Research
Ethnographic and qualitative methods underpin my research on governance, housing, migration, and organizational behavior. Across my projects, I use in-depth interviews, focus groups, participant observation, archival analysis, and intensive fieldwork to understand how households, communities, organizations, and public agencies navigate complex social challenges and policy environments. These approaches allow me to connect everyday experiences and organizational practices to broader questions of governance, housing, displacement, and socio-spatial change.
My work sits at the intersection of organizational theory, urban sociology, planning, anthropology, and political science. While my early research focused primarily on nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations and governance, my scholarship has expanded to encompass urban transformation, migration, and homeownership. Three interrelated themes shape my research agenda.
1. Housing, Homeownership and Urban Transformation
A major strand of my research examines housing as a social, economic, and political process. I seek to understand how individuals and families access, finance, inhabit, and make meaning from housing within rapidly changing urban environments.
My book, A Place to Call Home: Women as Agents of Change in Mumbai (2019), draws on ethnographic research with women displaced by basti clearance and relocated to one of Asia's largest resettlement colonies. Through interviews, focus groups, and participant observation, the project examines how women navigate displacement, homeownership, neighborhood formation, and urban change. The book highlights the active role women play in shaping place-making processes and adapting to profound shifts in their residential and social environments.
Book reviews have appeared in Housing Studies, Journal of Planning Education and Research, Economic & Political Weekly, and Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly.
The book has also been featured in practitioner and public-facing forums, including The Mumbai launch of the book held at the Mumbai Press Club, a national magazine interview; a Q&A session as part a Giving-Tuesday event hosted by a nonprofit, a Q & A with the Indian Housing Federation, and a write-up in Citizen Matters.
Related research published in World Development examines variation in resilience among women facing residential relocation and asks why some individuals recover from livelihood disruptions more effectively than others.
My more recent work investigates homeownership pathways and market-rate affordable housing in India. This includes recently published research on private developers operating in Chennai's agrarian urban frontier and the aspirations of first-generation homeowners purchasing homes on the metropolitan periphery. Ongoing projects examine demand for peri-urban housing and patterns of housing vacancy and underutilization in Bengaluru.
2. Migration, Displacement & Housing Insecurity
A second stream of research examines the intersection of migration, displacement, homelessness, and housing policy.
This work explores how governments, nonprofits, faith-based organizations, advocacy groups, and local communities respond to the housing needs of migrants and displaced populations. It is particularly concerned with the gap between formal rights frameworks and the lived realities of accessing adequate, affordable, and secure housing.
Recent comparative research investigates housing and homelessness challenges among irregular migrants across multiple global cities. Through interviews with government officials, nonprofit leaders, housing advocates, legal practitioners, academics, and intergovernmental actors, I examine how different cities and countries construct migrant housing challenges and the solutions they pursue. This work contributes to emerging debates on migration governance, housing precarity, sanctuary policies, and urban inclusion.
Across these projects, I am interested in how migrants navigate formal and informal housing systems, how displacement reshapes relationships to place, and how public policies produce or mitigate housing insecurity.
3. Governance, Nonprofits and Organizational Behavior
A third strand of my research focuses on nonprofit organizations, governance, and organizational relationships.
My dissertation research examined two decades of interactions between housing nonprofits and government agencies in Mumbai. Through a historical analysis of organizations working to improve housing conditions for slum residents, I connected debates in urban political economy to organizational life cycles, institutional change, and public-nonprofit relations. This work contributed to scholarship on institutional isomorphism, NGO-government interaction styles and strategic organizational change.
Subsequent research in the United States explored factors influencing the long-term effectiveness of faith-based organizations contracted by government agencies to deliver social services. Drawing on longitudinal data collected over five years, this work examines how organizational capacity and capacity-building efforts influence performance in public service delivery (Voluntary Sector Review).
My research also examines the motivations and decision-making processes of nonprofit stakeholders. One study published in Religions explores the cognitive processes that influence repeat giving among donors to Christian faith-related international NGOs. Drawing on scholarship in donor behavior, nonprofit management, and self-perception theory, the article develops propositions explaining how donors evaluate continued support for international causes.
My research has also examined ethical evaluation practices within international development organizations. Fieldwork conducted in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the United States explored how international NGOs balance accountability demands with ethical responsibilities in complex and conflict-affected environments. The project generated both scholarly publications and teaching materials used in nonprofit and public management education. [Please email me for the password if you wish to use the video for classroom teaching.]
Additional work addresses donor decision-making, collaborative governance, nonprofit leadership, program evaluation, and international development practice.
Select Recent Publications:
Pasha, O., Ramanath, R. & Bajwa, Y. (2023). Coping with political interference and resource scarcity: Governance in the former tribal regions of Pakistan, Administrative Theory & Praxis. Online first: https://doi.org/10.1080/10841806.2023.2176071
Ramanath, R. (2023). Agents of change or maintenance women? Networks of control among women in a resettlement colony for former basti dwellers, In W. Curren & L. Kern (Eds.). Research Agenda for Gentrification. Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd.
Ramanath, R. & Manikandan K.P. (2026). Plotting new middle-class aspirations: ‘Outlaw’ builders of market-rate affordable homes in Chennai’s agrarian urban frontier. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 50(2), 386-409.
Working Papers:
Current Projects:
Who demands a peri-urban home?
Unlocking Vacancy: Understanding under-used housing in Bengaluru, India.