NIMBY (Not in my Back Yard) incidents have been growing in Mainland China over the past decade. Chinese NIMBY protests sometimes lead to violent conflict between local government and protestors. This research considers the Ningbo case to discuss the responsibility of local government in managing conflict. It is suggested that it is better for local government to be a good desecuritising actor rather than a securitising actor. In order to prevent public or political issues from evolving into security issues, local government should firstly treat NIMBY incidents as normal objections to specific social policy and moderate its authoritative power of constructing security threat. In addition, the government should encourage dialogue between different voices which may help reposition a highly pre-securitised issue back into its normal process.

Mr Zhou Ran is a doctoral research exchange student from Zhejiang University.

Second Demographic Transition or Competing Aspirations: An exploratory analysis of fertility transition in Kolkata, India

Speaker: Saswata Ghosh

Fertility transition occurred during 1970s in Kolkata (erstwhile Calcutta), capital of the state of West Bengal, India, and remained persistently at the lowest-low fertility level. It currently has the lowest fertility rates (TFR 1.2) in India. This could be a case of second demographic transition (SDT) or pertaining to constrains in childbearing and childrearing, and/or aspirations for children. Using primary data of 600 couples (1,200 individuals), and employing quantitative and qualitative methods the present study found that constraints in childbearing and childrearing; and aspirations for children; have strong negative and significant effect on second and higher order childbearing among couples, particularly among women. In our study there was no strong evidence of decline in the importance of marriage, family and children as posited by SDT. Thus we argue that SDT might have to be redefined in a developing country context. Further research is required to validate this argument.

Dr Saswata Ghosh| is the Sir Ratan Tata Post-doctoral Fellow (2014-15) from the Institute of Development Studies Kolkata.

Discussant: Athar Hussain

Chair: Ruth Kattumuri

Professor Athar Hussain| is Director of the LSE Asia Research Centre.

Dr Ruth Kattumuri| is Co-Director of the LSE Asia Research Centre and India Observatory.

Additional Information

This event is free and open to all with no ticket required. Entry is on a first come, first served basis. Please direct any queries to arc@lse.ac.uk| or call 020 7955 7615.