Experiencing the State: Marginalised People and the Politics of Development

Description

Conveners:

Bhaskar Vira (Geography, Cambridge)
Humeira Iqtidar (CSAS, Cambridge)
Philippa Williams (Geography, Cambridge)
Deepta Chopra (Geography, Cambridge)

Conference objectives
This conference brings together established and ‘early career’ academics across disciplines working under the theme of ‘Experiencing the State’ from the perspective of contemporary empirical research. It will develop preliminary working groups initiated in 2008 around a two-day workshop at the Department of Geography, January 2008 and two successful panels conducted at the Wisconsin-Madison Annual South Asian Conference, October 2008. The objective of this 2-day concluding conference is to forum well established papers with expectations to publish an edited book or guest edited special issue of an international journal. Participation at the conference is open to all and intends to provide 1 student bursary.

Themes
This conference supports the notion that the variegated impacts of the state in quotidian life and the various articulations of agency by different marginalised groups and individuals should be understood within a dialectical process in which actors both experience and shape the contemporary Indian State. Main themes for discussion:

1.Examining the concept and the composition of the ‘developmental state’ in the Indian context

2.What is meant by ‘marginalised’ groups – their identity and representation in civil society (including conflict and co-operation dynamics), state discourses and quotidian geographies

3.The dialectical ‘experience’ and expectations of state-society interactions that shapes the identity and composition of the state and the society experienced through citizenship: Negotiations, strategies and creative agencies

4.Differential realisations of state policy, in terms of inclusion and exclusion, and the shifting experiences of marginalisation and identities through state-society dialectics.

Keynote speaker:
Professor Niraja Jayal (Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India)

For the full list of speakers see the link on the top right hand side of the page or click here.

For administrative enquiries contact apm50@cam.ac.uk