| Program |
14:00 – 14:45
“Climate Change, vulnerable livelihoods and migration in the Sundarbans in West Bengal, India.”
Dr. Supriya RoyChowdhury (National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, India.)
[Abstract]
This presentation is about the Sundarbans region in West Bengal, the largest mangrove in the world, a UNESCO heritage site, on the delta of three rivers and crisscrossed by multiple rivulets. Framed historically by economic backwardness and policy neglect, the delta is now confronted with climatic factors – sea level rise and salinization- both episodic and gradual, which threaten the already fragile lives and livelihoods of its predominantly agricultural and fishing communities.
While the delta can be seen at the intersection of debates on relocation, migration and development, my recently conducted field work in three villages highlights changing agriculture and aquaculture practices and cyclical migration as adaptive strategies. The analysis signals both the embeddedness of local communities in land and water, and the failed promise of urbanization in India.
[Bio]
Supriya RoyChowdhury was educated at Presidency College, Kolkata, and at Princeton University. She is currently Visiting Professor at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore. Earlier she taught at the Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore, IIM Ahmedabad, and worked as Deputy Editor, The Hindu. Her research interests span labour, trade unions, urban poverty, and migration. She has published in the Journal of Development Studies, Third World Quarterly, Pacific Affairs, Economic and Political Weekly, Socialist Register, as well as contributed to several edited volumes. Her book, “City of Shadows: Slums and Informal Work in Bangalore”, has been published by Cambridge University Press in 2021.
14:45 – 15:30
“Skill' as a Lens for Social Science Research: Case Study of Agricultural Training Initiatives in India.”
Dr. Trent Brown (Tokyo College (University of Tokyo Institute of Advanced Study))
[Abstract]
In 2007, the Government of India launched a wide-ranging set of policies related to skill development, later rebranded in 2015 as 'Skill India.' These initiatives sought to improve the employability of Indian youth and increase India's economic productivity. In the agricultural sector, it was hoped that a new suite of vocational training initiatives would encourage both (a) agricultural efficiency and the integration of farmers into global supply chains; and (b) more sustainable approaches to rural development. But how did these objectives compare with the ways that farmers themselves valued and utilised the skills they acquired through training (if, indeed, they acquired skills at all)? Drawing on a short-term longitudinal study in Himachal Pradesh and Punjab, north India, I will show that skill development policy and practice frequently misjudges the ways that farmers acquire, develop, value and use skills and the meanings that skills mobilise and express. Expanding on this, I will reflect on the potential of 'skill' as an interpretive lens in the social sciences and briefly discuss how it is informing my current research on Japanese craft.
[Bio]
Trent Brown is Associate Professor at Tokyo College (a University of Tokyo Institute of Advanced Study), where he leads the Sustainability and Society Collaborative Project and (with Dr Balawansuk Lynrah) Rethinking Skills Collaborative Project. He is the author of Farmers, Subalterns, and Activists: Social Politics of Sustainable Agriculture in India (Cambridge University Press, 2018) and (with John Harriss and Craig Jeffrey) India: Continuity and Change in the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge: Polity Press).
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