Shankar Gopalakrishnan is affiliated to the Campaign for Survival and Dignity, a platform of Indigenous peoples' and forest dwellers’ organisations from eleven States working on issues of rights over natural resources. He is also an activist of the Uttarakhand Nav Nirman Mazdoor Sangh, a new union of unorganised sector workers in Uttarakhand, India. He has also done research and written on issues around development policy, resource politics, political economy, social movements, labour issues and so on.