Fwd: Special Lecture Series on Development Practice - 2nd Lecture by Dr. Rajarshi Dasgupta
Preeti,M.A Gender Studies,AUD
From: Anup Kumar Dhar <an...@aud.ac.in>
Date: Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 4:24 PM
Subject: Special Lecture Series on Development Practice - 2nd Lecture by Dr. Rajarshi Dasgupta
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MPhil in Development Practice
School of Human Studies and Development Studies
Invite you to the
Second Talk in the Special Lecture Series on Development Practice
Speaker: Dr. Rajarshi Dasgupta
Centre for Political Studies, School of Social Sciences
Jawaharlal Nehru University
Topic - Shifting identities: Refugee Politics and Urbanization in West Bengal
Abstract
There is an emerging pattern of politics that marks an important segment of the poor in West Bengal – the refugee population living in the suburbs of Kolkata. The paper will try to outline this pattern through a particular case study of the Bhadrakali PL Camp, located in Uttarpara, Hooghly district. The population of this camp has been facing serious threats in the past decade from two directions: the government’s steady rollback of welfare measures supported by a growing indifference among major political parties, and the gradually unfolding process of neoliberal urbanization. The camp’s response has been sporadic and varied, from organizing meetings and deputations to seeking legal redress to mobilizing civil society opinion, mostly in vain, apart from staggering the eviction process. However, the move we want to highlight is a recent and seemingly successful mobilization of the camp-dwellers as devotees of a lower caste sect that has become politically powerful of late in the state. Although such a development appears novel, we want to contend that it is revealing of a wider and deliberate refugee strategy. It involves a capacity for shifting identities that is carried out in keeping with periodic changes of regime or location experienced by the refugees in south Asia. Drawing parallels from other cases, like the Geneva Camp – a slum settlement of Bihari Muslim refugees in Dhaka, the paper will try to explore what this means for political subjectivity and the democratic process in the days to follow.
Venue: Room No. 60, SHS Building, Kashmere Gate Campus, AUD
Date: April 11, Thursday
Time: 2. 30pm
Your schedules permitting, please join in for this event.
Regards.
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Associate Professor
School of Human Studies
Ambedkar University, Delhi (AUD)
Kashmere Gate Campus, Old Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University Campus, Lothian Road, Kashmere Gate, Delhi - 110006.
Fax: 23863742
Ph: +91-9818883657
Websites: www.aud.ac.in; http://aud-in.academia.edu/AnupDhar; www.cusp.net.in
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