Annual South Asia Conference, 28-30 April 2021

 Introduction – by Dr. Jivanta Schottli,
Director, Ireland India Institute, DCU

Director, Institute for International Conflict Resolution and Reconstruction, DCU

10:30

Dr. Meghna Guhathakurta,
(Executive Director of Research Initiatives, IID, Bangladesh)

“Norms, Dynamics and Propensities for Sexual and Gender-based Violence in Humanitarian Crises: The Rohingyas and Host Population in Bangladesh”

Dublin City University (DCU)

12:15

1. Chains of Protest: Locating Gendered Protests in India through Global Imagery — Paridhi Gupta, Ph.D. Researcher, JNU, New Delhi
2. Memorializing Gender Violence in South Asia through Contemporary Digital Art — Isha Yadav, PhD. Candidate, Ambedkar University, New Delhi.
3. Pamphlets, Posters and Slogans as Martyr Ephemera in the 1971 Liberation War of Bangladesh — Kusumita Datta, Assistant Professor, Behala College, Kolkata
4. Registers of Protest: A Comparative Study of Poetic Voices of Dissent from Kashmir, Northeast India, and the Dalit Community – Samrita Sinha, Assistant Professor, Sophia College, Mumbai.

Independent Researcher

 The emotional brunt of forced migration: Studying the personal histories of Partition migrants — Parul Srivastava, Ph.D. Candidate, University of Hyderabad, Fulbright Fellow 2021, UMass Amherst.

1. Between Conversions and Evacuations: The Question of Dalit Refugees During the Partition of India 1947 — Dr. Akanksha Kumar, Assistant Professor, Janaki Devi Memorial College, New Delhi.  
2. Absence of Muhajirs in the history of Partition 1947 — Ritika Raj, Independent Researcher.
3. Rethinking Partition induced-refugeehood in West Bengal: A study through the lens of gender, caste and region– Ekata Bakshi, Ph.D. Candidate, JNU, New Delhi.
4. Partition of India: State and Its Dalit Migrants- Vaishali, Ph.D. Scholar, University of Delhi.

1. The Telling of Two Tales: The Production of Jain Identity through Food Practices – Nupur Jain, M.Phil Scholar, Pune University.
2. Lives in Transition: Survivors of the Kuki- Naga Conflict (1992-1998) – Hatchingthem Haokip, Ph.D. Scholar, Ambedkar University.
3. Negotiation with the Margins: State Controls and Concessions – Sonal Ann Dsouza, Student, JNU, New Delhi.
4. Livelihood transition and Process of Marginalisation among Indigenous Communities in Dooars Region, North Bengal (India) – Tejashi Roy, Ph.D. Scholar, JNU, New Delhi.

 In the Shadow of Nuclear War: Prospects for Peace and Stability between India and Pakistan- Javed Alam, Ph.D. Scholar, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.

1. Explaining the Role of Deterrence and Distrust in India’s Pursuit of Nuclear Sea Deterrence in the Light of the Completion of the Nuclear Triad- Shayesta Nishat Ahmed, Ph.D Candidate, JNU, New Delhi.
2. Assessing India-Pakistan nuclear dynamics: How does the use of airpower under the nuclear shadow and the change in India’s nuclear policy affect bilateral ties? –Shreyas Shende, Carnegie India.

 Western Ghats Expert Panel Report, Actors and Discourse in the Global South: Reflections from Kerala- Mijo P Luke, Ph.D. Candidate, Centre for Development Studies, Kerala.

1. Impact of Climate Change and Ensuing Environmental Politics in South Asia – Pournamy, Ph.D. Scholar, JNU, New Delhi.
2. Dispossession in the time of Climate Change: The Differential Ecological Vulnerability of Adivasis of Wayanad, Kerala- Rajitha Venugopal, Ph.D. Candidate, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.
3. Gendered (im)mobility: Staying in the context of climate risks in Bangladesh- Basundhara Tripathy Furlong, Ph.D. Fellow, Wageningen University.

 Constitutional Promise and Compulsory Inclusion: Politics of Representation in Dalit Reserved Constituency: Rama Devi, Research Associate, Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati.

1. 70 years of Democracy and the Lives Lost in the Sewers!: Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni, Ph.D. Student. Lancaster University.
2. Role of Dalit Women against Land Acquisition in South Asia: A Study in Politics Paulomi Mallick, Ph.D. Scholar, University of Burdwan, West Bengal.
3. Transforming Landscape: Appropriation of Public Places by Dalits in India: Ruchi Singh, Assistant Professor, University of Delhi
4. Power and Urbanization in Tribal & Dalit Culture: A Study of Mamang Dai‚ ‘The Legends of Pensam and Y.B. Satyanarayana‚’ My Father Baliah — Himanshu Parmar, Assistant Professor, BPS Mahila Vishwavidyalaya.

 YouTube, Creative Labour and Participatory Culture in South India- N Srikanth, Ph.D. Scholar, Indian Institute of Technology, Tirupati.

1. Online Political Attack Ads in India: A Study in their Structural Organisation- Kuntal Bag, Assistant Professor, University of Kalyani, West Bengal
2. New Media and Transforming Television Experience in India: The Case of SVOD Platforms- Sarunas Paunksnis, Associate Professor, Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania.
3. ‘Lean on Me’: Sifarish, Mediation & the Digitisation of State Bureaucracies in India- Thomas Chambers, Senior Lecturer, Oxford Brookes University.

 Situating Aligarh in the Literary and Cultural Activities of North India during the Late 19th Century – Sajad Ahmad Dar, Ph.D. Student, Aligarh Muslim University.

1. Politics of Power and Participation in Unbordered Memories: Sindhi Stories of Partition — Swati Punia, Research Scholar, Bhagat Phool Singh Mahila Vishwavidyala,           
2. Myth of Indian Science Fiction — Priyanka Verma, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi
3. Multicultural Nationalism in India: An analysis of Select Raj Novels — Bhaskar Chettri, Research Scholar, National Institute of Technology, Sikkim

 Re-inscribing the Indian Nation: Populism, Religion and Techno-Culture in Hindutva Pop Music  — Ankita Kaushik, Doctoral Scholar, University of Delhi.  

1. Economic Approach of the Right-Wing in India: Transition and Contradictions — Vikrant Prashant Pande, Assistant Professor, Ramnarain Ruia College, Mumbai        
2. Politics of Demagogic Authoritarianism: Understanding Contemporary Strategies of the Right in India — Pankaj Kumar Sahani, Ph.D. Scholar, JNU, New Delhi.
3. Rethinking Ethnic Considerations through an Imposed Nationalism: Examining the Rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Assam, India: Jeemut Pramit Das, Doctoral Scholar, , JNU, New Delhi.
4. Hatred in the Virtual: A Study of Hindu Fundamentalist Online Portals in Bengal — Mayurakshi Das, Ph.D. Fellow, Jadavpur University.

 Gender In/As Movement: Women in Movement-Politics and Party-Politics of Contemporary West Bengal (India) —  Sohini Dutta, Doctoral Fellow, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.

1. Examining Marriage through, ‘Crisis’: Study of Women Disputant’s Narratives in Mediation Centers in Delhi – Abhilasha Chattopadhyay, Ph.D. Scholar, Ambedkar University.
2. Gendered Experiences of Agrarian Change: Voices of Women from a Central Indian Village – Sunit Arora, Ph.D. Student, JNU, Delhi.
3. Revisiting existing gender gaps in Diaspora studies through South Asian women in the United Kingdom: Monika Gupta, Doctoral Researcher, JNU, New Delhi.
4. The Social Construction of Motherhood in the practice of IVF. — Arosmita Sahoo, Ph.D. Scholar, University of Hyderabad.

 Literature as a Mode of Activism: How Dalit Literature Challenges the Hegemonic Literary Discourse in India? Kuber Nag, Doctoral Student, Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad.

1. Dalit Woman Subject in Telugu Cinema- Divya Kalavala, Independent Researcher.  
2. Bollywood’s Dalit: Problematizing Representation and ‘Dalit Aesthetics’ in Contemporary, Mainstream Indian Cinema- Ibha Gupta, Assistant Professor, & Dr. Anjali Chaubey, Assistant Professor, Goa University.
3. Invisible Presence: Portrayal of Dalit Women in Dalit Films- Runa Chakraborty Paunksnis, Associate Professor, Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania.  
4. Touchable Tales of Untouchable Women: Gender Paradigms in Maharashtra through Baby Kamble’s The Prisons We Broke – Manvi Singh, Ph.D. Research Fellow, University of Delhi

 Conflicting Ideas of Sexuality in Mughal India (1526-1850) – Preeti Singh, Ph.D. Scholar, University of Hyderabad.       

1. Desire in Translation, Translation in Desire: Interrogating Love and Language through Vijaydan Detha’s Short Stories- Gaurav Kumar, Assistant Professor, University of Delhi.
2. Reading The Moving Image: Gully Boy, Pink and Lipstick Under my Burkha- Srishti Sharma, Doctoral Fellow, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University 
3. Lurking in the documentary dilemma in gendered State, some reflections from the case of Women and transgender of Assam, India — Chetna Sharma, Assistant Professor, University of Delhi.        
4. Film Viewing and Netflix: Lust Stories (2018) : An Enquiry into politics of Internet and visual pleasure- Rutuja Deshmukh, Doctoral Candidate, Symbiosis International University.
5. Disability and Sexuality: Insights from India – Mohammed Yusuf, Research Scholar

1. A Mass Movement for, ‘Good Cinema’, or How the Comrades of Good Cinema Sowed Seeds of Film Commune- Nisam Asaf K J, Ph.D. Scholar, JNU, New Delhi
2. The ‘Infamous’ Performer: Re-defining Gender Paradigm within Socio-Political Theatre in Colonial Calcutta- Twisha Singh, Student, McGill University.
3. The Aesthetics of Excess: Exploring the Cinematic Subjectivities of Horror in Indian New Media- Sonali Dutta Roy, Assistant Professor, St. Xavier’s University, Kolkata.
4. Globalization and Projection of Indian Housewives in Hindi Cinema: A case study of the Hindi films English Vinglish and Astitva – Dr Amrita Singh, Independent Researcher.

1. Understanding the everyday of a courtroom: Making of the ‘Foreigner’ in the Foreigner’s Tribunals in Assam, India — Fariya Yesmin, PhD. Scholar, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.
2. Refugees in the Making: The National Register of Citizens (NRC) and Its Politics of Documentation — Sumallya Mukhopadhyay, Doctoral Student, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.
3. Emerging Borders in the everyday ─   Looking at the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam, India — Anindita Chakrabarty, Ph.D. Candidate, TISS, Mumbai     
4. The Afghan Sikh refugees in India’s situation — Riccardo Bonotto, Ph.D. Student, EHESS Paris.
5. The Rohingya Refugee Crisis in Bangladesh: An Analysis of the Current Situation — Dr Minati Kalo, Independent Researcher.

 Re-Imagining the Himalayas: Environment, Climate Change and Human History in the Eastern Himalayas- Sangay Tamang, Ph.D. Scholar, Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati.

1. Violence of Science and Development: Withering away of the Displaced Van Gujjars in and around Rajaji National Park, Uttarakhand- Prerna Sah, Swaniti Initative.
2. The Dharma of Ecology – Contemporary Narratives of Environmental Politics- Ragini Kapoor, Comparative Indian Litt. Ph.D. Fellow, University of Delhi.
3. Uncontrolled Ecotourism and Reproduction of New-Imperialisms under the Guise of Developmental Interventions: A Case Study of Majuli- Rituparna Borah, Research Fellow, Madras Institute of Development Studies.

1. ‘We are not Muslims, politically‚’: Interrogating Muslim Identity from the Margins – Azeem Ahmed, Ph.D. Student, University of Delhi.
2. Dynamics of housing discrimination in Delhi –  Aishani Khurana, M.Phil Scholar, JNU, New Delhi.
3. We are not Hindu Hindus but We are Muslim Hindus: The Case of Sami community of Sindh, Pakistan – Sindhri Saba, Ph.D. Student, EHESS, Paris.
4. Mosques and Colonial Political ‚ “Violence” : Persecution and Resistance of Muslim community in Nineteenth Century Delhi (India) – Sadia Aziz, Ph.D. Scholar, University of Delhi
5. The Curious Case of the Indian Muslim: Hiba Ahmed, M.Phil. Scholar, University of Delhi.

 Migration and Changing Gender Paradigms: A Case Study of Kuki Tribal Women Migrants in Delhi — Thanggoulen Kipgen, Ph.D. Scholar, North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong.       

1. Gendered Labour: A Study of Home-Based Garment Workers in Delhi — Madhubani Sen, Ph.D. Scholar, JNU, New Delhi.
2. Inhabiting Islam in a South Asian City: Exploring the Narratives of Muslim Women in New Delhi, India — Eisha Choudhary, Research Scholar, Jamia Millia Islamia.
3. Nihal Vihar Mapping Space and Gender: young women’s aspirations and experiences of violence in the lower middle class neighborhood of Delhi —  Mansa, Research Scholar, Ambedkar University.

 ‘What to write? What to do? How to do?’: The 1943 Bengal Famine and the Trouble with Art

1. Sourit Bhattacharya (Convenor), Lecturer, University of Glasgow
2. An ‘Aesthetic of Hunger’?: Famine and Cinemas of India during the 1940s,
   Binayak Bhattacharya (Co-Convenor), Assistant Professor, Manipal University
3. The Holocaust and the Bliss: Famine, Liberal Imperialism, and Nationalism in Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s Anandamath (1882)
   Rajarshi Mitra, Indian Institute of Information Technology, Guwahati
4. Exploring Humanist and Marxist Approaches towards Understanding the 1943 Bengal Famine,
   Arjab Roy, Indian Institute of Information Technology, Guwahati

1. Towards Federal Democracy: The Role of Institutional and Socio-Political Factors in Defining Local Level Participatory Planning in Nepal- Vishnu Kumari Tandon, Ph.D. Student, EHESS, Paris.
2. ‘Encroachment’ of Government Quarter: A study of Itanagar town, Arunachal Pradesh- Bhaswati Borgohain, Research Scholar, Tezpur University.
3. “Speckled Selves: Epidermis, Disease and Identity in Narratives” – Elwin Susan John, Assistant Professor, Sophia College, Mumbai
4. Serving the post-colonial state: Indian Youth, National Development and the everyday state: Tom Wilkinson, London School of Economics, London.

1. Decoding ‘Muslim South Asian Women Identity’ in Diaspora Fiction: A Cognitive Approach: Afrida Aainun Murshida, Ph.D. Researcher, Sikkim University.
2. Translating the Sacred Wor(l)ds: Embodied Sacred Narratives by Muslim Women in South India — Simi K Salim, Research Scholar, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.
3. Silence matters from the, ‘other’ to the ‘conscious other’ in Monica Ali’s Brick Lane- Shilpi Gupta, Ph.D. Scholar, University of Granada, Spain.

1. Religious at the Intersection of Political: Namasudras of West Bengal in Contemporary times: Moumita Biswas, Santipur College, West Bengal
2. Caste based Reservation in India: A Systemic Antidote to the Ideology (System) of Caste: Ishita Roy, Assistant Professor, University of Kalyani, West Bengal.
3. Marathas, Dominance and Riots: Caste Politics and Religious Nationalism in Western India: Neetin Sonawane, Assistant Professor, Abhinav College, University of Mumbai.
4. Mobilizing the Idea of ‘The Great Chamar’: The Bhim Army in Northern India: Bhoopendra Kumar, Ph.D. Candidate, JNU, New Delhi.

1. Sufism and Politics in South Asia: Suhrawardi Sufis of Multan and their Relationship with the State — Zafar Mohyuddin, Lecturer, University of Sargodha, Pakistan.
2. In Search of Salvation: Womanhood in Early Buddhism — Hina Chandna, Ph.D. Scholar, JNU, New Delhi.
3. Who did start the fire? Investigating Political Explanations for Religious Conflict; the case of Shia-Sunni riots in Lucknow. — Zaheer Abbas, Assistant Professor, OP Jindal Global University.
4. The Politics of Religious Vegetarianism in Secular India- Rochana Kammowanee & Kartikeya, St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai
5. Social Worlds, Political Commitments: Engaging with Hindu Nationalist Women in India — Anshu Saluja, Research Scholar, JNU, Delhi

1. Choosing To Forget Nellie Massacre: Omissions of the State (and the Preservation of Impunity) — Priyanka Borpujari, Rotary Peace Fellow, International Christian University, Tokyo.    
2. Understanding Rabindranath Tagore’s Swadesh bhakti as a Critique of Nationalism — Ankita Banerjee, Ph.D. Candidate, King’s College, London.
3. National Songs and their Symbolic Imaginations in India: A Study of Jana Gana Mana and Vande Mataram — Isha Tirkey, Assistant Professor, University of North Bengal.   
4. Sub-national Challenge to the Indian Nation-State: A Case of Naga National Self-Determination — Gayatri Lele, Assistant Professor (ad-hoc), University of Mumbai. 
5. On both sides: indigenous peoples, state and the border in Mizoram-Myanmar border- Roluahpuia, Assistant Professor, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee

 Women, Folklore and the Literary Text: A Case Study of the fiction of Sudhindranath Ghose – Shruti Amar, Assistant Professor, KIIT University.

1. Questioning the Gender Paradigm: A Study of Selected Essays by Bengali Hindu Women in the Late Nineteenth Century — Sanchayita Paul Chakraborty, Assistant Professor, Dr. Meghnad Saha College.
2. Modernity and women: A reading of The Heart Divided – Sevali Hukku, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.
3. The Body Without Organs: Subaltern Women Narratives in Mahasweta Devi’s Short Fiction, a Deleuzian Reading — Swatee Sinha, Ph.D. Scholar, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur
4. “She holds the sword too‚”: Understanding the neo-nationalist womanhood in contemporary Indian English myth-fiction — Micah K Thambi, Assistant Professor, St. Joseph’s College, Bangalore

Lecturer, Mary Immaculate College

1. A Critical Turn in Conflict Studies: A study of asymmetrical resistance by Kashmiri people- Arshita Nandan, University of Kent
2. Protest, Power and Participation: Narratives of Oppression and Rebellion in Kashmir-Muddasir Ramzan, Graduate Student, Aligarh Muslim University.
3. Reading the Remembrances: Exploring Homelessness and Exile in Selected Kashmiri Pandit Writings — Kanad Giri, Ph.D. Scholar, West Bengal State University.
4. India and Pakistan vis-a-vis Kashmir: the patterns of nationalist narratives. Comparative analysis — Agnieszka Kuszewska, Assistant Professor, Jagiellonian University.
5. Exposing coloniality of Knowledge in India-Kashmir relations, Annapurna Menon, University of Westminster, London

DCU

 Reading Pasts, Imagining Futures: Capital, Ecology and Humanity in Amitav Ghosh‚ Gun Island – Abin Chakraborty, Assistant Professor, Chandernagore College, West Bengal.

1. A Poetic of Liminal Spaces in Amitav Ghosh‚ The Hungry Tide and Romesh Gunesekera’s Reef — Sabine Lauret-Taft, Associate Professor, Université de Bourgogne Franche-Comte      
2. Bon Bibir Pala and the Balance in the ecosystem: Re-reading The Hungry Tide from the Modern Environmental perspective — Dipanwita Pal, Assistant Professor, University of Burdwan.

DCU

1. Critical Sexuality Education From Life, For Life- Parul Malik, Ph.D. Student, University of Delhi.
2. Decolonizing English Language Education: In Search of a Generic Framework of Good Practices- Abdullah Al Mahmud, Senior Lecturer, MAHSA University, Malaysia.
3. Learner’s Identity and civic self-formation in Higher Education: Narrative of the Marginalised in a Modern Public University in India – Anuradha Bose, Doctoral Scholar, National Institute of Education Planning and Administration, New Delhi.

1. Caste assertions, ambivalences and erasures: gender-ed identifications in State welfare hostels,
   Savitha Suresh Babu, Faculty, Baduku Centre for Livelihoods Learning Samvada.
2. Chitpavan women as Caste marked subjects,
   Shraddha Chickerur, Ph.D. Candidate, University of Hyderabad.
3. Women on the boundaries of religious community- Divorce cases and legal subjectivity,
   Gitanjali Joshua, Ph.D. Candidate, University of Hyderabad
4. Revisiting Bodo Women in Everyday Spaces of Tribal Assertion in the Bodoland Movement, Assam – Dona Biswas, Ph.D. Scholar, Ambedkar University, Delhi

Associate Professor, DCU

1. An assessment of socio-economic vulnerability at the household level: A case study from the coastal area of Indian Sundarbans- Sneha Biswas, Ph.D. Scholar, Institute for Social and Economic Change.
2. The Socially Constructed Nature (Environment) and its Politics: Land, Forest and Community in Nagaland – Menokhono, Ph.D Scholar, TISS, Mumbai.
3. The fisherman of the forest: A socio-anthropological study of the landscape of deltaic Sundarbans in Bengal- Prama Mukhopadhyay, Ph.D. Scholar, Delhi School of Economics.
4. Alternative Imaginations, Traditional Systems — Critical definitions for the protection of the environment in relation to conflict- Srivatsan Manivannan, M.Phil candidate, Trinity College, Dublin.

Assistant Professor, DCU

1. Classifying Occupational Hazards: An exposition of the narratives of precarious life, Indian Mines 1895-1970 – Dr Dhiraj Kumar Nite, Assistant Professor, Ambedkar University, New Delhi.
2. Medical Enactments: Legislature as a site of contest the Late Colonial India: Kaushalya Bajpayee, Assistant Professsor, OP Jindal Global University.
3. State-Building and Law Practices on the Panjab frontier, late 19th c.– Gagan Kumar, Associate Professor, OP Jindal Global University.  
4. Framing ‘Backwardness’: Nationalist Responses to the Tribal Question (1920-1950) — Dr. Saagar Tewari, Associate Professor, OP Jindal Global University.
5. Swadeshi Movement, Colonial Power and Repression — Suparna Sengupta, Assistant Professor, Hansraj College, New Delhi

Senior Lecturer, SOAS

Dr. Srila Roy,

(Associate Professor in Sociology at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa)

 “Queer feminist politics in neoliberal India: moving forward, feeling backward”