Farhana Sultana

Farhana Sultana

Contact Information:

sultanaf@syr.edu

Personal Website

Farhana Sultana

Professor, Geography and the Environment Department

Research Co-Director, Environmental Conflict and Collaboration

Senior Research Associate, Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflict and Collaboration

Senior Research Associate, South Asia Center

Courses

  • 2025 Fall
    • ESP 410 Environment, Sustainability and Policy Capstone Seminar
  • 2025 Spring
    • GEO 336 Climate Justice
    • GEO 602 Research Design in Geography
  • 2024 Fall
    • ESP 410 Environment, Sustainability and Policy Capstone Seminar
    • GEO 422/622 Water: Environment, Society and Politics
  • 2024 Spring
    • GEO 336 Climate Justice
    • GEO 499 Honors Capstone Project
    • GEO 602 Research Design in Geography

Highest degree earned

Ph.D., University of Minnesota, 2007

Bio

Farhana Sultana is an internationally recognized interdisciplinary scholar of political ecology, water governance, climate justice, development, sustainability, citizenship, human rights, transnational feminism and decolonization. Learn more: www.farhanasultana.com

Areas of Expertise

Political ecology, international development, water governance, climate change, environmental justice, sustainability, citizenship, human rights, decolonizing, transnational feminisms, South Asia

Research Grant Awards and Projects

"Ways of Repair", Sponsored by Open Society Foundations.

"Race, Space and the Environment", Sponsored by Hendricks Chapel, PARCC, Newhouse (SU); John Ben Snow Foundation, Reisman Foundation, USA .

"Building a Community of Practice for Household Water Insecurity (HWISE) Research Coordination Network ", Sponsored by National Science Foundation (NSF), USA .

"Democratizing Water", Sponsored by The Claire Friedlander Family Foundation, USA .

"International Center for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD)", Sponsored by Independent University Bangladesh.

Selected Publications

Presentations and Events

Climate crisis, reparations and internationalist solidarity after the Berlin Conference, Cambridge University, "Climate Coloniality and the Politics of Knowledge: Toward Epistemic Justice" (December 9, 2025)

Geographies of Environmental Futures, Department of Geography, Environment and Society, University of Minnesota, "From Epistemic Erasures to Convivial Futures amid Climate Coloniality" (October 30, 2025)

Annual Conference on South Asia, University of Wisconsin-Madison, "Holding the Line for Democracy in Bangladesh: One Year Since the July Revolution/Biplob" (October 24, 2025)

NRB Connect Day, Chief Advisor’s Office of the Interim Government of Bangladesh, "Role of Diaspora in Bangladesh’s development and growth" (September 27, 2025)

Congressional Briefing - The Journey towards Justice, Reform, and Democracy – Bangladesh Today, One Year After the July Revolution, "Lessons from the July Uprising" (July 15, 2025)

Congressional Briefing - The Journey towards Justice, Reform, and Democracy – Bangladesh Today, One Year After the July Revolution, Bangladesh America Alliance, "Lessons from the July Uprising " (July 15, 2025)

CASID 2025 Annual Congress, Canadian Association for the Studies of International Development (CASID), "From Erasure to Emergence: Collective Epistemic Futures in the Age of Climate Coloniality" (June 3, 2025)

Liberal International British Group, "Bangladesh: The 2024 popular revolution and the future" (April 18, 2025)

Columbia Climate School Signature Speaker, Columbia University, "Confronting Climate Coloniality: Repairing Epistemic Injustice and Loss in the Era of Climate Breakdown" (April 17, 2025)

Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers, "Authors-Meet-Critics on Confronting Climate Coloniality: Decolonizing Pathways for Climate Justice" (March 25, 2025)

Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers, "Decolonial Geographies of Climate Change" (March 25, 2025)

The University Center for the Humanities Speaker, Western Michigan University, "Collaborative learning to confront climate coloniality and decolonize global futures" (March 13, 2025)

Caribbean Seminar Series, Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies, "Confronting Climate Coloniality: Decolonizing Pathways for Climate Justice" (February 28, 2025)

Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice (CSSGJ) Public Seminar Series, University of Nottingham, "Confronting Climate Coloniality: Decolonizing Pathways for Climate Justice" (February 24, 2025)

4th Annual Energy Geography Conference, Energy and Environment Specialty Group of the American Association of Geographers, "Decolonizing Climate and Energy Knowledge: Repairing Epistemic Injustice and Loss in the Era of Climate Breakdown" (January 25, 2025)

Ways of Repair, Loss and Damage Collaboration, "Decolonizing Climate Knowledge: Repairing Epistemic Injustice and Loss in the Era of Climate Change" (January 22, 2025)

International School on Climate Mobilities Seminar (ICSM), "Climate Justice: Unpacking Coloniality, Gender, Race, Class, Indigeneity and Climate-related Displacement" (2025)

Mt. Holyoke College, "Geographies of Climate Justice" (2025)

University of Minnesota, "Geographies of Environmental Futures " (2025)

University of Wisconsin-Madison, "Graduate seminar on political ecology " (2025)

Book Launch talk, South Asia Center, Moynihan Institute , "Confronting Climate Coloniality" (November 11, 2024)

Bangladesh Reimagined: The Next Half-Century, Bangladesh Development Initiative, "Confronting Climate Coloniality in Bangladesh: Decolonizing Pathways for Climate Justice" (November 10, 2024)

7th Community-Based Global Learning Summit: Collaboration for a Better World: Global Learning, Hope, and Justice, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, "Collaborative learning to confront climate coloniality and decolonize global futures" (November 8, 2024)

KIN City Conference, Berliner Gazette, "Climate/Water (In)Justice in a Megacity" (October 17, 2024)

Wageningen Centre of Sustainability Governance (WCSG) Conference, Wageningen University, "Plenary roundtable on Justice, Decoloniality and More-Than-Human relations" (October 17, 2024)

Virtual book launch, Syracuse University, "Confronting Climate Coloniality: Decolonizing Pathways for Climate Justice" (October 15, 2024)

Chowdhury Center for Bangladesh Studies, University of California at Berkeley, "Biplob in Bangladesh: How a Student Revolt Overthrew a Regime" (September 25, 2024)

Bangladesh Environmental Network, "Recent Floods in Bangladesh: Causes, Consequences, and Countermeasures" (August 31, 2024)

Virtual Panel of the Cornell-Syracuse South Asia Consortium, South Asia Center, Moynihan Institute, "Bangladesh Now: Beyond the Headlines" (August 29, 2024)

NRI Affairs/Hindus for Human Rights, "Bangladesh Reimagined" (August 27, 2024)

Citizen Action Group, "Citizen Action Against the Misinformation Campaign Threatening Bangladesh’s New Democracy" (August 25, 2024)

Bangladesh Women Solidarity Network, "Debunking Hindutva Propaganda: Unveiling the Misrepresentation of Post-Revolution Violence in Bangladesh" (August 24, 2024)

Launching Ceremony of the ‘Voices from the Global South’ , Royal Geographical Society, UK, "Voices from the Global South Confront Climate Coloniality" (June 24, 2024)

Digital X Climate Conference, Digital Studies Institute, University of Michigan, "Education to confront climate coloniality" (June 21, 2024)

Oxford REACH Water Program, Oxford University, UK, "Academia meets activism: a new water justice agenda" (June 20, 2024)

Political Ecology of Education, Oslo Met University, Norway, "Education to confront climate coloniality" (June 19, 2024)

Without water we are nothing’: Poetics and Politics of Water in Anglophone Postcolonial Literatures (20th-21st Centuries), University of Lille, France, "Drowned out: Climate/Water (In)Justice in a Megacity" (June 14, 2024)

Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers, "Water (In)Security and Climate Change" (April 19, 2024)

Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers, "Who Counts? A Qualitative Investigation of Gender and Racial Inequity in Representation, Professional Visibility, and Status in Geograph" (April 18, 2024)

Scientist Rebellion, UK, "Disruptions in Planetary Justice" (April 17, 2024)

Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers, "21st Century Economics to Address Global Warming and Climate Justice" (April 16, 2024)

Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers, "Karen Bakker Memorial" (April 16, 2024)

Rofl Buchdal Lecture, Symposium on Science, Technology and Values, North Caroline State University, "Climate justice in a time of expansive climate coloniality" (April 5, 2024)

Sustainable Solutions Lab Workshop, University of Massachusetts at Boston, "Climate Journeys: Dialogues on Climate Migration" (March 22, 2024)

Department of Geography and the Environment, Syracuse University, "New Geographies of Imperialism" (March 1, 2024)

Loss and Damage Collaboration, UK, "Decolonising Climate Coloniality in an Era of Loss and Damage: A Primer for Artists" (February 23, 2024)

7th SDG Conference Bergen, University of Bergen, Germany, "The role of universities and education in decolonizing climate" (February 8, 2024)

Department of Religions and Cultures Seminar , Concordia University, Canada, "Drowned Out: Climate (In)Justice in Megacities" (February 5, 2024)

MLK Symposium, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan,, "The Intersection of Racial and Environmental Justice: How business leaders can shape an equitable future" (January 31, 2024)

BEN Bimonthly Webinar Series, Bangladesh Environmental Network, Bangladesh, "Climate Change, Gender and Development" (January 27, 2024)

D.C. Science Writers Association, USA, "What Should Global Climate Justice Mean?" (January 24, 2024)

Workshop of the Department of Geography and the Environment, Maxwell School, "Geographers Confront the Climate Crisis: Science, Policy, and Power" (November 30, 2023)

Social movements in the climate crisis: an encounter of perspectives, University of Insubria, Italy, "Cultivating care-full Climate Revolutions" (November 29, 2023)

University of Illinois, USA, "From Climate Coloniality to Climate Revolutions" (November 8, 2023)

Symposium on New Directions in Bangladesh Studies, University of Wisconsin Madison, "Contested Urban Hydro Citizenship in Dhaka" (October 18, 2023)

University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA, "Sustainability, Decoloniality, Interdisciplinarity" (October 10, 2023 - October 12, 2023)

Annual Conference of the Collaborative Research Centre Structural Change of Property, University of Erfurt, Germany, "Rethinking property relations in climate coloniality" (October 4, 2023 - October 6, 2023)

Political Education Teach-in Series, South Feminist Futures, "What is Climate Coloniality?" (October 4, 2023)

Pathways Forum, Future Earth, France, "Whose Sustainability? Unpacking decolonization in sustainability science" (September 27, 2023)

Conversations in Conflict Studies, PARCC, Maxwell School, "From Climate Coloniality to Climate Revolutions" (September 14, 2023)

Perspectives in Global Development Seminar Series, Cornell University, Global Development Program, USA, "From Climate Coloniality to Climate Revolutions" (September 13, 2023)

Environmental Politics from the Margins: Co-creating Multispecies-Just Futures, Political Studies Association, UK, "Climate Coloniality" (September 1, 2023)

Resilience in the Anthropocene Summit, Loka Institute, University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI, "The Pain We Carry; How Race, Gender, Class and Globalization intersect on Ecoanxiety and Climate Distress" (August 8, 2023 - August 10, 2023)

Expert Group Meeting: Progress of the World’s Women: Conceptualizing Feminist Climate Justice, United Nations Woman, UN Women, USA, "Conceptualizing Feminist Climate Justice" (July 11, 2023 - June 12, 2023)

Sydney Environmental Institute, University of Sydney, "Grounded Conversations" (May 30, 2023)

Beyond Growth 2023 Conference: Pathways towards Sustainable Prosperity in the EU, European Parliament, "Understanding the biophysical limits to growth to build an economy that respects planetary boundaries" (May 16, 2023)

International Conference of the Center for Transdisciplinary Gender Studies (ZtG), Humboldt Universität, Germany, "Feminists Decolonizing Climate Politics" (May 4, 2023)

Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers, "Confronting Climate Coloniality" (March 23, 2023 - March 27, 2023)

Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers, "Doing Public Geography" (March 23, 2023 - March 27, 2023)

Climate Action Task Force Plenary Lecture, Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers, "Just Geographies of Academic Mobilities" (March 23, 2023 - March 27, 2023)

Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers, "Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility " (March 23, 2023 - March 27, 2023)

Science & Technology in Asia seminar series, Harvard University, USA, "Confronting Climate Coloniality" (March 14, 2023)

Book Seminar, Ashoka University, India, "Slow Disaster: Political Ecology of Hazards and Everyday Life in the Brahmaputra Valley, Assam" (February 10, 2023)

19th Conference on Cultural Geographies/ Neue Kulturgeographie (NKG), Martin Luther University, Germany, "Decolonizing Climate Coloniality and the Importance of Cultural Praxis" (January 26, 2023)

Institute for Research on Women (IRW) Distinguished Lecture Series, Rutgers University, "The Future of the Environment" (November 11, 2021)

Environmental Studies Seminar Series, Colby College, "Climate Justice in a World of Crises" (October 29, 2021)

Radical Climate Justice for the Global Commons, University of California Center for Climate Justice, "Feminist climate justice in a world of crises" (October 4, 2021 - October 25, 2021)

49th Annual Conference on South Asia, University of Wisconsin, "Fifty Years in the Making: Decolonizing Bangladesh Studies" (October 20, 2021 - October 24, 2021)

49th Annual Conference on South Asia, University of Wisconsin, "Fifty Years in the Making: Decolonizing Bangladesh Studies" (October 20, 2021 - October 24, 2021)

Annual Presidential Sustainability Lecture, SUNY Geneseo, "Sustainability in a Time of Climate Crisis" (October 6, 2021)

College and University Fund for the Social Sciences Conference, Social Science Research Council (SSRC), "Reckoning with Research Methods and Ethics" (October 4, 2021)

Climate Change, Justice, and Health Series, Loyola Marymount University, "Feminist climate justice in a world of crises" (September 23, 2021)

Annual Environmental Security Summit, National Intelligence University (NIU) and Environmental Security Working Group (ESWG), "Critical Climate Justice" (September 15, 2021)

Climate Change Research Group (CCRG) Annual General Meeting, Royal Geographical Society, "Climate Change in Geographical Research" (September 6, 2021)

HWISE NOW Virtual Coffee Hour, NSF, "Household Water Insecurity and Climate Disruptions" (July 27, 2021)

Speaker Series of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Federal Reserve Board, "Critical Climate Justice" (July 14, 2021)

IV Tarragona International Environmental Law Colloquium, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, "Climate Change, COVID-19 and the Co-production of Injustices" (June 15, 2021)

Consultation on Equity and Inclusion in the Context of Climate Change & Migration, Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, US State Department, "Equity and Inclusion in Climate Change & Migration" (June 2, 2021)

CLARE Programme Stakeholder Workshop, KIT Royal Tropical Institute (Netherlands) and International Development Research Centre (IDRC), "Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) Integration in Research on Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience" (May 19, 2021)

Virtual Symposium, Rhodes University School of Journalism and Media Studies with Syracuse University Newhouse School of Journalism, "Race, Space and the Environment" (April 23, 2021)

Center for Environmental Justice & Colorado Water Center, "Whose Water is it? Environmental Justice and Water Privatization" (April 19, 2021)

Induction Ceremony of the Gamma Theta Upsilon Geographical Honor Society, Hofstra University, "Why Geography Matters" (April 12, 2021)

Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers, "More than Mentoring: Towards A More Equitable and Just Geography" (April 4, 2021 - April 7, 2021)

Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers, "Urban Climate Justice Futures" (April 4, 2021 - April 7, 2021)

Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers, "Water Politics" (April 4, 2021 - April 7, 2021)

UNEP Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel (STAP), Global Environment Facility (GEF), "How the Science of Behavioral Change and the Social Sciences Can Help the GEF to Deliver its Objectives" (March 25, 2021 - March 26, 2021)

UNEP Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel (STAP), Global Environment Facility (GEF), "GEF-8 Replenishment: Behavioral Change" (February 8, 2021)

Honors and Accolades

Elevate the Discipline Fellow, American Association of Geographers (2023)

Mellon Foundation Faculty Fellow, University of Massachusetts at Amherst (2023)

Glenda Laws Award, American Association of Geographers (2019)

Co-Curricular Award, College of Arts and Sciences, Syracuse University (2018)

Geneva Actions on Human Water Security (2017)

Related News

See All News

Media Coverage

Jan 28, 2026

Sultana Discusses Hydro-Coercion and Water Justice in Counterpoint and Daily Star Articles

Government, India, South Asia, Water

Research

Jan 27, 2026

From Hydro-Hegemony to Hydro-Coercion

Government, India, South Asia, Water

Research

Dec 17, 2025

Repairing Epistemic Injustice and Loss in the Era of Climate Coloniality

Africa (Sub-Saharan), Climate Change, Colonialism, Latin America & the Caribbean

Research

Sep 9, 2025

Climate-Induced Redistribution of People Is Not Inevitable

Climate Change, International Affairs, Migration