Katharine Rankin studies the politics of development and planning from a background in Anthropology. She takes a commitment to participatory and community-based ethnographic approaches into the study of state and market formation—through research on infrastructure development, post-conflict and post-disaster governance, commercial gentrification and microfinance. His fellowship research project is titled Corruption and the Situated Logics of Ethical Judgment: Road Building in Nepal as a Zone of Ontological Difference. Katharine is one of our 2025-26 JHI Faculty Research Fellows.
What are your main research interests and what excites you most about them?
I came into the fields of geography and planning with a background in anthropology. I was motivated by the old-fashioned, humanist ethos about making the world safe for difference through cross-cultural learning, although in practice, of course, that ethos runs into problems. I was drawn to geography and planning for the emphasis on geopolitics, relational thinking and a commitment to praxis. I’ve continued to engage grounded, place-based ethnographic approaches in my research, which focuses on situated politics and struggles related to economic and political restructuring, primarily in Nepal, but also in northern Vietnam and disinvested neighborhoods in Toronto, Canada. Through increasingly collaborative projects, I’ve undertaken studies of infrastructure development, post-conflict and post-disaster governance, commercial gentrification and social economy. It excites me to forge relationships with people through research—participants, students, colleagues—in a collective process of building knowledge.
What project are you working on at the JHI and why did you choose it?
I’m working on a project about corruption and situated logics of ethical judgment. It came out of research on the politics of infrastructure development in rural Nepal, which is riven with practices of collusion, embezzlement and bribery that foster cynicism, distrust, and real material harms (just like everywhere else in the world). For my JHI project, I wanted to explore a double edge of corruption: how multiple ontologies—views of the world—and the moral judgments they inform, also exist on the terrain of infrastructure development, and how political subjectivities, trust and critical insights are forged as people navigate that terrain in practice. I also wanted to expand my “database,” beyond ethnographic interviews, archives and observations, to include poems, songs, films and ultimately shorts/reels grappling with this moral terrain—which recently exploded in the impressive Gen-Z movement against corruption.
How has your JHI Fellowship experience been so far?
Amazing. I appreciate the gift of time, a supportive intellectual community, experienced and thoughtful staff, and a superbly designed structure & space that facilitates dialogue across disciplines and “generations” of researchers. I am especially grateful to the other fellows and the JHI leadership for helping me think through questions like, how can we explore ontological multiplicity on an ethically fraught terrain, without positing parallel and irreconcilable worlds or resorting to cultural relativism? How can people who have lived with dystopia offer something to our understanding of current dystopian times, as well our hope for ways forward?
Why do you believe the humanities are important?
I am excited but challenged by being located in a humanities institute given my inexperience working with literary and visual arts in research. I’ve found these sources to be a stunning complement to social-science data and ways of thinking. I am reminded of a moment when anthropology went through a “crisis of representation” in the 1980s, when scholars were thinking about how ethnography and fiction (we could include, poems, song, film) present “partial truths.” Ethnography strives to be accountable to the voices, practices and settings of research subjects, while pushing toward generalizability. Literary and visual arts express subjective lifeworlds through devices like satire and irony (which feature in the material I am working with). I think the combination is ideal for grappling with the topics of ethics and moral judgment, which are central concerns in the humanities and in the world today.
Can you share something you read/watched/listened to recently that you enjoyed/were inspired by?
Yes. There is a Substack article by Bishal KC titled “A Final Mandate from the Generation That Watched It Burn” and it offers a powerful indictment of his (and my) generation for complacency and cynicism in the face of the greed, corruption and plunder of the ruling class in Nepal, for “writing toothless editorials” and “waiting for a hero". It pays tribute to Gen-Z insurgents for stepping up to depose an entire political class by using social media to “seize control of the narrative” and “weaponize information.” As the parent of young adults, I agree that it is important politically to see the world from their perspective, and to recognize these extraordinary moments when youth speak truth to power.
What's a fun fact about you?
I love collecting wood from fallen branches in a nearby park, cutting and splitting it for firewood, and burning it in my new super-efficient wood burning stove! Bonus if there is enough snow for a ski around the park as well.