Mr. Theo Whitcomb is a writer and journalist from Southern Oregon. He has covered land use and natural resource politics for over two years, focusing on water, law enforcement, and cannabis agriculture. His writing has been published in national and regional magazines. In 2019, while in India, he began researching and writing about river restoration and land use in Chennai – a subject topic which the Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship will continue to support this year.
While in South India for the second time, Mr. Whitcomb is interested in understanding how multinational companies, local social movements, and investors are shaping the politics, economics, and ecology of the region. His research will focus on studying the challenges and politics of Chennai to navigate a disaster-prone climate. To do this, he will work with scholars at the Madras Institute for Development Studies.
Working with scholars at Chennai’s Madras Institute for Development Studies, Mr. Whitcomb’s Fulbright-Nehru research focuses on the politics and infrastructure of ‘climate adaptation.’ He is interested in how multinational companies and international development investment is shaping the politics, economics, and ecology of the Coromandel coast.