Sikhs in Latin America
Interview with Swarn Singh Kahlon who is a freelance research scholar.
Please follow the YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lGjr0pMCmY&list=UUeiRdb5QKNbNKUXD9aSe8dw
cfp: Sikholars Graduate Student Conference in Sikh and Punjab Studies, Stanford University
Call for Papers
For the past five years, the Jakara Movement has created a forum for budding scholars and researchers, working on various projects related to Sikhs, to come together, share, and challenge one another. For the past two years, we have found a home with Stanford University’s Center of South Asia and have formed an engaging partnership.
This year we do it again, with the additional support of the Sarbjit Singh Aurora Chair in Sikh and Punjabi Studies at UC Santa Cruz. We are pleased to announce our call for papers for Sikholars 2015. The Sikholars conference has attracted young scholars from over three continents and twenty–five universities. With topics ranging from Khalistan to Unix Coding, from sex-selective abortion to diasporic literature, from Nihangs in the court of Ranjit Singh to the North American bhangra circuit, from Sikh sculpture and architecture to representations of masculinity in Punjabi films, we encourage the widest possible range of those pursuing graduate studies on Sikh-related topics.
While all topics are welcomed and panels will be formed around their various themes—this year we seek to form two panels for special consideration.
The Guru Granth Sahib
For Sikholars 2015, we are hosting a special panel around the theme of the Guru Granth Sahib. From digital transmission and apps to history and material studies culture, from musicology to codicology, we welcome any number of approaches. Please indicate on the application if your subject is related to this theme.
Technology and Entrepreneurship Panel
Due to the widespread interest and demand from attendees, we again will have a special panel devoted to technological entrepreneurship. The panel will be limited to three panelists.
The conference will be held over the President’s Day weekend from February 14–15, 2015 at Stanford University. It is sponsored by the Center for South Asia at Stanford University and the Jakara Movement.
Proposals for individual papers should be no more than 250 words in length and may be uploaded at the conference website, with a current CV/resume.
Last year, 175+ community members came to participate and converse. We expect an even greater attendance this year with more thought-provoking papers. Be part of the conversation and mark your calendars for this unique experience.
Abstracts Submission Deadline: December 12, 2014
For more information, please visit our website http://www.sikholars.org
cfp:Rethinking Territoriality – Between Independence and Interdependence
CALL FOR PAPERS AND PANELS: Rethinking Territoriality – Between Independence and Interdependence
University of Edinburgh, 16TH-18TH September 2015
This conference will bring together, for the first time, the three IPSA research committees to examine different aspects of territoriality evident in the world today. The conference, convened in Edinburgh one year after Scotland’s historic independence referendum, will provide an opportunity to examine the politics of territorial, ethnic and linguistic identity, state traditions and language regimes, the dynamics of federalism and multi-level government, and relations between power and territory in the context of regional integration.
We invite proposals for individual paper contributions or for panels engaging these issues. We welcome case studies and comparison of issues of territoriality evident in any part of the world, as well as papers adopting a theoretical perspective on territorial or identity and language politics. We aim to feature the best of contemporary research on territoriality, including new research by established academics as well as early career scholars.
Proposals for papers should include full contact details (including an email address, mailing address, and affiliation) of the author(s) and an abstract of up to 200 words.
Panel proposals must include:
- a minimum of three papers and a maximum of five.
- contact details of paper-givers, and (if you have them) the discussant and chair
- Panel title and individual paper titles
- Short description of panel (max 200 words)
Conference languages are English and French. The final deadline for electronic submission of proposals for papers or panels will be 28 February 2015. Proposals should be submitted to: http://form.jotformeu.com/form/42413501455344
Limited travel funds may be available.
THIS IS A JOINT CONFERENCE OF IPSA RC 28: COMPARATIVE FEDERALISM AND MULTI-LEVEL GOVERNANCE; RC 14: POLITICS AND ETHNICITY; RC 50: THE POLITICS OF LANGAUGE and CENTRE ON CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGE AND SCHOOL OF SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCE, UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH
New Paper on Social Democracy in India by Ronki Ram
Jagtar Singh Dhesi Annual Lecture 2014
As part of this annual lecture, a revised 2013 paper, CASTE, NEO-LIBERAL ECONOMIC REFORMS AND THE DECLINE OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY IN INDIA has been sent in for circulation. The paper reports on the at times inchoate and at other times ancient relationship between wealth generation, distribution and the hierarchical societal dichotomy of India’s democracy. Ram reflects contemporaneously on the asymmetrical relationship between the copycat “buzzword” of “economic liberalisation” in the circles of academic social sciences and the more predictable failure of this corpus to ignite change in not just political sociology but also I would suggest local and national governance ideology. As Ram concludes, “It seems that market and caste have joined hands to pose a most serious challenge to the nascent institution of social democracy in India.” (pp. 25)
Below is an excerpt outlining the paper.
“This paper is divided into four parts. The first critically examines the institution of social democracy in India while distinguishing it from that of social democracy in Europe. In the second, complex but intricate relationships among caste, poverty and neo-liberal market economy are delineated at some length. This part is based on a premise that neo-liberal market economy in India does not only deepens poverty but also strengthen the asymmetrical structures of caste, which in turn entrench the already existing social exclusion in the society. Part third deals with the phenomenon of social democracy as articulated by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar and the ways it facilitated downtrodden to improve their living conditions. How the institution of free market economy scuttles the essence of nascent institution of social democracy in India and the new challenges it throws on the socially excluded sections of the society are also discussed at length. The fourth part draws on heavily on the implications of the neo-liberal economic reforms for the emancipatory project of social democracy in India and the birth of new contradictions that it gave rise to the disadvantage of Dalits.” (pp.4)
The full text can be found here, pol1-13 Ronki Ram.
First publication source, Punjab Journal of Politics, Amritsar Vol. XXXVII, Nos. 1-2, 2013
G.S Jandu
London
2nd International Conference of History, GCU, Lahore 17-18 November 2014
2nd International Conference of History On “Colonial and Post-Colonial Punjab”
17th -18th November 2014
Department of History, GC University, Lahore
Venue: Bukhari Auditorium
Please find attached the full programme for the 2-day conference:Conference programme final
GRFDT interview with Shinder Thandi
Given the heterogeneous nature of the Punjabi diaspora, one size fits all policies will not do, it has to be multi-pronged.
Diasporas can make a contribution in terms of fostering entrepreneurship and innovation, enable technology and knowledge transfer, as well as transferring other intangible assets, says Prof. Shinder S. Thandi of Coventry University in an interview with Dr. Sadananda Sahoo, Editor, Roots and Routes.
Please view the interview online at: http://www.grfdt.com/InterviewDetails.aspx?TabId=2038
5th Thaap International Conference 2014, 7-10 November 2014
You are cordially invited to attend the 5th Thaap International Conference 2014 on the theme “Culture, Art and Architecture of the Marginalized and the Poor” to be held from 07-10 November 2014 at 43-G, Gulberg-III, Lahore.
cfp: 29th annual Pakistan Workshop taking place at the Rook How, Lake District UK, 8-10 May 2015
We would like to draw your attention to the 29th annual Pakistan Workshop taking place at the Rook How, Lake District UK, 8-10 May 2015. The Pakistan Workshop was originally intended to bring together anthropologists and sociologists working on Pakistan, Pakistani diaspora and Islam in South Asia. However, we regularly receive work from a broad range of concepts and disciplines.
With “Narrative, biography and autobiography” in the focus of the 2015 workshop, we hope to stimulate contributions from different disciplines and on different fields.
With narratives, (hi)stories and (auto)biography in the focus of this year´s workshop, we hope to stimulate contributions from different disciplines and on different fields and are open for a whole range of approaches. Personal narratives and their analyses open up ways e.g. to scrutinize the intertwined processes of generating, shaping, constructing and challenging stories and history(s); examine the relationship between macro and micro processes; or explore oral story and history telling, as well as practices of silencing or mastering events and representations.
The analysis of Pakistani life histories offers the opportunity to discuss individual life trajectories, decisions, and events as set against the social, economic and political spaces in which they are situated. Thus, on the one hand life histories reveal lived experience and on the other hand they enable to examine the relationship between structure and agency, between macro and micro processes, notions about perceived individual choice and agency, cultural logics, or predestination.
A large part of Pakistani fiction writing today refers to the analysis of the impact of “high politics” on personal lives. Yet, this is a dual process: personal (hi)stories are always both embedded in, as well as affecting on politics, social rules, utopias and imaginations, boundaries and borders, as well as global flows and processes. For example autobiographic writings of politicians or retired state servants in Pakistan recently enjoy a big popularity. Their personal accounts add to a diversity of interpretations and analyses of recent Pakistani history and may be understood as support or challenges of the official “grand narrative” of the modern nation-state.
Unconventional forms of academic writing, for example ethnographic novels or fictional biographies on the other hand experiment with data and composition. They take questions of genre, construction and representation, authority and authorship, poetics and politics to extremes.
In this workshop we are interested in the “how” of writing personal (hi)stories on people and matters relating to a Pakistani context, as well as in the process of Pakistani history writing which is challenged as well as shaped by such writings. We invite reflections on conventional and unconventional forms of writing personal narratives, (auto)biographies and life histories and their impact on and in Pakistan.
The Pakistan Workshop 2015 invites academics researching on Pakistan and the Pakistani diaspora to submit abstracts around ‘Narrative, biography and autobiography’. Nevertheless, this field as the theme for the workshop, is only a guide to encourage submissions around this area.
You may submit abstract of your papers even if they do not coincide with this theme but would be of interest to those working on Pakistan.
Deadline for abstracts is 28 February 2015.
For further information please see our website: https://sites.google.com/site/pakistanworkshop2015/home or write to pakistanworkshop2015@gmail.com or anna.grieser@ethnologie.lmu.de
Organiser for the Pakistan Workshop 2015
Anna Grieser, M.A., Research Assistant, Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Oettingenstr. 67, 80538 Munich, Germany
http://www.ethnologie.uni-muenchen.de/forschung/doktoranden/grieser_dok/index.html
cfp: Sikh Philosophy In 21st Century: Traditions and Modernity
Sri Guru Nanak Dev Khalsa College, University of Delhi is going to organize a National Seminar
On “The Sikh Philosophy In 21st Century: Traditions and Modernity” in the month of January 2015
Key Note Address: Dr. ManMohan Kaur, Principal, S.G.N.D.Khalsa College
The College invites abstracts from interdisciplinary scholars for the following sub-themes:
• Industrialisation
• Economic Development
• Education
• Migration
• Traditions of Martyrdom in the Sikh Culture
• Sikh Kingdom and its implications in contemporary times
• Relevance of teachings of Guru Granth Sahib in Contemporary times
Plenary Session:
Enlightenment, Rationality and Modernity Among the Sikhs in 21st Century
Speaker: Dr. Indrajeet Singh, Department of Political Science, S.G.N.D.Khalsa College, Dev Nagar, University of Delhi
You are requested to send the abstracts to adsbindra@gmail.com or indrajeet69@gmail.com latest by 6th November, 2014.
Convener: Dr. Amardeep Singh Bindra
Punjab Research Group 
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