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• PhD in Geography (University of Edinburgh)
• MSc in Human Geography (by research), University of Edinburgh
• MA Geography, University of Edinburgh

Dr Fraser Sugden is an agrarian political economist who has written extensively on shifting class, gender and generational relations in agriculture, and their interaction with contemporary climatic, agro-ecological, political and economic stresses. He completed his PhD on land relations in Nepal’s Tarai-Madhesh from the University of Edinburgh, after which he was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Stirling. Prior to joining Birmingham University, he was a Senior Researcher at the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) in Kathmandu, part of the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). With IWMI he was also the country representative for Nepal and was the Gender, Youth and Inclusion leader for the global CGIAR research programme on Water, Land and Ecosystems. He maintains a Visiting Scientist position at IWMI today.

In terms of regional knowledge, Dr Sugden's work has been global in scope, although he has conducted intensive rural fieldwork across South and East Asia, with a focus on Nepal and the Eastern Gangetic Plains, and was based in this region for most of the last decade prior to joining the School. He also has a regional interest in agrarian transition in Scotland, China and Vietnam.

He maintains a commitment to interdisciplinary action research with strong engagement and partnership with civil society and organisations working at the grassroots.

Dr Sugden teaches in the fields of Development Geography, Water Resources Management and Agrarian Change.

Agrarian change, Migration, Rural political economy; Agrarian history (particularly of Scotland and South Asia), Land reform, Irrigation and climate resiliance.

While Dr Sugden’s research interest is rooted in global agrarian political economy, land relations, and environmental change, he has pursued leads of enquiry in four overlapping themes. A first long standing field of interest is on the evolution and reproduction of rural class relations (particularly landlord-tenant relations) as older agrarian formations interact with capitalist labour and product markets. He has been engaged extensively in debates over the larger ‘Agrarian Question’ globally, (although with a particular interest in South Asia), including its social, political and economic implications, and the legacy of colonial and pre-colonial state formations on contemporary relations of production. This extends to research on global agricultural history and comparative agrarian transition.

A second strand of research seeks radical solutions to the challenges of posed by landlordism, land inequality and land fragmentation to rural development. Dr Sugden has been involved extensively in regional debates over land reform, particularly in Nepal, but also in Scotland. His work has been extended to a programme of action research to pilot farmer collectives or group farms, in collaboration with a network of partners in South Asia - which address the challenge of small and fragmented holdings. These models are now at the 'scaling' stage and promise an innovative integrated model of collectivisation across the agricultural value chain, which can be applied globally.

A third strand of research is focused on climate change resilience for farmers and the tensions between physical water scarcity linked to drought, and access constraints rooted in the relations of production. Fraser is committed to interdisciplinary research, and works regularly with agricultural engineers, agronomists and hydrologists to address the technological (as well as social) barriers to agricultural intensification amongst the land poor majority in South Asia.

A final interest is on labour migration, and its impact on trajectories of agricultural change in low and middle income countries. When he was with IWMI, Dr Sugden was instrumental in establishing the MARIS network (), which aims to promote and expand new research and dialogue on rural out-migration and its implication for the agrarian sector. This paved the way for a 3 year Horizon 2020 project, AGRUMIG ‘Migration governance and agricultural & rural change in ‘home’ communities: comparative experience from Europe, Asia and Africa’. This seven country project includes cases from China, Ethiopia, Nepal, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova and Thailand.

Regionally, Fraser’s research for the last 12 years has been focused on the Eastern Gangetic Plains, in particular, Nepal’s Tarai-Madhesh and the Indian states of Bihar and West Bengal. However, he has also conducted extended rural fieldwork in the Nepal Himalaya, South China, Vietnam and Bangladesh, and has worked closely on collaborative research partnerships with international partners across Asia, eastern Europe and East Africa. He is currently conducting further research on agrarian transition and history in Scotland.

He has secured research funding from a diverse range of sources, including the following recent grants:

Collectively run agro-processing enterprises in the Eastern Gangetic Plains. Funded by the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie). 2021-22. £80,000

Leaving something behind’ - Migration governance and agricultural & rural change in ‘home’ communities: comparative experience from Europe, Asia and Africa. Funded by European Commission. 2019-2024, €3,000,000

Improving Dry Season Irrigation for Marginal and Tenant Farmers in the Eastern Gangetic Plains. Funded by Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research. 2014-2020, Aus$2,200,000

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Fraser is engaged in a wide range of public outreach and research support activities in the UK and Nepal, including: 

• 2016 – present: Founder and steering committee member of the MARIS network (Migration, Agriculture and Resilience: Initiative for Sustainability) 
• 2017 – present: Visiting Scientist, International Water Management Institute, Kathmandu 
• 2012 – present: member of Development Studies Association (UK) 
• 2014 – present: Research Fellow at Centre for Nepal Studies - UK (CNSUK)
• 2011 – 2012: co-founder and editor of New Angle: Nepal Journal of Social Science and Public Policy (now member of editorial board) 
• 2008: Consultant, Department for International Development (DFID), Nepal 

Fraser has been a reviewer for a wide range of academic publications including Global Environmental Change, Journal of Agrarian Change, Area, Ambio, Journal of Contemporary Asia, Development and Change, and Geoforum, while also reviewing a number of policy reports in the field of agricultural water and land management, and reviewing proposals for RCUK and ACIAR.