Public Seminar and Discussion
Monday 19th March 2012, 11.30am to 3.30pm, Room U110, Tower 1, LSE
Speakers: Anup Shekar Chakraborty, Michael Hoffman, Abdul Shaban, Jayaraj Sundaresan
At this seminar Fellows associated with the Asia Research Centre will disseminate their research for comment and discussion.
Dr Anup Shekar Chakraborty| is CR Parekh Fellow at the Asia Research Centre. The title of Anup's presentation is Contested Landscape and Befuddled Public Sphere: Media, democracy and public participation in Darjeeling Hills. He will speak on identity movements in North Bengal and in particular on the demand for the state of Gorkhaland. Darjeeling Hills have invited much attention both at home and abroad not just for the natural beauty and tea but also because of the protracted ‘sometimes dormant, sometimes active’ Gorkhaland movement. The Gorkha, have been rallying their identity against their perceived notions of ‘Backwardness’ and non-representation and perplexed notions of self defined identity. The Gorkha have time and again attempted to muster their community identity against the experience of the Colonial encounter and this identity of a ‘Brave Gorkha’ continues to mould and shape ‘everyday lived politics’ of exclusions and inclusions in Darjeeling.
Mr Michael Hoffman is Bagri Fellow, currently a PhD candidate at LSE in the Department of Anthropology. Michael's presentation is titled Nepal’s Maoist Revolution and Labour Migration: The new boundaries of contemporary debt-bondage in ‘post’-revolutionary Nepal? He will examine how the attempt of Nepal’s Revolutionary Maoist Movement to grab state power at the local and national levels affects a system of debt-bondage prevalent in brick-industries of the western Tarai region. It is based on an 18 month long ethnographic fieldwork in an urban municipality and its brick-industries located in the western Tarai region of Nepal.
Dr Abdul Shaban is Commonwealth Academic Staff Fellow, Cities Programme, LSE from Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS). The title of Abdul's presentation is Industrial Dispersal and Clustering in India During Post-reform Period and the Role of Urban Centres. The geography of industrial growth and development has been historically lopsided in India. The British Indian Government encouraged development and localisation of industries (such as the textile industry) near major ports (such as Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai) and some basic industries were located near the source of raw materials (such as iron and steel industry in Chhota Nagpur Plateu region). In the post-Independence period attempts were made to disperse industry for balanced regional development. Small and medium scale industries were encouraged, in various ways, to locate in remote and less economically developed areas. In this context Abdul will attempt to; discuss the geography of industrial employment and location of industries in India; examine the changes in industrial location in post-liberalisation phase vis-à-vis pre-liberalisation phase of Indian economy; and understand the role of urban centres, specifically small and medium towns, in emerging industrial and service economy of India.
Mr Jayaraj Sundaresan is Bagri Fellow, currently a PhD candidate at LSE in the Department of Geography and Environment. Jayaraj's presentation is titled Planning in a Vernacular Governance: Land use planning and violations in the city of Bangalore, India. Examining how violation of land use regulations are produced and reproduced in the city of Bangalore in India, through this presentation Jayaraj proposes to examine violations beyond the informality debate. Instead he proposes to understand land use violations as a site to examine how urban planning processes operate in what he calls ‘vernacular governance’. Through private interest networks, this planning process produces both plan violations and planning for violations. Through public interest networks it produces various technologies of governance from mutual surveillance to local planning collectives. There is an examination of how planning power operates while planning in vernacular governance.
Additional Information
This event is free and open to all with no ticket required. Entry is on a first come, first served basis. For any queries email arc@lse.ac.uk| or call 020 7955 7615.