Abdullah Rubaet Chowdhury

Abdullah Rubaet Chowdhury is an interdisciplinary researcher working at the intersection of Indigenous knowledge, anthropology, political ecology, and global governance. His current research focuses on the ethical integration of plural knowledge systems into contemporary policy frameworks, with particular attention to the Global Biodiversity Framework and related debates in biodiversity conservation. At the core of his work lies a central paradox: while global frameworks increasingly call for the inclusion of Indigenous and local knowledge, the very processes designed to integrate these systems often risk simplifying, extracting, or erasing their living, relational nature.

His ethnography fieldwork engages the Khasi communities of Northeast India and Bangladesh and the ancient Bön communities of Nepal, exploring how stewardship practices, community governance, and local epistemologies — expressed through story, myth, ritual, and relationship. He is developing the ‘Living Knowledge’ framework, which is shaped through relationships between people, land, and biodiversity, and how they can be engaged in global research and policy without fossilising their living, dynamic character. Another theme of his research is the study of matriarchal and matrilineal systems and their significance for contemporary governance and knowledge sovereignty.

Across this work, he is especially interested in the role that academic institutions can play in supporting community rights and accountable collaboration — and in how storytelling, education, and policy can together advance Indigenous leadership and community resilience in the face of ongoing environmental and social pressures.