. [Journal]. Il Fatto Quotidiano. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2019). Ekspert om Kashmir-konflikten: Største inngripen noensinne. [Journal]. VG. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2019). Untitled review of "Hungry Nation: Food, Famine, and the Making of Modern India", by Benjamin Robert Siegel. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies. ISSN 0085-6401. 42(1), s. 211–212. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2019). Interviewed on India’s criminal politicians and the Lok Sabha elections by Radio24syv, Datolinjen. [Radio]. Radio24syv. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2019). Interviewed on India’s criminal politicians and the Lok Sabha elections by Radio24syv, 24syv Morgen. [Radio]. Radio24syv. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2019). Untitled review of "A Village Goes Mobile: Telephony, Mediation, and Social Change in Rural India", by Sirpa Tenhunen. Ethnos. ISSN 0014-1844. 84(4), s. 743–745. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2019). Untitled review of "Dispossession without Development: Land Grabs in Neoliberal India", by Michael Levien. Journal of South Asian Development. ISSN 0973-1741. 14(1), s. 110–115. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2019). Indiske valgkandidater er anklaget for terror, mord, valgsvindel og vold mod kvinder, men de stiller op alligevel. [Internet]. Globalnyt. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2019). Untitled review of "Costs of Democracy: Political Finance in India", edited by Devesh Kapur and Milan Vaishnav. South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal (SAMAJ). Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2019). Valgvinneren i India vil gi elektrisitet til alle. Det betyr økte kullutslipp. [Journal]. Aftenposten. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2019). Seieren hans er farlig for muslimer. [Journal]. Vårt Land. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2019). Interviewed on female foeticide in India by NRK P2, Studio 2. [Radio]. NRK P2. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Flåten, Lars Tore; Ruud, Arild Engelsen; Nielsen, Kenneth Bo; Samuelsen, Guro Warhuus & Jensenius, Francesca R. (2019). Indisk spenning. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Flåten, Lars Tore; Ruud, Arild Engelsen & Nielsen, Kenneth Bo (2019). Modis æra. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Flåten, Lars Tore; Ruud, Arild Engelsen; Nielsen, Kenneth Bo; Jensenius, Francesca R. & Samuelsen, Guro Warhuus (2019). Modi er kommet for å bli. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Flåten, Lars Tore; Nielsen, Kenneth Bo; Jensenius, Francesca R.; Frøystad, Hanne Kathinka & Ruud, Arild Engelsen (2019). Valgvake - valget i India. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Flåten, Lars Tore; Ruud, Arild Engelsen; Nielsen, Kenneth Bo; Samuelsen, Guro Warhuus & Jensenius, Francesca R. (2019). Er valget i India slutten på dynastiet? Fulltekst i vitenarkiv

Se alle arbeider i NVA