SWEDISH SOUTH ASIAN STUDIES NETWORK
No update during period 19-25 March. Webmaster on India tour.Important lectures and seminars in ScandinaviaMarch 2010
• Dr. Manzurul Mannan from Independent University Bangladesh (IUB), will hold two public lectures at Gothenburg University on Friday 19 March 2010. His visit to Gothenburg is part of the new collaboration between Independent University Bangladesh and the School of Global Studies (SGS), University of Gothenburg.
• The Contemporary India Studies Centre Aarhus (CISCA) invites to a guest lecture by Prof. Arild Engelsen Ruud, University of Oslo, on Tuesday 6 April 2010, 14-00–16.00. Prof. Ruud will talk about ”Democracy in South Asia: the village perception”. Venue: Building 1410, CISCA, Aarhus Universitet, Nordre Ringgade 1, Aarhus, Denmark. More information.
Conferences and workshops
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Prof. Yogendra Yadav, Senior Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, India, holds a SASNET lecture on ”Democracy and Poverty in India”, on Thursday 18 March 2010, 14.15–16.00. The seminar is organised in collaboration with the Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies (
• Professor
Torkel Brekke, Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages (
• Anthony P. D'Costa,
Professor of Indian Studies at the
Asia Research Centre (
• An international conference on Strategies for
Sustainability in the Indian Ocean Region will be held in Sydney, Australia, 17–19 March 2010. It is organised by the Indian Ocean and South Asia Research Network (
• An International conference entitled ”Power to the People?
(Con-) Tested Civil Society in Search of Democracy” will be held in Uppsala 23–24 March 2010. It is organized by the Uppsala Centre for Sustainable Development (CSD) at Uppsala University,
in cooperation with the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and its Team Civil Society. The conference will try to explore differences of civil society formation across the world. Key lectures will be given by top scholars from four continents, among them Prof. Nandini Sundar, Dept. of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University. A series of participatory parallel sessions will also be held, a few of them focusing on South Asia. 
A year ago, in June 2009, SASNET forwarded an appeal for more South Asianist participation at the AAS conferences. The appeal came from Prof. Kalyanakrishnan Shivi Sivaramakrishnan (photo) of Yale University and Vice President of the American Association of Asian Studies; and Assistant Professor Ramya Sreenivasan of the University of Buffalo (being the Chair of the 
• The British Association for South Asian Studies (BASAS) holds its Annual Conference 2010 at the University of Warwick, UK, 29–31 March 2010. The convenors especially welcome submissions on the theme 'Landscapes of the Imagination and South Asia'. The keynote speaker will be Professor Catherine Hall from the University College London. She will speak on the theme: ”Macaulay: writing history, writing Inda”. Please note that you will need to join BASAS, or renew your BASAS membership, in order to attend the conference. Details on how to become a BASAS member or how to renew your BASAS membership are available online at 
• In connection with the main BASAS conference (see above), the 
• The Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies (
One of the speakers should have been Dr. Rubya Mehdi from the Carsten Niebuhr Institute, Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. She was supposed to lecture about ”Challenge to Divine Sanction or Compromise? With reference to Protection of Women Act 2006 in Pakistan”.
Unfortunately, she has however cancelled her participation. Instead Dr. Stig Toft Madsen (photo) will come and lecture on ”Justice and Jihad from the East India Company to the Lashkar-e-Toiba”. Venue: Telaris at Juridicum, Lund University, Lilla Gråbrödersgatan 4, Lund. 
• An Indian National Seminar on ”Water and Culture: Legacy, Vision and Sustainable Future of Mankind” will be held in Haridwar, Uttarakhand, India, on 10 - 11 April 2010. This two-day seminar focuses on the fact that traditional water policies are neither enough to incorporate the needs and worries of modern society, nor to give proper answers to the challenges of a new model based on sustainability. In order to harmonize social welfare improvement with environment limits, guaranteeing its conservation, it is necessary to switch water policies objectives and to change the culture of our society linking the traditions and the present cultural scenario. The Ganga river, perceived as mother goddess, provides message and context for deeper and alternative vision for sustainable future. The seminar will bring together research scientists, cultural historians and geographers, politicians, NGOs and dharmagurus to discuss various facets of water and culture for suggesting ways to save the source of life and cultural values. Venue. Haridvar – Kumbha, on the bank of the Ganges river, in the premises of Prabhu Premi Sangh (Harihar Ashram). Participants should submit abstracts before 15 March 2010. For more information, contat the co-convenor 
• The Gujarat Studies Association will hold its 3rd Biennial Conference in London, UK, on 9–10 April 2010. The conference, entitled ‘Cosmopolitan Connections: Encountering Gujaratis in Multiple Contexts’ will be organised in collaboration with School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS)/UCL Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL). The Gujarat Studies Association (GSA), established in 2005, is an academic network aimed specifically at the study and research of Gujarat and Gujaratis. Prof. Angela Creese and M.G. Vassanji will be the keynote speakers. Venue: SOAS, University of London. 
• The South Asian Studies Association Conference 2010 will be held 10–11 April 2010 at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, USA. The theme for the conference will be ”South Asia and the West:
Entwined, Entangled and Engaged”. Co-hosting the SASA 2010 conference are the University of Southern California’s Office of Religious Life and Asian Pacific American Student Services. This is one of the world’s premier research and teaching universities, boasting the largest South Asian student population of any university in America. Papers are invited on topics exploring cultural and religious interchanges, entertainment cross-fertilization, economic globalization, and the diaspora experience. 
• The Yale
Modern South Asia Workshop
2010 will be held 10–11 April 2010 in New Haven, Connecticut, USA. The conference is sponsored by the 
• An Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference
on the Middle East, South Asia and Africa will be held in New York, USA, on 15–17 April 2010. The conference is hosted by the Department of Middle East, South Asian and African Studies (
• An International Teyyam Workshop will be held in Kannur, Kerala, India, 18–24 April 2010. The week-long workshop is hosted by the Folklore Fellows of Malabar (Trust). Teyyam is a part of the native religion of North Kerala, consisting of
various ritual performances, myths, drumming, dance forms, and
distinctive facial make-up, headgear, and costumes. It is found in
numerous variants in communities throughout North Kerala. This workshop will introduce Teyyam to scholars and those interested in
native/local culture. It will include Teyyam performances in their
natural context, discussions, lectures by eminent teyyam scholars, and
tours to important teyyam shrines. Deadline for registration is 15 December 2009. 
• A Workshop on “Social In- and Exclusion in contemporary India and beyond” will be held at the Aarhus University, Denmark, on 23–24 April 2010. It is organised by the Contemporary India Study Centre Aarhus (
• A Workshop on ”Marital Dissolution in Asia” will be held in Singapore 6–7 May 2010. It is organised by the 
• The South Asia Institute of the University of Texas at Austin organises a conference on the social studies of science, technology, environment, and medicine in modern South Asia. The Science and Technology Studies in South Asia (STS) conference will be held in Austin, Texas, on May 14 and 15, 2010. The goals of this conference are simple: to offer a venue for scholars to present their work to an informed audience, to create a forum for discussion of issues of common interest, to inform participants about the state of the field, and to help build a community of STS-South Asia scholars. The conference will be organized as a sequential series of panels over two days, and will include at least one plenary lecture by a senior scholar in the field. Deadline for abstracts is 15 March 2010. 
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| Bishnupriya Ghosh. | Himanshu Ray. |
The keynote speakers will be Professor Steve Derne, State University of New York at Geneseo, USA; Prof. Bishnupriya Ghosh, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA; Prof. William Mazzarella, University of Chicago, USA; and Prof. Himanshu Rai, Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), India. A peer-reviewed volume of selected papers will be published after the
conference.
Full information about the 2010 NASA conference. 
• The 26th annual meeting of the Sanskrit Tradition in the Modern World, STIMW, seminar will be organised in Machester, UK, on Friday 28 May 2009. Three years ago, STIMW moved to Manchester (previously the STIMW seminars were held at Minsteracres Retreat Centre, a monastery in the Tyne valley near to Newcastle), to continue to offer a forum for the discussion of papers on varied aspects of Indian religions. Paper proposals should be submitted by 11 December 2009. More information.
June 2010
• A colloquium on ”Changing Images of India and Africa” will be held at the University of Cergy-Pontoise, 30 km west of Paris, France, 3–4 June 2010. The colloquium is organised by two of the university’s research centres , CICC (Civilisations et identités culturelles comparées des sociétés), and SARI (Société d’Activité et de Recherche sur les mondes Indiens). The purpose of this SARI/CICC colloquium is to move
beyond the colonial rhetoric and decidedly look at contemporary India and
Africa in order to create, first of all, a South-South dynamics of interaction. Paper
proposals might contrast earlier images of India/Africa with current images, and study the influences that brought about the change. Deadline for submission of papers is 15 February 2010.
The
proposals could be in English or French. However, for the publication of the
proceedings, you would be required to contribute your text in French. More information.
• A conference on ”Sikhs in Europe. Migration, Identity and Translocal Practices, will be held at Lund University, 16–18 June 2010. It will be organised by the Centre for Theology and Religious Studies (CTR) at Lund University, convened by Dr. Kristina Myrvold. The aim is to gather leading scholars in the multidisciplinary
field of Sikh studies and discuss current research projects focusing on
patterns of migration, identity formations, self-representations, transmission of
traditions and translocal practices among Sikhs in different parts of Europe. While
two conference days are dedicated to presentation and peer-review of papers by the
members of the academic network Sikhs-in-Europe, the third conference day will be a
workshop for Ph.D. students affiliated to European universities. The conference is
public and open to students and researchers in all disciplines.
More information, including full programme.
• The Thirteenth International Conference on Maharashtra: Culture and Society will be held in Bratislava, Slovak Republic, 17–19 June 2010. It is organized by the Dept. of Ethnology and World Studies at the University of Saints Cyril and Methodius in Trnava, Slovak Republic. The theme of the conference will be ”Environments”, challenging researchers working on Maharashtrian culture and society to concentrate on what surrounds those many little/great things/people/processes etc. that they meet
while carrying out research work. Abstracts should be submitted before 15 January 2010. More information.
• A four-week India Study Circle will be organised in Panchmarhi hill station, Madhya Pradesh, India, between 19 June and 17 July 2010. This interdisciplinary study circle brings together scholars, students and social movement activists concerned with better understanding of the dynamics of various regions of India. Established Indian and foreign authorities on Central India, North India, the Deccan & South India, and the North-east will lead the study circle. Topics covered will include, but not be limited to: adivasis; patriarchy; caste; class; region; ecological processes; approaches to historical-geographical writing. It is the opinion of the organisers that the gathering will be of interest to all concerned for the production of empirically substantiated pro-people studies. The study circle will be run as a collective. All participants will be involved in deciding upon and performing necessary chores. More information.
• The third edition of the Bergen Summer Research School is dedicated to the theme of Global Health in Bio-Medical, Social and Cultural Perspectives, and will be held 21 June – 2 July 2010. PhD students and junior researchers from the whole world are invited to
apply. The 2010 theme will intersect with the other key topics of the Bergen Summer Research School (poverty, climate, environment, energy, norms, values, language and culture) and aims to promote collaboration, interaction and joint learning across disciplines on research topics and challenges related to global health and development. These challenges affect all countries in all income categories.
The concept of Global Health is defined as “an area for study, research and practice that places a priority on improving health and achieving equity in health for all people worldwide.
The main basis for BSRS is a series of parallel high quality doctoral courses targeted exclusively for doctoral candidates and junior researchers. The 2010 edition of the Research School plans to offer 8 parallel courses which cover a range of thematic, theoretical and methodological topics important for research on major global health challenges. Each course is based in its own disciplinary framework(s), whether it be in medicine, the humanities, natural or social sciences, but also developed to form a basis for interdisciplinary communication and methodological development in a cross-cultural and multidisciplinary research context.
Deadline for submitting the application
form is 1 March 2010. More information.
• As a preconference to the International Communication Association Conference (ICA 2010) that will be held in Singapore 22–26 June 2010, a one day-conference on ”The ‘Chindia’ Challenge to Global Communication” will be arranged on Tuesday 22 June 2010. It is conceived and organized by Prof.
Daya Thussu, Director of India Media Centre at the University of Westminster, London. The pre-conference is supported by the
Mass Communication Division of the ICA, and by the Center for Global Communication Studies, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, USA. The focus will be on the transformation of communication and media in China and India – the world’s two most populous countries and fastest growing economies, and its profound implications for what constitutes the ‘global’. More information.
• An international workshop on ”Space, Capital and Social History in South Asia” will be held at the University of Göttingen, Germany, 24–26 June 2010. It is organised by the Dept. of History at the university’s newly founded Centre for Modern Indian Studies. Papers are invited from historians and social scientistson issues such as, – the de-industrialisation of formerly celebrated ‘Manchesters of the East’ like Ahmedabad and the gentrification of workers’ neighbourhoods like Mumbai’s vast ‘factory village’ Girangaon; – the relocation of industries and the rapid production of new, transnationally connected landscapes of capital (like that of Gurgaon) brought to life by both ‘informally’ and ‘formally’ employed work forces; – violent conflicts over land for capital-induced ‘Special Economic Zones’ or schemes of infrastructural ‘development’; and – the seemingly irresistible rise of the corporate ‘developer’ and the dynamics of spatial segregation in India’s metropolitan cities. More information.
• A workshop on ”Asian Countries as Exhibited at World Expositions: Revisited in a Global Historical Perspective” will be held in Leiden, the Netherlands on 25 June 2010. It is organised by the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS). Emphasis will be given to issues regarding how the coloniser (the ‘West’) and the colonised (the ‘East’) (mis)represented and intermingled with one other at expositions held between the late 19th century and the early 20th century. We particularly welcome comparative and interdisciplinary case studies of individual Asian countries including China, India, Indonesia, Japan, and Korea which disclose how they competed and struggled with each other in the pursuit of modernisation.
Deadline for submitting abstacts is 15 March 2010. More information.
• The Centre for Comparative European Union Studies (CCEUS), at the
Dept. of Humanities & Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras in Chennai, India, organizes
its first International Workshop, in partnership with the Dept. of Sociology, University of
Sussex in Brighton, UK, 28 June – 3 July 2010. The broad area of the workshop is Democracy, Global Politics and International Relations and the topic of the workshop is “Reinterpreting the State”. The workshop is organized around lectures delivered and readings selected by faculty; and presentations by the participants. The maximum number of participants the workshop could accommodate is 35 across a range of disciplines within humanities and social sciences. Deadline for applications is 26 March 2010. Venue: Industrial Consultancy and Sponsored Research (IC & SR) Hall II, IIT Madras. More information.
July 2010
• The European Association for South Asian Archaeology and Art (EASAA) holds its 20th conference in Vienna, Austria, 4–10 July 2010. The conference will consist of two simultaneous sessions, one focusing on pre and proto-historic archaeology and one on historic archaeology and art history. Contributions should be drawn from current and unpublished research dealing with the archaeology and art history of South Asia. Topics from neighboring regions – i.e. Iran, the Tibetan culture zone, or Central Asia will also be considered when they illuminate problems in South Asian archaeology or art history. Abstracts should be submitted before 30 November 2009. Venue: Campus (AAKH), Spitalgasse 2-4, University of Vienna. More information.
• A workshop on ”Scholarly Networks in the British Empire” will be held in Oxford, UK, 5–6 July 2010. The workshop will provide a forum to consider the relationships that existed between scholars and universities located in different parts of Britain and the Empire in the years after 1850. By examining the historical lineages of these networks, it seeks a critical understanding of the processes that helped to shape the topographies of today’s entangled scholarly community. Proposals for papers should be submitted before 31 December 2009. Venue: Wadham College,
Parks Road,
Oxford. More information.
• Several Indian researchers convene sessions/workshops during the 17th International Sociological Association (ISA) World Congress of Sociology, to be held in Gothenburg, Sweden, 11–17 July 2010. Full information about the XVII World Congress.
Prof. Anup Das from Utkal University in Bhubaneshwar, Orissa, will lead a workshop on ”Solidarity and Social Economy” (session 4) within the framework of ISA’s Research Committee No. 10 (RC 10). Siddharamesh L. Hiremath, Gulbarga University, convenes another session in RC 10, a session on ”Organizations on the move: Participation, work culture and quality of work life”. More information about RC 10.
• On behalf of the European Association for South Asian Studies (EASAS), the University of Bonn will host the 21st European Conference on Modern South Asian Studies (ECMSAS) on 26–29 July 2010. A total number of 44 panels have been accepted for the conference. Researchers from Europe and all over the world are now invited to suggest papers for presentation. Please contact the convener of the specific panel your paper might fit into. Conveners are to decide whether a paper will be accepted or not. More information available on the conference web site.
Two panels are convened by Swedish scholars:
– Panel No. 23, the Bengal Studies Panel, is convened by PhD candidate Kerstin Andersson (photo), School of Global Studies/Anthropology, University of Gothenburg (along with Manjita Mukharji from SOAS in London). The ECMSAS Bengal Studies panel has through the years developed into an important forum for scholars working on Bengal and Bengali studies. As the number of scholars is quite limited and the group is scattered all over the world, the panel provides a meeting point and an opportunity to share research for all with an interest in the culture and society of West Bengal and Bangladesh – and the Bengali Diaspora worldwide. The interdisciplinary approach of the panel welcomes papers on diverse topics such as past and present, literature and media, religion and secularity, women and men, tradition and culture, and on theory and methods in a specifically Bengali context. More information about Panel 23.
– Panel No. 37, on Confrontations in Sri Lankan politics. Origins and present developments, is convened by Prof. Peter Schalk (photo), History of Religions, Faculty of Theology, University of Uppsala. The panel focuses on the radical changes observed in Sri Lanka during the last year, with more than hundred thousand refugees being caught in the armed struggle of the Sri Lankan armed forces and the LTTE. The LTTE suffered a military defeat but at the same time a resilient Tamil Diaspora in Canada, Australia and the EU demonstrated the LTTE's defiance. Scholars are invited to elaborate on and explain the radical changes and its consequences for the economic development and for the possibilities of reconciliation for peace. More information about Panel 37.
Among other interesting ECMSAS 2010 panels, can be mentioned Panel 2: The History of Alcohol and Drugs in Modern South Asia (18th—20th Century), convened by Dr Harald Fischer-Tiné, and Jana Tschurenev; Panel 6: Uttar Pradesh: Development Failure and Identity Politics, convened by Jens Lerche, Roger Jeffery, and Craig Jeffrey; Panel 34: Communism Compared: Andhra Pradesh and Kerala in the 1950s, convened by V Rajagopal, and Margret Frenz; and Panel 36: Taliban, Durand Line and Refugees: The Afghan-Pakistan Border Region under Stress, convened by Conrad Schetter. More information about the ECMSAS 2010 panels.
August 2010
• A Ph.D. course and conference entitled ”Processes of Subjectivation: Colonial and Postcolonial Perspectives” will be held in Copenhagen, Denamrk 16-18 August 2010. It sets out to investigate thenexus between processes of subjectivation and various forms of colonial and postcolonial governance. Subjectivation refers to
processes whereby new moral subjects are coming into being via practices of the self. The joint Ph.D. course and conference will consist of four sessions with presentations from leading experts in the field and separate sessions with Ph.D. presentations. The sessions
focus on – Colonial Governmentality: Security, Territory, Population; – Colonial Childrearing; – Technologies and Subjectivation; and – Biological Determinism and Subjectivation. Invited speakers include Prof. David Arnold, Dept. of History, and Dr. Gurminder K Bhambra, Dept. of Sociology, both at the University of Warwick in UK; Dr. Niels Brimnes, Dept. of History and Area Studies, Aarhus University; Prof. Gyan Prakash, Princeton University, USA; and Dr. Satadru Sen, Queens College, USA. Applications must be sent 1 March 2010. More information.
• The second SASNET conference on
South Asian Studies for young Nordic scholars will be held in Höllviken, south of Malmö, on 18–20 August 2010. This will be a follow-up to the successful conference on the same topic that SASNET arranged last year (more information). It proved to make a difference from the standard academic conferences and paid attention explicitly to the students. Something that was evaluated very positively from all participants .
The 2010 conference will again be held at Falsterbo conference retreat (Falsterbo kursgård) in Höllviken. The aim is to gather master students, doctoral students, and young post-docs in the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden) who focus on South Asia in their studies or research. The conference will provide an opportunity for young scholars from all disciplines to present their future and ongoing research projects, establish contacts with colleagues in the Nordic countries, and discuss the challenges and opportunities of career planning and conducting research in South Asian Studies.
This year’s topics in focus are Interdisciplinary research, Field Work and Ethics, as well as Academic Career (Publishing, Teaching, Networking).
The keynote speaker will be Prof. Emeritus Graham Chapman (photo) from the Dept. of Geography, Lancaster University, UK. Other main speakers will be
Dr. Sirpa Tenhunen, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Helsinki, Finland; Mr. Teddy Primack, Director of Academic Documents Associates, USA; Associate Professor Jan Vang, Department of Production, Aalborg University, Denmark; and Dr. Anna Godhe, Department of Marine Ecology, University of Gothenburg. The deadline to register for the conference is 30 April 2010.
More information on the conference web page.
September 2010
• The 16th Himalayan Languages Symposium will be held in London, UK, 2–5 September 2010. It will be hosted by the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at University of London. The Himalayan Languages Symposium was first held at Leiden University in 1995 and is now well-established an as an annual open forum for scholars of all aspects of Himalayan languages. The focus of the conference is geographical rather than language-based, reflecting the huge linguistic diversity of the Himalaya, and the depth of contact and syncretism between Himalayan languages and cultures. Abstracts should be submitted before 1 April 2010.
The keynote speech will be delivered by Dr. Martine Mazaudon from Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in Paris, France. She will talk about ”Dialectology and language change: paths to tone in Tamangish languages”, a group of Tibeto-Burman languages spoken in Nepal. Venue: College Buildings, SOAS, Hall G 2, Russell Square. More information.
– The 5th Medieval Tibeto-Burman Languages Symposium will be held as a panel of the 16th Himalayan Languages Symposium, on 1 September 2010 (also at SOAS in London). Now the majority of the world’s languages are under imminent threat of extinction, thorough description of the hundreds of living Tibeto-Burman languages is of great urgency. Along with this task, research into the earlier stages of Tibeto-Burman languages with a long written history is also vital. The older written Tibeto-Burman languages, such as Bailang (1st cent), Tibetan (8th cent), Newar (9th cent), Burmese (12th cent), Tangut (13th cent) and Manipuri provide a diachronic depth to comparative, historical and typological studies of contemporary languages, and are essential for solving many of the puzzles which today’s tongues present. This has been well understood in Indo-European linguistics for a long time, and Indo-Europeanists are aware of the value of the classical languages such as Hittite, Tocharian, Sanskrit and Greek in deciphering contemporary phenomena. In Tibeto-Burman scholarship this method has been less commonly employed, and the older languages of the Tibeto-Burman family have been unjustly neglected.
A major aim of this meeting is therefore to stimulate interaction among scholars working on different languages in Tibeto-Burman and approaching them from different perspectives. Papers of any kind dealing with primary texts in the older Tibeto-Burman languages are welcome, whether the focus be linguistic, philological, textual, historical or literary. Venue: Russell Square: Khalili Lecture Theatre, College Buildings, SOAS. More information.
• The 2010 World Water Week in Stockholm will be held 5–11 September 2010. The theme for 2010 is ”Responding to Global Changes: The Water Quality Challenge – Prevention, Wise Use and Abatement”. The World Water Week, organised for the 20th time by the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) is
the leading annual global meeting place for capacity-building,
partnership-building and follow-up on the implementation of international
processes and programmes in water and development, with large relevance
to South Asia. It is filled with plenary sessions, seminars, workshops,
side events and special activities. The Scientific Programme Committee (SPC) planning for the conference is chaired by Prof. Jan Lundqvist at SIWI. Deadline for submitting abstracts is Monday 15 February 2010.
Proposals are also welcome from organisations who wish to host a seminar or side event at the 2010 World Water Week. The deadline for proposals is the same, 15 February 2010.
By hosting an event, organisations can engage a wide range of stakeholders present at the conference in discussions and debate around specific issues. Organisations develop their own programmes, invite speakers and decide on the event format. SIWI encourages convenors to collaborate with other organisations as co-conveners, thereby facilitating partnerships and allowing for a diversity of perspectives.
In connection with the World Water Week, the Stockholm Water Prize is awarded annually to honour individuals, institutions or organisations whose work contributes broadly to the conservation and protection of water resources and to improved health of the planet’s inhabitants and ecosystems. This is the world’s most prestigious prize for outstanding achievement in water-related activities and will celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2010.
Venue: Stockholm
International Fairs and Congress Center (Stockholmsmässan) in Älvsjö, 9 km south of central Stockholm. More information about the 2010 World Water Week.
• The Chotro Three Conference will be held 11–16 September 2010, first in Delhi and then in Shimla, India. The theme for the conference wil be ”Local Knowledge – Global Translations: The Imagination & the Images of Indigenous Communities in the Twenty-First Century”. A special Symposium on ‘The Indigenous and the Visual Culture’ will be held on the final day at Keylang, situated at an altitude of 3.650 meter in the Himalayas. The conference is organised by the Bhasha Research and Publications Centre in Vadodara, India, an institution that since its inception has worked specifically with and on behalf of the Adivasi or tribal people of India (recognized in India as janajatisin), in association with the Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (ACLALS). As the Bhili tribal term ‘chotro’ implies, the aim is to ‘bring toghether’ writers, artists and scholars from all over the world interested in languages, literatures, cultures, histories and movements of the indigenous peoples of the post-colonial world. Two Chotro Conferences were held in India in 2008 and 2009, respectively, and the conference being announced will be the third and the final conference in the series. Deadline for abstracts: 30 November 2009. Full information about the 2010 conference (as a pdf-file).
• A conference entitled ”Bharat Britain: South Asians Making Britain, 1870-1950” will be held in London 13–14 September 2010. The conference, held in partnership with the British Library, forms part of a large research project entitled ”Making Britain”. This is a collaborative interdisciplinary venture over three years, examining the formative South Asian contribution to Britain’s literary, political and cultural life in the period 1870–1950. The project is funded by the British Arts and Humanities Council, and carried out by researchers at King’s College, London, University of Oxford, and The Open University. Invited plenary speakers include Humayun Ansari, Santanu Das, Chandani Lokugé, Nayantara Sahgal, and Amartya Sen. Venue: British Library Conference Centre, St Pancras, London, UK. Deadline for submitting abstracts is 18 January 2010. More information.
• An Indo-Swedish conference entitled ”Do girls belong to a lesser God? The rights and realities of girl children in the developing and the developed world” will be held in Jaipur, Rajasthan, India, 27–29 September 2010. The conference will be jointly organised by the Dept. of Education, University of Gothenberg, Sweden; and the Dept. of Political Science, Government S.K. College, Sikar, affiliated with The University of Rajasthan. It will focus on the fact that human rights, their violations and means to protect and promote them, are big issues all over the world. The proposed conference aims at bringing together scholars from the developed and the developing world to compare and exchange notes on their research in the field of human rights of women/girls and children, and try to develop strategies/networks for future academic exchange and cooperation so that there is a continuous process of learning from each other’s experiences. A few grants (financial support) would be available for participants. Paper proposals are invited before 25 June 2009.
They should be submitted by e-mail to the conference convenors, Amita Agarwal at Government S.K. College and Ilse Hakvoort, University of Gothenburg. More information.
October 2010
• The State University of New York College at Brockport will host the 46th Annual Meeting of the New York State
Conference on Asian Studies (NYCAS), to be held 1–2 October 2010. Asia is defined to include East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and
Southwest Asia – from Japan in the East to Turkey in the West.
While the Conference has a dual theme of ”Democracy in Asia” and ”Men& Women of Asia”, panels, individual papers, and roundtable
proposals on all aspects of Asian history, geography, economics,
politics, sociology, anthropology, literature as well as current
developments on the continent of Asia are also welcomed. During the conference, a roundtable discussion including
Ambassadors from South Asia (including Afghanistan) will be held.
All proposals should be submitted before 31 May 2010. More information.
• The 39th Annual Madison Conference on South Asia will be held 14 – 17 October 2010. This year the Conference is pleased to recognize and
celebrate 50 Years of South Asia at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The conference is hosted by the university’s Center for South Asia, and attracts over 500 scholars and specialists on South Asia and is a great venue for intellectual, professional, and social exchange. Panels, roundtables,pre-conferences and individual papers on all topics pertaining to South Asian studies are welcome. The conference features nearly 100 academic panels and roundtables, as well as association meetings and special events ranging from performances to film screenings. Another important component of the conference is our exhibit space. University presses, independent publishers, and non-profit organizations provide the conference participants with high quality resources and the best publications on South Asian topics. The exhibit space is also a great opportunity to meet with other scholars and to connect with the booksellers. Deadline for proposal submissions is 1 April 2010. Venue: Madison Concourse Hotel, 1 West Dayton St., Madison, Wisconsin, USA. More information.
November 2010
• The 2nd Conference of the Asian Borderlands Research Network will be held at Chiang Mai University (RCSD) in Thailand,
5–7 November 2010. The theme for conference will be ”Asian Borderlands: Enclosure, Interaction and Transformation”. The background is that whereas borderland studies have quickly developed in Africa, Europe and North America, the field is still in its infancy in Asia. The Chiang Mai conference intends to encourage scholarship that looks across Asian borders. It takes its cue from an important new book by James C. Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia (Yale UP, 2009). In this book, Scott focuses on the mountainous regions of the Himalayas and its lower ranges that run from the Central Highlands in Vietnam, most of Laos, Northern Thailand, Southwest China, Northern Burma, Northeast India, Eastern Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and Tibet. The 200 million people living in this huge region (over 15 million km2) are geographically dispersed and culturally diverse, yet they share crucial cultural, economic and social characteristics: hill agriculture, physical mobility, relatively egalitarian social structures, as well as commonalities in material culture and outlook. National borders often appear utterly arbitrary to them as many groups spill across two or more national borders. In this way they distinguish themselves from the lowland populations who dominate the states in which they live. Scott refers to this region as ‘Zomia', a term coined by Willem van Schendel (2002/2005).
Conceptually innovative papers, based on new research, are invited. Panels will be considered that have a thematic focus, are of a comparative character, and involve scholars affiliated to distinct research institutions. Deadline to send in abstracts and/or panel proposals is 1 December 2009. More information.
• The Asian Dynamics Initiative (ADI) at the University of Copenhagen invites to an international three-day conference entitled ”Asian Diversity in a Global Context” 11–13 November 2010, f The opening day of the conference is allocated to a big public event with invited keynote speakers. The following two days will be made up of 10-12 parallel panels and workshops under the common theme ”Asian
Diversity in a Global Context”. The goal is to generate deeper and fuller insights into the political, social, cultural and economic changes facing Asia in the 21st century. The conference welcomes papers relating to one of the themes of the conference panels and workshops. Deadline for submission of abstracts was 1 March 2010 Some of the panels are specifically related to South Asia:
– Governing Difference: Explorations in Identity and Equality in the Global South, convened by Dr. Ravinder Kaur (photo to the right).
– The Transmission of Sanskrit Medical Literature in India, convened by Dr. Kenneth Zysk
– Indigenous people in the 21st Century Asia: Identities and Stategies for self-determination, convened by Dr. Peter B. Andersen
'Asian Diversity in a Global Context' is the third in the series of annual conferences initiated by ADI and the University of Copenhagen in 2008. ADI aims at expanding research and teaching on Asia as well as strengthening the university's global networks in studies of Asia.
More information about the Asian Diversity in a Global Context conference.
• The Asian Diversity in a Global Context conference (see above) will be directly followed by a two-day PhD workshop for graduate students on 14-15 November 2010. The workshop, open to PhD students at any stage of their PhD projects, has the theme ”How can we capture specificities with our approaches and methods?”
It is fully integrated with the conference held on the previous days. PhD students are therefore invited to both submit abstracts for a conference paper in the conference and/or a paper at the PhD workshop. Conference papers must however relate to one of the themes of the conference panels and workshops. Since the conference and the PhD workshop are integrated, participation in both activities will not only expose the participants to a wide variety of international expertise from the humanities and social sciences but also provide an opportunity to interact with both senior and junior scholars as well as other PhD students.
This workshop is organized by a group of researchers at the University of Copenhagen who have participated in the development of the university's Asian Dynamics Initiative and in organizing the ‘Asian Diversity in a Global Context' conference.
The members of the workshop faculty are a number of specially invited international mentors (including Prof. Paul Bailey, University of Edinburgh, and Prof. Nandini Sundar, Delhi University/Yale), and three mentors from the University of Copenhagen (Associate Professor Birgitte R. Sørensen, Anthropology, Associate Professor Ravinder Kaur, South Asian Studies, and Prof. Jørgen Delman, China Studies).
More information about the PhD Course and registration.
• An area conference on ”Sex and Love in Asian Contexts” will be held at the major 2010 Film & History Conference to be held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA, on 11–14 November 2010. The overall theme for the Milwaukee conference is ”Representations of Love in Film and Television”, and under this umbrella a large number of area conferences will be organised. The ”Sex and Love in Asian Contexts” area is chaired by Dr. Sibyl Thornton from the Dept. of History, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Arizona, and it will comprise multiple panels. Deadline for panel and paper proposals is 1 March 2010. Proposals for full panels
should include the individual proposals for 3-4 presenters. Possible topics include: – Traditional and customary practices (loved or hated) treatments of
historical and modern extra-marital sex and sex workers; – Love and sex (including homosexuality) as indexes of modernity,
cosmopolitanism, or the status of women; – Love and sex in pre-modern inter-Asian narrative; – Distinctively indigenous traditions such as Bollywood; – New developments in contemporary pan-Asian cinema; and – New developments in the films of Islamic cultures. Conference venue: Hyatt Regency, in downtown Milwaukee. More information.
•
The Seventh International Conference on the Establishment of Cooperation Between Companies and Institutions in the Nordic Countries, the Baltic Sea Region, and the World, Linnaeus ECO-TECH’10, will be held 22–24 November 2010 in Kalmar. It is a conference on Natural Sciences and Environmental Technologies for Waste and Wastewater Treatment, Remediation, Emissions Related to Climate, Environmental and Economic Effects.
The conferenceis organised by the Linnaeus University, a fusion betwen the University of Kalmar and Växjö University from 1 January 2010. Linnaeus University will make use of the strengths of its two centres of learning and is the result of a desire to increase quality, attractiveness and developmental potential for teaching and research. The organising committee includes Prof. William Hogland, Division of Environmental Engineering in Kalmar. He has been involved in research focusing on waste treatment in Nepal, and has also been responsible for organising the Kalmar Eco-tech conferences since they were introduced in 1997. Prof. Kurian Joseph from Anna University, Chennai, India, is part of the scientific committee behind the ECO-TECH’10 conference. Deadline for sending abstracts is 1 March 2010. More information.
December 2010
• The Second Conference on Inter-Asian Connections will be held in Singapore, 8–10 December 2010. It is co-organized and co-sponsored by The Hong Kong Institute for Humanities and the Social Sciences (HKIHSS), the University of Hong Kong, the National University of Singapore (NUS), and the Social Science Research Council (SSRC). An open call has been announced for proposals from faculty members at accredited universities and colleges in any world region, to organize and direct one of six thematic workshops at this 3-day international conference. The conference wil be a follow-up to the successful inaugural conference held in Dubai in February 2008 (more information). The aim is to showcase innovative research from across the social sciences and related disciplines on themes of particular relevance to Asia, re-conceptualized as a dynamic and interconnected historical, geographical, and cultural formation stretching from the Middle East through Eurasia, South Asia and Southeast Asia, to East Asia. The themes for the six workshops are as follows: 1) Transnational Knowledge Economies; 2) Translocal Trust Networks, Religion and Law; 3) Urban Ecologies in Asia’s Cities; 4) Security and Insecurity; 5) Migration: Mobilities and Displacements; and 6) Old Histories, New Geographies. Deadline for application submissions is Monday 22 February 2010. More information on the conference web site.
• The Fifth Biennial International Conference of the Indian Association for Asian & Pacific Studies (IAAPS) will be held at Sikkim University in Gangtok, India, 10–12 December 2010. It will be organized by the university’s School of Peace, Conflict and Human Security Studies. Sikkim University is a new National University, established by the Government of India in 2007. It is being designed for academic excellence and innovative interdisciplinary research and a strong instrument of regional development and cross-border
integration.
The fifth IAAPS conference will be a meeting point of
scholars working on Asian & Pacific studies. Participation is expected of
scholars from all regions of Asia to enrich the already established
network between Indian scholars & scholars across Asia-Pacific regions.
The keynote speaker will be Ambassador K Kesavapany, Director for the Institute of South East Asian
Studies in Singapore. Deadline for submission of abstracts is 30 April 2010. More information.
• The 7th IIDS International Conference on Development (New Series) will be held in Kolkata, India, 13–18 December 2010. The conference is hosted jointly by the International Institute for Development Studies (IIDS) in Australia, and its joint venture partner institution IIMS (International Institute of Management Sciences) in Kolkata. IIDS organizes biannual international conferences on development issues in various cities around the world in collaboration with an institute in the host country. The conference organising committee is chaired by Prof. Kartik Roy, University of Queensland. Venue: Panchwati Holiday Resorts, Howrah. More information.
2011
February 2011
• The First Academic International Conference on ‘Exploring Leadership & Learning Theories in Asia’ (ELLTA) will be hosted by the Asia-Europe Institute at University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 15–18 February 2011.
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| Anders Örtenblad, Muhammad Babur,and Roshni Kumari. | ||
The conference is organised by Dr. Anders Örtenblad, PhD in Business administration, and till recently working at Halmstad University, Sweden; Mr. Muhammad Babur, Aga Khan University’s Institute for Educational Development (AKU-IED) in Karachi, Pakistan; and Ms. Roshni Kumari, also from AKU-IED.
The core emphasis of the conference is on understanding Asian perspectives on leadership and learning. The questions that the conference intends to address are:
– Are the west-inspired theories on leadership and learning relevant for Asia in general and different contexts in Asia in particular?
– Is there a need to develop theories specific for Asia in general and different contexts in Asia in particular?
– Are there existing theories on leadership and learning with an Asian origin, which have not received much attention or have not been acknowledged so far?
Abstracts should be submitted before 15 June 2010.
Read the announcement for the conference (as a pdf-file).
More information on the conference website.
Links to other conferences
• Norwegian Events. Several seminars connected with South Asia takes place regularly at Oslo University and other Norwegian universities. More information to be found at Asianettverket.
• Further information about conferences worldwide on South Asia, see the Agenda on Conferences, Exhibits & Events on South Asia published by SARAI (South Asia Resource Access on the Internet). Go to SARAI’s conferences page.
Conference Reports:
• The conference report from SASNET’s conference on South Asian Studies for young Nordic scholars has now been published. The report has been compiled by Ms. Julia Velkova from the conference organising committee. Read the report (as a pdf-file).
The conference was held at Falsterbo Kursgård in Höllviken (south of Malmö) 17-19 August 2009. The aim of the conference was to gather masters students, PhD candidates, and young post-docs in Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Norway who focus on South Asia in their research studies.
The aim behind the conference, which was very much similar to another successful conference that SASNET organised in Marstrand in October 2002 (more information about the 2002 conference), was to provide an opportunity for young scholars to present their future and ongoing research projects, establish contacts with colleagues in the Nordic countries, and discuss common challenges and opportunities when conducting research in South Asia related studies.
See the programme, including a list of participants (as a pdf-file).
Photos from the conference.
• The Post-Graduate Department of History, Malda College, West Bengal, India, successfully organised a conference on ”Political Economy, Nation, Development and Environment.
A Historical Perspective of India between 1707 and 1960” on 16–17 January 2010. The conference was funded by University Grants Commission and Indian Council of Social Science Research.
The keynote speaker was Professor Michael Mann, Seminar for South Asian History and Society, Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany. Read the conference report (as a pdf-file).
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| Mary Akrami from the Afghan Women Skills Development Center (AWSDC) and Elizabeth Winter, European Network of NGOs in Afghanistan (ENNA), at the Stockholm conference. |
• An International conference on ”Peacebuilding in Afghanistan: Local, regional and global perspectives” was held in Stockholm 6–7 November 2008. The conference focused on what the peacebuilding efforts look like in the country? What roles do the Afghan authorities, the International Community, the UN and the Nato-led ISAF forces play? Do they contribute to peace or armed conflict? Are there local initiatives at grassroots level promoting peace and how does the civilian population contribute to the reconstruction of the country? Why does Afghanistan receive so little funding for reconstruction compared to other areas of armed conflict? Have the complex developments in Afghanistan become something that the West would rather not have to deal with? What actions are needed in order for Afghanistan to become a country of peace and stability?
The conference was organised by the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA), in cooperation with ENNA (European Network of NGOs in Afghanistan). Invited speakers included prominent persons such as Sima Samar (photo to the right), Chairperson of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission; Kristian Berg Harpviken,
senior researcher at the International Peace Research Institute (PRIO) in Oslo; and the eminent Pakistani writer/journalist Ahmed Rashid.
Read a report by Lars Eklund, who represented SASNET at the conference.
All the conference presentations are now available in full-text on the Internet. Go to the presentations.
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| Gayatri Spivak and Ramachandra Guha. | |
• A one-day conference titled 'Asia in the 21st Century – New perspectives' was held at Copenhagen University on Tuesday 16 September 2008. It was a joint conference to celebrate the launch of Copenhagen University's new Asia focus, the so-called Asian Dynamics Initiative (ADI – more information), and the 40th anniversary of the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS). Four leading international scholars on Asia delivered the keynote speeches addressing a range of topics that mark Asia in the 21st century. They included Prof. Gayatri C. Spivak, Columbia University, USA, who talked about ”The Subject of an Asian Culture”; and Dr. Ramachandra Guha, Bangalore, India (but at the time Arne Naess Professor at the University of Oslo, Norway) who talked about ”Will India Become a Superpower?”. The conference was a great success and was visited by more than 300 people. The whole conference with the lectures given, is now available online. Go for the 'Asia in the 21st Century – New Perspective' conference.
• An international symposium and an exhibition on urban growth titled ”Informal Cities – The Stockholm
Urban Think Tank” was organised in Nacka/Stockholm 6–8 September 2008. It was a collaboration project between the Royal University College of Fine Arts, SHACK/Slum Dwellers International and the Swedish International Development Agency’s (Sida) Division for Urban Development. Sixteen artists, filmmakers and architects organized the symposium and parallel exhibition as part of the post-graduate program Art & Architecture at the Royal University College of Fine Arts (KKH) in Stockholm. Informal Cities – The Stockholm
Urban Think Tank was intended to be a meeting place where representatives of grass-root organizations from seven informal cities shared their experiences together with renowned scholars and activists such as Saskia Sassen, David Satterswaithe, Barbara Southworth, Sheela Patel and Jockin Arputham. More information.
Ms. Maria Tonini from SASNET also participated in the three-day seminar. Read her report.
• SASNET was the main funder for the international research conference on “Nature, Knowledge, Power” that was held in Uppsala 15-17 August 2008. The conference, hosted by the Department of Urban and Rural Development at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), brought together researchers from different academic fields, concerned with questions of environment and society under present and historical conditions. About forty researchers and research students equally from South Asian and European universities participated in the conference and 25 full research papers were presented papers within five panels: “Energy: renewable and sustainable?”, “Competing rights, codifying law”, “Community rights under neoliberal rule”, “Who needs conservation? Nature, people, survival”, and “Ideologies of environmental change: from imperial modernization to postcolonial social equality?” The keynote speakers were Dr. Amita Baviskar from the Institute of Economic Growth at Delhi University, India and Prof. Arun Agrawal, University of Michigan. More information about the Uppsala conference.
• The
20th European Conference on Modern South Asian Studies (ECMSAS)
was held in Manchester, UK, 8–11 July 2008.
The 2008 conference
was hosted by the School of Arts, Histories and Cultures at
the University of Manchester, and draws on the vibrant South Asian
Studies programmes in Humanities and Social Sciences at the University.
40 panels were included in the programme, covering a vast field of scientific areas, from ”Censorship, Subjectivity, and Subversion: Cultural Regulation in India from the
Colonial Era to the Present” to ”Vegetarianisms: the communicative power of meat in South Asia” and ”Routes and Roots of Democracy in the Himalayas”. Professor Sanjay Subrahmanyam (photo to the right), Professor of Indian History at the University of
California at Los Angeles (UCLA), held the keynote lecture on ”Cultures of Travel between Anjou and Agra in the Early Modern World”. The conference also offered a range of cultural events including an illustrated lecture on the textiles trade between Manchester and South Asia held at the Whitworth Art Gallery, and a reception at Manchester's spectacular town hall, built during the 1880s. SASNET’s deputy director Lars Eklund participated in the conference. More information about the conference.
The ECMSAS is the largest gathering of South Asia oriented researchers
in Europe, covering all fields from the humanities and social sciences
to technology, natural sciences and medicine. The conference is
held biannually under the aegis of the European Association of
South Asian Studies (EASAS), a professional, non-profit organisation
of scholars engaged in research and teaching concerning South Asia
with regard to all periods and fields of study.
SASNET organised
the 18th ECMSAS conference in Lund in 2004 (more
information about the Lund conference), and in June 2006, the
19th ECMSAS conference was arranged in Leiden, the Netherlands
(read SASNET’s report
from the Leiden conference).
• For the fourth time, Sida/SAREC – the unit for research cooperation within the the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency Sida – financed a conference on current Swedish development research, in Uppsala 27–29 May 2008. Previously Sida has initiated three similar conferences, the first one in Göteborg in 2000, the second in Lund in 2003 (more information), and the third one, focusing on ”Structures of Vulnerability:
Mobilisation and Resistance”, was held in Stockholm in 2005 (more information). The 2008 conference was organised by the Centre for Sustainable Development in Uppsala, an inter-disciplinary centre for education and research on sustainable development, jointly run by Uppsala University and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) in Uppsala.
The general theme for the three-day conference was “Meeting Global Challenges in Research Cooperation”. Researchers and development professionals were invited to gather and discuss key themes at the frontiers of research and global development issues.
On the final day of the conference, representatives from the Swedish research councils met for a panel discussion titled ”Strategies for Swedish funding of international
research cooperation”. Berit Olsson, Head of Sida’s department for research cooperation (SAREC), presented Sida’s new research
funding strategy.
Pär Omling, Director General, Swedish Research Council; Lena Gustafsson, First Deputy Director General, Swedish Governmental Agency for
Innovation Systems (Vinnova); and
Hans-Örjan Nohrstedt, Head for the Unit on Strategy and Analysis, The Swedish
Research Council Formas, presented their present work and ideas for the future. The discussion was moderated by Gunnar Öqvist, Permanent Secretary, Royal
Academy of Science; and also Chair, Sida Research Committee.
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| From left to right: Hans-Örjan Nohrstedt, Lena Gustafsson, Berit Olsson, Gunnar Öqvist and Pär Omling. |
Otherwise, the well-attended conference – more than 450 participants – consisted of panels, focusing on topics such as sustainable energy systems, maternal and child health, water and sanitation, soil degradation, sustainable agriculture, survival strategies of the poor, conflicts over natural resources, housing and infrastructure, human rights, democracy, global trade and climate change. All accepted conference presentations and summaries of discussions will later be published in a book.
One year later, on 6 July 2009, the proceedings from the conference ”Meeting Global Challenges in Research Cooperation” were published. All the keynote speeches, discussion summaries, papers on thematic and trans-disciplinary research, and close to 200 abstracts are included in the conference report, a publication of 651 pages, published as a pdf-file on the web. The report also includes draft research priorities from the parallel conference sessions. The report has been edited by Ingrid Karlsson and Kristina Röing de Nowina from Uppsala Centre for Sustainable Development. Go for the extensive conference report.
Lars Eklund from SASNET participated in the 2008 Uppsala conference. Read his report, focusing on the South Asian elements.
• An International conference on ”Biotechnology for Sustainable Development”, was held 7–9 January 2008 in Pune, India. The conference, named BSD – 2008, was organised by the Chemical Engineering and Process Development Division at the National Chemical Laboratory (NCL) in Pune, in collaboration with the Dept. of Biotechnology, Lund University, Sweden. It was supported by the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research (Mistra) and the Indian Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). It highlighted the latest developments areas such as • Biotechnology for production of green chemicals; • Biorefinery – Use of plantation crops for production of Chemicals; • Bioremediation of solid, gaseous and liquid wastes; and • Waste water treatment and recycle using clean technologies. More information in a report given in Mistra Newsletter 2/08 (in Swedish).
• The
Graduate School of International Development Studies, Roskilde
University Centre (RUC) organised a two-days workshop titled ”Post-Exotic
India – a new Narrative in Making?” in collaboration
with SASNET on 26-27 September 2007 in Roskilde, Denmark. The seminar
was prepared by Dr. Ravinder Kaur and Prof. Laurids Lauridsen from
RUC and Prof. Staffan Lindberg, Lund University. The workshop aimed
to posit and explore the post-exotic India through the following
themes:
• processes and effects of 1991 economic liberalisation, • emergence
of a vocal, mobile and astute middle class, • global ambitions
of India, and • its regional implications in South Asia. Invited
speakers included Nicholas Dirks, Columbia University, USA; Pritam
Singh, Oxford University, UK; Thomas Blom Hansen, Amsterdam University,
Netherlands; and Srirupa Roy, Amherst, USA, SSRC New York (TBC).
Besides being a workshop open to the public, it will also
be an Intensive PhD workshop. Venue: Roskilde University Centre, Lille Auditorium. More information (as a pdf-file)
• SASNET successfully held a workshop on the "Role
of South Asia in the Internationalisation of Higher Education
in Sweden" at Nobel Forum, Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm
28-29 November 2006. It was jointly organised by SASNET,
Karolinska Institutet Medical University and the Swedish Institute,
and involved sessions with representatives from 20 Swedish universities,
and from the International Programme Office for Education and
Training; the Swedish National Agency for Higher Education; STINT;
the Government ministries of Education and Foreign Affairs; and
the South Asian embassies in Stockholm. The
focus was on experiences from masters and PhD programmes in Sweden
as well as in South Asia, with an aim to promote increased academic
exchange with South Asia.
Most of the workshop presentations are now available on our web
site as pdf-files. They include Mr. Sunandan Roy Chowdhury’s
provocative keynote presentation,
titled ”The Moffusil and the Metropolitan – Higher
Education’s Meandering Paths”. In addition to
this, Jan Magnusson (a key person behind the creation of SASNET
seven years ago and now a member of SASNET’s board) has written
a report, summarizing the two-day workshop sessions. Read
the workshop report.
• A conference titled ”Asian Studies at a Turning Point: Tandem walk or boxing match between social sciences and humanities?” was held at the University of Turku, Finland, 6–7 November 2006. It ran parallell with an Intensive PhD Course for Nordic PhD students in Asian studies. The conference sets out to offer a platform for academic dialogue on a wide range of methodological and paradigamatic topics across disciplinary and regional boundaries in Asian studies (including South Asian studies). SASNET’s Director, Prof. Staffan Lindberg, participated in the conference. Read his report from the Turku conference .
•
The 19th European Conference on Modern South Asian Studies (ECMSAS)
was successfully held 27–30 June 2006 in Leiden, the
Netherlands. It was hosted and organized by the International
Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) on behalf of the European
Association for South Asian Studies, EASAS. The conference
web page is now updated with panel reports, participants list
and photos from the conference. More
information about the 19th ECMSAS conference in Leiden.
On
the final day the conference’s ”business meeting” was
held along with the fifth General Meeting of European Association
for South Asian Studies. The meeting decided to formalise the
relationship between ECMSAS and EASAS, something that was not
there earlier. Nominations for new EASAS board members were
received, and a discussion was held about the venue for the
next ECMSAS conference, to be held in 2008 at the
University of Manchester, UK.
SASNET
was also represented at the conference in Leiden. Prof. Staffan
Lindberg, Director of SASNET, chaired panel No. 32 on ”Post
Green Revolution Agrarian Transformation in South
Asia”, and he also participated in a panel discussion
on the formation of ANERI, the Academic Network for European
Research related to India, initiated by the European Commission
(and formally launched during the Leiden conference). SASNET’s
deputy director/webmaster Lars Eklund also participated in
the 2006 conference, visited several panels and followed the
discussions. Lars made a photographic documentation. See
his photos from the Leiden conference.
• After a gap of four years the Nordic Association for South Asian
Studies, NASA, successfully arranged a conference 3–5 June
2005 in Aarhus, Denmark. Nearly 50 people met up for the
conference, that had the theme ”Contemporary Dramas of
South Asia: Economic, Social, Political and Cultural Changes/Upheavals”.
It was organised by the Department
of Anthropology and Ethnography at the University of Aarhus
(main convenor: Dr. Lars Kjaerholm).
Look
at photos from the conference, shot by Lars Eklund, SASNET.
After some amalgamation the conference covered five workshops:
1. Globalization, economic changes and socio-political upheavals
+ A South Asian security conundrum? (convenors: Jørgen
Dige Pedersen, University of Aarhus, and Sten
Widmalm, Uppsala University)
2. States and minorities in South Asia. + Anti-oppressive movements
(convenors: Peter B Andersen, Copenhagen
University, and Aase Mygind Madsen,
Århus).
3. Secularism in South Asia + Imagining Nations: middle classes
and processes of nation formation in South Asia (convenors: Erik
Sand, Copenhagen University, and Lars Kjærholm. Aarhus
University.)
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4. Health, Globalization and Marginalization in South Asia (convenor:
Jens Seeberg. Aarhus University). Two
Indian participants in this panel, Renu Addlakha and Pramod Shankpal
(photos to the right) were funded for by SASNET.
5. Exploring South Asian political culture(convenors: Arild
Engelsen Ruud and Pamela Price,
Oslo University).
The
conference had four keynote speakers: Professor Zoya Hasan, Centre
for Political Studies, Jawarharlal Nehru University, New Delhi,
lectured on ”The Struggle for Democratic Representation
by marginalised groups (OBC’s, women, minorities) in India”,
Dr. Christophe Jaffrelot, director of the Centre d’Etudes
et Recherches Internationales (CERI), Paris (photo to the right),
lectured on ”BJP/Sangh Parivar and the electoral defeat
in 2004”; Professor Martin Sökefeld, Dept. of Anthropology,
Hamburg University, lectured on ”Continuing struggles,
enduring drama: Kashmir and the construction of nations in South
Asia”; and finally Professor Isabelle Clark-Deces, Department
of Anthropology, Princeton University, lectured on ”The
Encounter never stops: Revisiting Caste, Hierarchy and Dominance
in a Tamil Village”. Venue for the conference was Moesgård
Museum (the Manor House of Moesgård) in the picturesque forest
area south of Århus
• On March 19 2005 a one-day workshop on Sikh and Punjab Studies was arranged at the Centre for Theology and Religious Studies at Lund University. The workshop was attended by about 60 people, including students and teachers from various universities in Scandinavia, as well as members of the Sikh communities in Sweden and Denmark. The key speakers were internationally renowned experts from Germany, Sweden, UK and USA, who are working within the interdisciplinary field of Sikh and Punjab Studies. Read Kristina Myrvold’s conference report.
• An International Seminar on the ”Emergence
of Militant Islamism and its Relevance for Afghanistan” was
held in Stockholm 10–11 March 2005.
The Swedish Committee for Afghanistan arranged the seminar, with
support from Sida. Speakers included Professor Ahmad Moussalli from
Beirut and the journalist Ahmed Rashid. Two cabinet ministers from
the new Afghanistan government were also invited as key speakers,
the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Haider Reza (photo to
the right); and the Deputy Minister of Interior, Shahmahmood
Miakhel. Read SASNET’s report from
the conference
The Dept. of Social Anthropology
at Stockholm University in collaboration with Sida successfully
organised a conference focusing on ”Structures of Vulnerability:
Mobilisation and Resistance” 12–14 January 2005.
It was the largest gathering so far in Sweden of Third world oriented
researchers, within fields such as Biodiversity, Children and youth,
Climate, Corruption, Environment, Ethnicity, Food and water, Gender,
Hazards, Health, Infrastructure, Law, Religion, Urbanity, War and
violence, and Welfare. More than 300 researchers and graduate/post
graduate students took part in the conference, and a vast number
of South Asia related research papers were presented in the workshops.
Keynote
speakers were Professor Ben Wisner,
lecturing on ”Root causes of vulnerability: What do we
know after 30 years and what is to be done about them”,
Professor Hunter Wade and Professor
Johanne Sundby. A panel debate was
also held on ”Victims and Actors – who get the blame?
Concepts of structure and agency in the development research”,
with Ass. Prof. Hans Abrahamsson and
Prof. Björn Hettne from PADRIGU,
Göteborg University, Prof. Thomas Hylland
Erikssen, Oslo University, and Prof. Gudrun
Dahl, Dept. of Social Anthropology, Stockholm University
(photo above).
It was the third conference in a series of conferences financed
by Sida, on the challenges faced by the research community in developing
countries. The first conference was arranged with Göteborg
University in January 2000, and the second, named ”Poor and
Rich” was held at Lund University in January 2003 (more
information on the Lund conference).
• SASNET successfully arranged the 18th European Conference on Modern
South Asian Studies in Lund 6–9 July 2004. With 360
participants from all over the World actually turning up (including
a large number of PhD candidates and participants from South Asia
itself) it was the largest ECMSAS conference so far, and certainly
the largest gathering ever on Swedish soil of South Asia oriented
researchers, covering all fields from the humanities and social
sciences to technology, natural sciences and medicine.
Day-by-day reports with photos by Behnoosh Payvar, Masters student
of South Asian Studies, Lund University, were published on the conference
web site. Full updated information on the
Lund conference.
A large number of full papers presented to the
44 conference panels are already posted on the conference
website, and more will follow after the conference. See the full
list of conference panels, abstracts and papers
•
The extensive Conference Diary written by Dr. William Radice during
the 18th European Conference on Modern South Asian Studies, organised
by SASNET 6–9 July 2004, was published in extenso
in the 2004 Puja Festival magazine, by the Indian newspaper The
Statesman, Kolkata (October 2004). The article was illustrated with
photos of Lund University. Radice’s
article, called ”Swedish Rhapsody”, also appears
here on SASNET’s web site (as a pdf-file)
• An Interdisciplinary Conference on ”Livelihood strategies among forest-related tribal groups of South India: Contextual analysis of local livelihood strategies” was arranged at the Centre for Indian Studies, Mysore, India, 17–19 October 2003. The conference was jointly organized by the Dept. of Social Anthropology, Stockholm University, Sweden, and the Centre for Research on Environment, Development, Innovations, Technology & Trade (CREDITTe), Bangalore, India, with support from SASNET. The focus for the conference was on forest-related tribals in South India, groups living within the four southern states of India. More information (including papers to download), and Christer Norström’s conference report.
•
Distinguished experts from India and Pakistan within the fields
of military and strategic experience and confidence building
measures met for a workshop on India-Pakistan tensions in Skåvsjöholm/Stockholm,
26-29 September 2003, and a follow-up brainstorming
workshop was arranged in Uppsala 1–4 June 2004. The workshops
were organised by Center for Pacific Asia
Studies (CPAS), Department of Oriental Languages, Stockholm
University in collaboration with SIPSIR (Swedish Initiative
for Peace, Security and International Relations), and convened
by Dr. Ravinder Pal Singh, CPAS. Among the participants were
high-profile personalities such as Lt Gen Moti Dar (former
Vice-Chief of the Indian Army Staff, and involved in Indo-Pakistan
Track II diplomacy), Mr Salman Haidar (former Indian Foreign
Secretary, Ambassador to China, and High commissioner to UK),
and Gen Jehangir Karamat (former Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff
and Chief of Army Staff of Pakistan). And besides these a number
of scholars also took part in the workshop, among them Dr Ishtiaq
Ahmed from the Dept. pf Political Science,
Stockholm University; and Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy, Professor of
Physics at Quaid-e-AzamUniversity, Islamabad. The report of
the first workshop was published a s a book titled ”Searching
for Common Ground in South Asia” in January 2004, and
was later also published in extenso on the Internet, as a pdf-file. Go
for the book.
In April 2005 five papers from the follow-up seminar were also
published in theprinted CPAS Journal (The Stockholm Journal of
East Asian Studies). More information.
• A fruitful two days seminar on ”Religious
Mobilisation and Organised Violence in Contemporary South Asia”
was organised by the Graduate School of International Development
Studies, Roskilde University Centre, 3-4 April 2003. Among the lecturers
and discussants were the renowned professors Paul R Brass, University
of Washington, USA (photo); Jan Breman, Amsterdam, the
Netherlands; Dipankar Gupta, JNU, New Delhi, India; Ian Talbott,
Coventry, UK; and Thomas Blom Hansen, Edinburgh, UK. Read
the extensive SASNET review of the Roskilde seminar and the papers
presented.
In September 2005 SAGE Publications released a book containing the
material from the Roskilde conference. The book, edited by Ravinder
Kaur, is called ”Religion, Violence
and Political Mobilisation in South Asia”. Information
about the book.
• A conference on
Swedish Development Studies research, named ”Fattiga
och rika. Aktuell utvecklingsforskning och dess villkor i Sverige”
was organised by Sida/SAREC and Lund University on 9–11
January 2003. The conditions for development research in Sweden
were thoroughly discussed, and a large number of Swedish researchers
presented their projects/programmes during the extremely fruitful
conference. Several of the projects are related to South Asia. See
SASNET’s list of these, most of them accompanied by abstracts.
We are also happy to present papers presented by two of the key
speakers:
• Professor Barbara Harriss-White on ”Unruly
and Informal Globalisation and its Impact on Development: A Background
Note”. (Word document).
• Professor Keith Griffin on ”Economic
Globalisation and Institutions
of Global Governance” (Word document).
• Representatives from the research councils, from Sida, and the Swedish universities participated in a fruitful discussion on the future for Swedish development studies research at the last day of the conference, in a panel called ”Goda råd är dyra – utvecklingsforskningens organisation och finansiering” (Good advises are costly – how to organize and finance development studies research). Summary of the discussion prepared by SASNET’s Staffan Lindberg. Read his report! (in Swedish only)
• New opportunities for Indian and Swedish business development. More than one hundred Indian and Swedish business leaders met in a seminar in Stockholm on 7 October 2002 under the heading ‘India and Sweden – New Vistas of Cooperation’. Read a report by SASNET Director Staffan Lindberg, who took part in the seminar.
• The EU–India Think Tank Seminar took place in Brussels,
Belgium, on 15–16 October 2001, with representatives from a
large number of Universities and Research institutions in Europe
and India. More information on the seminar,
in which Prof. Staffan Lindberg represented SASNET.
• ”Managing Common Resources - What is the solution?”. Research papers presented at the symposium and workshop held 10-11 September 2001 at Lund University. SASNET’s Staffan Lindberg was the key organiser of the symposium.
SASNET - Swedish South Asian Studies Network/Lund
University
Address: Scheelevägen 15 D, SE-223 70 Lund, Sweden
Phone: +46 46 222 73 40
Webmaster: Lars Eklund
Last updated
2010-03-18