CSAS Edinburgh

13/12/2022

The times are Malaysia times, so somewhat inhospitable, but a recording will be available. For those interested please contact the organiser Prof Crispin Bates

16/05/2021

Dear Friends. Please read and consider contributing to this Go Fund Me account in memory of Dr. SHAHID PERWEZ, a good friend and a remarkable scholar, known to many across the globe on his journey from a small town in Bihar, to advanced studies in Aligarh and Edinburgh Universities, and research collaborations with numerous scholars in UK, Sweden, Canada, and India. He died tragically last week from Covid 19 in India, leaving behind a young family, that we are eager to support.
Please contribute, every little helps, and share with your friends on social media. Thank you very much.

For those who knew him, the death from Covid-19 of a remarkable scholar and human being Dr … Crispin Bates needs your support for Shahid Perwez Memorial Fund

13/05/2021

Dear Friends and Colleagues. Please read and consider contributing to this Go Fund Me account in memory of Dr. SHAHID PERWEZ, a remarkable scholar, known to many across the globe on his journey from a small town in Bihar, to advanced studies in Aligarh and Edinburgh, and research collaborations with numerous scholars in UK, Sweden, Canada, and India. He died tragically last week from Covid 19 in India, leaving behind a young family, that we are eager to support. Every little helps. If you are in India and do not have Visa or MasterCard, you can contribute directly to the Memorial Fund. Please message for details. A Memorial Event is planned for ** 27th May** on Zoom at:
6.30 pm India time
9 00 pm Malaysia
2 pm UK
9 am Toronto
Further details will follow. Many thanks.

For those who knew him, the death of Dr SHAHID PERWEZ from Covid-19, at the age of 44, has … Crispin Bates needs your support for Shahid Perwez Memorial Fund

04/05/2021

A recording of this talk by Prof Crispin Bates on Indian Labour History, organised by IIT Ahmedabad, is now available for those interested at

Title of the talk:RETHINKING INDIAN LABOUR HISTORY: North Indian Overseas Labour Migration in the Colonial EraBio of the speaker:Crispin Bates is the Profess...

18/01/2021

FLEETING AGENCIES: A Social History of Indian Coolie Women in British Malaya by ARUNIMA DATTA has just been published in the new series GLOBAL SOUTH ASIANS from Cambridge University Press.
Fleeting Agencies disrupts the male-dominated narratives by focusing on gendered patterns of migration and showing how South Asian women labour migrants engaged with the process of migration, interacted with other migrants and negotiated colonial laws. This is the first study of Indian coolie women in British Malaya to date. In exploring the politicization of labour migration trends and gender relations in the colonial plantation society in British Malaya, the author foregrounds how the migrant Indian 'coolie' women manipulated colonial legal and administrative perceptions of Indian women; their gender-prescriptive roles, relations within patriarchal marriage institutions, and even the emerging Indian national independence movement in India and Malaya. All this, to ensure their survival, escape from unfavourable relations and situations, and improve their lives. The book also introduces the concept of situational or fleeting agency, which contributes to further a nuanced understanding of agency in the lives of Indian coolie women.
Digitial editions are available now on Cambridge Core. Hard editions in February.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/series/global-south-asians/87BA7B45E76B2D34501CF1E38D72139B

11/02/2020

You are warmly invited to a seminar in the Spring 2020 Semester by the Centre for South Asian Studies at Edinburgh University.


Stigma as strategy: NGOs in Pakistan’s HIV prevention

Speakers: Ayaz Qureshi (UoE)

Date: Thursday 13th February 2020

Venue: Violet Laidlaw Room, 6th Floor, CMB

Time: 1600 -1730


Abstract:

NGOs often portray drug users and s*x workers as quasi-legal persons locked in a kind of policeman-criminal relationship with the state, who therefore need NGOs to mediate this relationship. I argue in this paper that by advancing such portrayals, NGOs in the HIV prevention were capitalising upon the presumed ‘cultural difference’ (Elyachar 2010) of the so-called ‘risk groups’ of HIV. Rather than challenging oppressive legal apparatus and societal norms, the role of ‘cultural brokers’ for these NGOs worked for their own accumulation, even if, for this brokerage to work for them, they had to accentuate the cultural difference and thus further the stigma and ‘othering’. Portrayals of self-incriminating drug users and s*x workers do not take into account a fuller range of identity politics and dynamics of stigma in an unstable donor-dominated landscape. Set in the context of HIV/AIDS response in Pakistan, the ethnography captures some of the fluidity with which NGOs and individuals embodied often stigmatising stereotypes as strategies to get access to funds, power and influence with donors and with the government.

Further details here: http://www.csas.ed.ac.uk/events/seminar_series/2019_2020/stigma_as_strategy_ngos_in_pakistans_hiv_prevention

ALL ARE WELCOME.



The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336.

Stigma as strategy: NGOs in Pakistan’s HIV prevention Title Stigma as strategy: NGOs in Pakistan’s HIV prevention Speaker(s) Speaker: Ayaz Qureshi # UoE Hosted by Introduced by Date and Time 13th Feb 2020 16:00 - 13th Feb 2020 17:30 Location Violet Laidlaw Room, 6th Floor, Chrystal Macmillan Bui...

29/01/2020

You are warmly invited to a seminar in the Spring 2020 Semester by the Centre for South Asian Studies at Edinburgh University.


Shifting the place, relations and process of care: three cases of social innovation in community mental health

Speakers: Sumeet Jain (UoE) and Winston Kwon (UoE)

Date: Thursday 30th January 2020

Venue: Practice Suite, Room 1.12, First Floor, CMB

Time: 1600 -1730

Abstract
In recent years, a number of Indian NGOs have developed highly innovative approaches to addressing gaps in the provision of community mental health care. An ethnographic study of three such organizations: Project Burans (Dehradun), Iswar Sankalpa (Kolkata) and Mental Health Action Trust (Calicut) reveals how innovation emerges from a contextually adapted network of practices within each organisation. While these networks of practises are unique for each organisation, they also have in common an approach to mental health care that is focused on recovery and well-being. From these findings, we developed a conceptual framework for a psychosocial approach to mental health through shifts in the: a) place of care (care is delivered in a multiplicity of spaces), b) relations of care (hierarchies and boundaries between groups are reduced), and c) process of care (practices of care are adapted and evolved).

Further details here: http://www.csas.ed.ac.uk/events/seminar_series/2019_2020/shifting_the_place,_relations_and_process_of_care_three_cases_of_social_innovation_in_community_mental_health

ALL ARE WELCOME.



The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336.

Shifting the place, relations and process of care: three cases of social innovation in community mental health Title Shifting the place, relations and process of care: three cases of social innovation in community mental health Speaker(s) Speaker: Sumeet Jain # UoE; Speaker: Winston Kwon # UoE Hoste...

14/10/2019

You are warmly invited to a seminar in the Autumn 2019 Semester by the Centre for South Asian Studies at Edinburgh University.


Translation and the Missionary Archie: multilingual texts and linguistic memory

Speakers: Hephzibah Israel UoE

Date: Thursday 17th October 2019

Venue: Violet Laidlaw Room, 6th Floor, CMB (previously called 6th floor staff room)

Time: 1600 -1730

Abstract
My talk draws on the experience of working with the ‘missionary archive’ on a recent research project focusing on accounts of conversion from nineteenth-century South Asia. While the project team found more than the number of autobiographical accounts anticipated, with written evidence on several documents that they were ‘true’ translations, we were unable to trace both language versions in each case. This meant developing a new set of questions on translation and its relationship with the archive. How do we interpret what we term “translation traces” in bilingual texts, translated extracts, fragments, and evidence of repeated relay translations? Why were some translation pairs preserved and not others? If we think of the archive as a ‘contact zone’ where languages, texts and memory intersect through translation, we can examine the effects that the ‘unarchiving’ of some languages and narratives have on our re-constructions of the past. As I show, asking the translation question also uncovers unexpected language trajectories along which some narratives travelled in colonial India.

Further detail here: http://www.csas.ed.ac.uk/events/seminar_series/2019_2020/translation_and_the_missionary_archive_multilingual_texts_and_linguistic_memory

ALL ARE WELCOME.


The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336.

Translation and the Missionary Archive: multilingual texts and linguistic memory Title Translation and the Missionary Archive: multilingual texts and linguistic memory Speaker(s) Speaker: Hephzibah Israel # UoE Hosted by Introduced by Date and Time 17th Oct 2019 16:00 - 17th Oct 2019 17:30 Location....