Professor Priya Kurian

Professor Priya Kurian

Visiting Senior Fellow

Department of Media and Communications

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Languages
English, Hindi, Malayalam
Key Expertise
Public engagement, Gender, Ethnicity

About me

Prof. Priya Kurian (PhD; MRSNZ) is an interdisciplinary scholar whose work spans the areas of environmental politics, gender and ethnicity, media and communication, and critical public policy. She is author/co-author or co-editor of seven books and numerous peer-reviewed journal articles. Her most recent co-authored book (with Prof. Debashish Munshi), Public Relations and Sustainable Citizenship: Representing the Unrepresented (2021) won the International Communication Association (ICA) PR Division's 'Outstanding Scholarly Book Award' in 2022. She is also author of Engendering the Environment? Gender in the World Bank’s Environmental Policies (2019/2000) and co-editor of Feminist Futures: Re-imagining Women, Culture, and Development (2003/2005; 2016), Climate Futures: Re-imagining Global Climate Justice (2019), On the Edges of Development: Cultural Interventions (2009), and International Organizations and Environmental Policy (1995).

One of the major focal points of Professor Kurian’s research lies at the intersections of sustainability and citizenship. She is currently working on a project entitled ‘He Rau Ringa: Engaging Ethnic Communities in a Tiriti o Waitangi-centred Framework of Sustainable Citizenship’ (with Profs. Munshi and Sandy Morrison) funded by a Marsden Grant of the Royal Society of New Zealand. Other significant projects she has co-led include a Marsden Grant-funded project on ‘Sustainable Citizenship’; two New Zealand National Science Challenge projects, one on ‘Centring Culture in Public Engagement on Climate Change Adaptation’, and another on ‘Participatory Processes for Marine Ecosystem Restoration’; and a Rockefeller Foundation Grant for organising an international symposium on ‘Climate Futures: Re-imagining Global Climate Justice’.

Alongside her work on sustainable citizenship and public engagement, Professor Kurian is also currently involved in research on another Marsden-funded project on Ethnic Women in Politics (with Assoc. Prof. Rachel Simon-Kumar), and a NZ Ministry of Business, Industry, and Employment (MBIE) grant-funded project mapping similarities and differences between Māori and non-Māori in engaging with gene-editing technologies (with colleagues at the Te Kotahi Research Institute and Plant and Food Research).

Prof. Kurian is Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at the University of Waikato in Aotearoa New Zealand. She is a co-founder and current trustee of Shama Ethnic Women’s Trust, which provides social work support and programmes for ethnic minority women and their families, including prevention of family and sexual violence. She is also a member of the Waikato Intercultural Fund Committee of the Momentum Waikato foundation.

Expertise Details

Public engagement; Gender; Ethnicity; Sustainability; Citizenship

Publications

(i) Books

  • Munshi, D. & Kurian, P. (2021). Public Relations and Sustainable Citizenship: Representing the Unrepresented. London: Routledge.
  • Bhavnani, K-K., Foran, J., Kurian, P., & Munshi, D. (Eds.).(2019). Climate Futures: Reimagining Global Climate Justice, London: Zed Books.
  • Bhavnani, K-K, Foran, J., Kurian, P., & Munshi, D. (Eds.) (2016). Feminist Futures: Reimagining Women, Culture, and Development, 2nd edition. London: Zed.
  • Bhavnani, K-K., Foran, J., Kurian, P., & Munshi, D. (Eds.). (2009). On the Edges of Development: Cultural Interventions. New York: Routledge.
  • Bhavnani, K-K, Foran, J., Kurian, P. (Eds.) (2003). Feminist Futures: Reimagining Women, Culture, and Development. London: Zed.
  • Kurian, P. (2019/2000). Engendering the Environment? Gender in the World Bank’s Environmental Policies. Ashgate/Routledge.
  • Bartlett, R.V., Kurian, P. & Malik, M. (1995). International Organizations and Environmental Policy. Greenwood Press.

(ii) Articles in refereed journals

  • Clark, A., Wilcox, P., Morrison, S., Munshi, D., Kurian, P., Mika, J., Chagne, D., Allan, A., & Hudson, M. (2024). Identifying Māori perspectives on gene editing in Aotearoa New Zealand. Communications Biology 7, 221. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-024-05896-1
  • McCormack, F., Isaac, B., Kurian, P., Paekau, R., Divakalala, C. & Bennett, S. (2023). Settler colonial bordering and post-pandemic futures: Disrupting the nation state in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Cultural Studies https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2023.2217847
  • Munshi, D., Cretney, R., Kurian, P., Morrison, S. L., & Edwards, A. (2022). Culture and politics in overlapping frames for the future: Multi-dimensional activist organizing and communicating on climate change in Aotearoa New Zealand.  Organization.  https://doi.org/10.1177/13505084221131641
  • Barrett P, Kurian P, Cretney R, Blackett P, Le Heron E, & Le Heron R. (2022) Participatory processes and the evolution of environmental agendas in estuary restoration: The Maketū case. New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research, 56(3): 340-352.
  • Kathlene, L., Munshi, D., Kurian, P., & Morrison, S. (2022). Cultures in the laboratory: Mapping similarities and differences between Māori and non-Māori in engaging with gene-editing technologies in Aotearoa, New Zealand. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 9, 100. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01104-9
  • Kurian, P., Munshi, D., Cretney, R., Morrison, S., & Kathlene, L. (2022): The cultural politics of climate change adaptation: an analysis of the tourism sector in Aotearoa New Zealand, Political Science 73 (2), 143-160. https://doi.org/10.1080/00323187.2021.2021803 
  • Barrett, P., Cretney, R., Kurian, P., Simmonds, N. (2021) Shifting discourses of nature in participatory processes for environmental management. Asia Pacific Journal of Public Administration, doi:10.1080/23276665.2021.1972322
  • Barrett, P., Kurian, P., Simmonds, N. & Cretney, R. (2021) Participatory Processes in Estuarine Environment Restoration in Aotearoa New Zealand: A Discursive Institutionalist Analysis, Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning 23(3): 332-344.
  • Skilling, P., Barrett, P. & Kurian, P. (2021) Evidence, interests and argumentation: environmental policy controversies in a small New Zealand town. International Review of Public Policy. 3, 3.
  • Munshi, D., Kurian, P., Cretney, R., Morrison, S., & Kathlene, L. (2020). Centering Culture in Public Engagement on Climate Change. Environmental Communication 14 (5), 573-581,Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2020.1746680
  • Munshi-Kurian, A., Munshi, D., & Kurian, P. (2019). Strategic interventions in sociology’s resource mobilization theory: Reimagining the #MeToo movement as critical public relations. Public Relations Review 45 (5), 101788. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2019.05.009
  • Barrett, P., Kurian, P., Simmonds, N. & Cretney, R.(2019) “Community participation in the development of the Ōngātoro/Maketū estuary project: the socio-ecological dimensions of restoring an interconnected ecosystem”, Aquatic Conservation: Mar Freshw Ecosyst. Pp.1–14. https://doi.org/10.1002/aqc.3048.
  • Romero-Lankao, P, Bulkeley, H., Pelling, M., Burch, S., Gordon, D., Gupta, J., Johnson, C., Kurian, P., Lecavalier, E., Simon, D., Tozer, L., Ziervogel, G., & Munshi, D. (2018). Urban transformative potential in a changing climate. Nature Climate Change 8, 754–756.
  • Kurian, P. (2017) “Feminist Futures in the Anthropocene: Sustainable Citizenship and the Challenges of Climate Change and Social Justice”, Women’s Studies Journal. 31(1): 104-7.
  • Munshi, D., Kurian, P., & Xifra, J. (2017). An (other) ‘story’ in history: Challenging colonialist public relations in novels of resistance. Public Relations Review 43(2), 366-374. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2017.02.016
  • Pandey C & Kurian P. (2017) The media and the major emitters: A cross-national analysis of the media coverage of international climate change policy. Global Environmental Politics 17(4): 67-87.
  • Simon-Kumar, R., Kurian, P., Silcock, F., & Narasimhan, N. (2017) “Mobilising Culture against Domestic Violence in Migrant and Ethnic Communities: Practitioner Perspectives from Aotearoa/New Zealand”. Health and Social Care in the Community. 25(4): 1387-1395. doi:10.1111/hsc.12439
  • Hamdhaan, M. & Kurian, P. (2016) Socio-economic and political barriers to public participation in EIA: implications for sustainable development in the Maldives. Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal. 34(2): 129-142. DOI: 10.1080/14615517.2016.1176404
  • Munshi, D., Kurian, P., Morrison, T., & Morrison, S. L. (2016). Redesigning the architecture of policy-making: Engaging with Māori on Nanotechnology in New Zealand. Public Understanding of Science 25 (3), 287–302 DOI: 10.1177/0963662514548629
  • Kurian, P; Munshi, D; Kathlene, L; Wright, J (2016), Sustainable citizenship as a methodology for engagement: Navigating environmental, economic and technological rationalities, Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, DOI: 10.1007/s13412-015-0350-9
  • Kurian, P. & Munshi, D. (2016). Public Engagement for Environmental Sustainability in a Technological Age:  Introduction to a Symposium, Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences. DOI 10.1007/s13412-015-0359-0
  • Munshi, D., & Kurian, P. (2015). Imagining organizational communication as sustainable citizenship. Management Communication Quarterly 29 (1), 153-159.
  • Kurian, P., Munshi, D., & Bartlett, R.V. (2014). Sustainable Citizenship for a Technological World: Negotiating Deliberative Dialectics, Citizenship Studies 18 (3-4), 393-409.
  • Munshi, D., Kurian, P., Fraser, R., & Rupar, V. (2014). Shadow publics in the news coverage of socio-political issues. Journalism: Theory, Practice, and Criticism 15(1), 89-108.
  • Kurian, P. & Munshi, D. (2012). Denial and Distancing in Discourses of Development: Shadow of the ‘Third World’ in New Zealand, Third World Quarterly 33 (6), 981-999.
  • Kurian, P. & Wright, J. (2012) “Science, governance, and public participation: An analysis of decision-making on genetic modification in New Zealand", Public Understanding of Science 21(4): 447–464.  DOI: 10.1177/0963662510382362
  • Wright, J. & Kurian, P.  (2010) Ecological Modernization vs Sustainable Development:  The Case of Genetic Modification Regulation in New Zealand. Sustainable Development. 18(6): 398-412. DOI: 10.1002/sd.430.
  • Munshi, D., Kurian, P., Bartlett, R.V., & Lakhtakia, A. (2007). A Map of the Nanoworld: Sizing up the Science, Politics, and Business of the Infinitesimal. Futures 39 (4), 432-452.
  • Kurian, P., & Munshi, D. (2006). Tense borders: Culture, Identity, and Anxiety in New Zealand’s Interweaving Discourses of Immigration and Genetic Modification. Cultural Politics 2(3), 359-380.
  • Munshi, D., & Kurian, P. (2005). Imperializing spin cycles: A postcolonial look at public relations, greenwashing, and the separation of publics. Public Relations Review 31 (4), 513-520.
  • McLeod, A. & Kurian, P. (2004). Contracting Out Local Government Services: A Comparative Study of Two New Zealand Regional Councils. Asia Pacific Journal of Public Administration 26(2): 117-135.
  • Kurian, P., & Munshi, D. (2003). “Terms of Empowerment: Gender, Ecology, and ICTs for Development”, Feminist Media Studies 3 (3), pp. 352-355.
  • Kurian, P. (2000) “Generating Power: Gender, Ethnicity and Empowerment in India’s Narmada Valley,” Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol. 23 (5): 842-856.
  • Bartlett, R. V. & Kurian, P. (1999) “The Theory of Environmental Impact Assessment: Implicit Models of Policy Making,” Policy & Politics, vol. 27(4): 415-433.
  • Kurian, P. (1999) “Banking on Gender: Uncovering Masculinism in the World Bank’s Environmental Policies,” Asian Journal of Public Administration, Vol. 21 (1): 55-85.
  • Kurian, P. (1996) “A Gender Evaluation of World Bank Policies on Involuntary Displacement: Implications for Environmental Sustainability,” Asia Pacific Journal on Environment and Development, 3: 15-28.
  • Kurian, P. (1995) "Environmental Impact Assessment in Practice: A Gender Critique." The Environmental Professional 17:167-178.
  • Kurian, P. & Bartlett, R. V. (1992) "The Garrison Diversion Dream and the Politics of Landscape Engineering," North Dakota History, 59: 40‑51

(iii) Edited journals

  • Kurian, P. & Nandedkar, G. (2017) Co-editors, Women Talking Politics. Research magazine of the New Zealand Political Studies Association.
  • Kurian, P. & Munshi, D. (2016) Editors of special issue of Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences (Springer) on ‘Public Engagement for Environmental Sustainability in a Technological Age’, Vol. 6 (3).
  • Kurian, P. & Snyder, G. (2016) Co-editors, Women Talking Politics. Research magazine of the New Zealand Political Studies Association.

(iv) Chapters in refereed research books

  • Munshi, D. & Kurian, P. (in press)Cultural interventions for a tense future: Promoting sustainability in the future tense through climate fiction. In Bourne, C., Cabañes, J., Grangeiro da Silva Castro, G., & Edwards, L. (Eds.) The Sage Handbook of Promotional Culture and Society.
  • Kurian, P., Cretney, R., Munshi, D., & Morrison, S. (2022).  Social Movements and the Environment. In Bargh, M., & MacArthur, J. (Eds.), Environmental Politics and Policy in Aotearoa New Zealand (pp. 192-210). Auckland, NZ: Auckland University Press.
  • Munshi, D., Kurian, P.A., & Morrison, S.L. (2019). A Culture-Centered Approach to Climate Change Adaptation: Insights from New Zealand. In K-K Bhavnani, J. Foran, P. Kurian, & D. Munshi (Eds.), Climate Futures: Re-imagining Global Climate Justice (pp. 64-72). London: Zed Books. 
  • Munshi, D., Kurian, P.A., Foran, J., & Bhavnani, K-K (2019). The Future is Ours to See: Changing the Inevitability of Climate Chaos to Prospects of Hope and Justice. In K-K Bhavnani, J. Foran, P. Kurian, & D. Munshi (Eds.), Climate Futures: Re-imagining Global Climate Justice (pp. 1-8). London: Zed Books. 
  • Arora-Jonsson, S., Agarwal, S., Colfer, C., Keene, S., Kurian, P., & Larson, A. (2019) “SDG 5: Gender Equality – A Precondition for Sustainable Forestry”, in Katila, P., Colfer, C., de Jong, W., Galloway, G., Pacheco, P., & Winkel, G. (eds) Sustainable Development Goals: Their Impacts on Forests and People. IUFRO-WSE. Cambridge University Press.
  • Kurian, P. & Smith, M. (2018). “New Zealand Environmental Policy in the Key Era: Escalating Crises in a Time of Neoliberal Economic Dominance,” in S. Levine (Ed.) Stardust and Substance: New Zealand’s 2017 Election. Wellington: Victoria University Press.
  • Bhavnani, K-K., Foran, J., Kurian, P., & Munshi, D. (2016). Preface to the Second Edition. In In K-K Bhavnani, J. Foran, P. Kurian, & D. Munshi (Eds.), Feminist Futures: Reimagining Women, Culture, and Development, 2nd edition (pp.xx-xxvi). London: Zed.
  • Munshi, D., & Kurian, P. (2016). ‘Public relations and sustainable citizenship: Towards a goal of representing the unrepresented,’ in L’Etang, J., McKie, D., Snow, N., & Xifra, J. (Eds.), Handbook of Critical Public Relations (pp. 405-414). New York: Routledge.
  • Barrett, P., Kurian, P. & Wright, J.(2015) “Environmental security and the contradictory politics of New Zealand’s climate change policies in the Pacific”, in Iain Watson & Chandra Lal Pandey (eds) Environmental Security in the Asia-Pacific. London, New York: Macmillan Palgrave.
  • Kurian, P., Munshi, D., & Mundkur, A. (2014). The dialectics of power and powerlessness in transnational feminist networks: On-line struggles around gender-based violence. In Baksh, R., & Harcourt, W. (Eds.), The OUP Handbook of Transnational Feminist Movements: Knowledge, Power, and Social Movements, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199943494.013.027
  • Kurian, P. & Munshi, D. (2014), Denial and distancing in discourses of development: Shadow of the 'Third World' in New Zealand. In S. Schech (Ed.), Development Perspectives from the Antipodes, London: Routledge (pp.13-31).
  • Kurian, P. & Bartlett, R.V. (2011). “Environment and Development”, in Denemark, R.A. (ed) International Studies Encyclopedia. Blackwell Publishing. Blackwell Reference Online. [12,000-word, peer-reviewed article].
  • Murphy, P., Munshi, D., Kurian, P., Lakhtakia, A., & Bartlett, R. (2011). Nanotechnology, society and environment. In Andrews, D., Scholes, G., & Wiederrecht, G. (Eds.), Comprehensive Nanoscience and Technology. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
  • Munshi, D., & Kurian, P. (2009). Migrants, genes, and socioscientific phobias: Charting the fear of the ‘Third World’ in discourses of development in New Zealand. In  K-K. Bhavnani, J. Foran, P. Kurian, & D. Munshi (Eds.), On the edges of development: Cultural interventions, New York: Routledge. (pp. 94-109).
  • Bhavnani, K-K, Foran, J., Kurian, P., & Munshi, D. (2009). Introduction: From the edges of development. In  K-K. Bhavnani, J. Foran, P. Kurian, & D. Munshi (Eds.), On the edges of development: Cultural interventions, New York: Routledge. (pp. 1-9).
  • Munshi, D., & Kurian, P. (2007). The case of the subaltern public: A postcolonial investigation of CSR’s (o)missions. In S. May, G. Cheney, & J. Roper (Eds.), The Debate over Corporate Social Responsibility, New York: Oxford University Press. (pp. 438-447).
  • Kurian, P. & Bartlett, R. V. (2003) "Ethics and Justice Needs for Sustainable Development", in Theme: Human Rights, Ethics and Justice, edited by Robert Elliott, in Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems, (EOLSS),  EOLSS Publishers, Oxford, UK, [http://www.eolss.net]  [Invited 12,000-word essay].
  • Bhavnani, K-K., Foran, J., & Kurian, P. (2003) “Introduction to Women, Culture and Development”. In K-K. Bhavnani, J. Foran, and P. Kurian (eds) Feminist Futures: Re-imagining Women, Culture and Development. London: Zed Books.
  • Munshi, D., & Kurian, P. (2003). “Knitting a net of knowledge: Engendering cybertechnology for disempowered communities”. In Bhavnani, K., Foran, J., & Kurian, P. (Eds). Feminist Futures: Re-imagining women, culture, and development. London: Zed Books, pp. 188-193.
  • Kurian, P., & Munshi, D. (2003). “Negotiating human-nature boundaries, cultural hierarchies and masculinist paradigms of development studies”. In Bhavnani, K., Foran, J., & Kurian, P. (Eds). Feminist Futures: Re-imagining women, culture, and development. London: Zed Books, pp. 146-159.
  • Kurian, P. (2001) “World Bank”. In J. Barry and G. Frankland (eds) International Encyclopedia of Environmental Politics. London: Routledge.
  • Kurian, P. (2001) “Dams/Hydroelectric Power.” In J. Barry and G. Frankland (eds) International Encyclopedia of Environmental Politics. London: Routledge.
  • Kurian, P. (1998) “Feminization of Poverty.” In E. Amico (ed) Reader’s Guide to Women’s Studies, Chicago, IL: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers.
  • Kurian, P. (1998) “Work: Migrant Labor.” In E. Amico (ed) Reader’s Guide to Women’s Studies, Chicago, IL: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers.
  • Kurian, P. & Kensinger, L. (1996) “Diverse Meanings: Challenges and Complexities of Multicultural Teaching” in Multicultural Prism: Voices from the Field, Volume 2, ed. J.Q. Adams and J. R. Welsch. Macomb, IL: Illinois Staff and Curriculum Developers Association.
  • Kurian, P. (1995) "U.S. Congress and the World Bank: Impact of News Media on International Environmental Policy". In R.V. Bartlett, P. Kurian, and M. Malik (eds) International Organizations and Environmental Policy.Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
  • Kurian, P., Bartlett, R.V. and M. Malik. (1995) "International Environmental Policy: Redesigning the Agenda for Theory and Practice". In R.V. Bartlett, P. Kurian, and M. Malik (eds) International Organizations and Environmental Policy.Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

(v) Technical Reports

  • Munshi, D., Kurian, P., Morrison, S., Kathlene, L., & Cretney, R. (2020). Centring culture in public engagement on climate change adaptation: Re-shaping the future of the NZ tourism sector: A report to the Deep South National Science Challenge. Hamilton, New Zealand: The University of Waikato and Wellington, New Zealand: Deep South National Science Challenge.
  • Kathlene, L, Kurian, P., Munshi, D., & Morrison, S. (2020). Mapping values, beliefs, and attitudes on genetic technologies: Insights from a national survey of Māori and non-Māori citizens of Aotearoa New Zealand – An interim report. MBIE-funded project on gene editing technologies.
  • Munshi, D., Kurian, P., Morrison, S., Kathlene, L., Cretney, R., & Doo, M. (2018). Climate change adaptation in the Aotearoa New Zealand Tourism sector: Report of a cross-sector engagement session. Hamilton: University of Waikato.
  • Prieur-Richard, A-H., Walsh, B., Craig, M., Melamed, M.L., Colbert, M., Pathak, M., Connors, S.,  Bai, X., Barau, A., Bulkeley, H., Cleugh, H., Cohen, M., Colenbrander, S., Dodman, D., Dhakal, S., Dawson, R., Espey, J., Greenwalt, J.,  Kurian, P., Lee, B., Leonardsen, L., Masson-Delmotte, V., Munshi, D., Okem, A., Delgado Ramos, G.C., Sanchez Rodriguez,R., Roberts, D., Rosenzweig, C., Schultz, S., Seto, K., Solecki, W., van Staden, M., Ürge-Vorsatz, D.  (2018). Global research and action agenda on cities and climate change science. Scientific Steering Committee and Organising Committee of the Cities IPCC Conference, sponsored by the  Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Retrieved from https://citiesipcc.org/beyond/global-research-and-action-agenda-on-cities-and-climate-change-science/