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Events in Academic Year 2005/06Producing a Rationale for Dowry? Gender in the Negotiation of Exchange at Marriage in South India, KeralaSir Ratan Tata Fellowship Lecture 2005/06 Speaker: Dr Praveena Kodoth, Sir Ratan Tata Fellow 2005/06, Asia Research Centre New forms of gender inequality are associated with a growing ideological emphasis on conjugality in modernising Indian contexts. Prominent among them is a generalised resort to dowry, even in contexts that were previously free of it. Negotiation of exchange at marriage implicates normative notions of masculinity and femininity. In the south western Indian state of Kerala these notions were inflected in developmental-cultural terms, drawing education, employment and health concerns into them in central but distinct ways for men and women. I am interested in the shaping of a 'practical' rationale for dowry, defined as cash or property transferred by parents of girls in relation to their marriage, among formerly matrilineal jatis in Kerala, and in the feelings of 'disrespect' internalised by women who are on the margins of patriarchal femininity for not being able to 'achieve' a marriage or for its breakdown. Match making and formalisation of marriage were a severe financial strain on parents of girls as the painstaking and often stressful process of 'looking for a boy' dovetail with the expenses incurred in getting daughters married. These factors make the possibility of dissolution of marriage a fraught one, bringing pressure on women to negotiate substantial odds to sustain marriages. Thus, expenses and property transfers were implicated in rendering marriage 'stable'. However, there were other grounds too to push women to stay within a framework of marriage, marital failure is perceived as a moral failure of women and thus weighted more heavily against them. This event is free and open to all with no ticket required. For more information, please email Ms Shunji Cui at s.cui@lse.ac.uk. Future challenges to Indian foreign policyPlease note that the event will be running under the Chatham House Rule. This means that "participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed" in accordance with the definition of the Chatham House Rule available at the Chatham House website. Date/time: 31 May 2006, 6.30pm Within the context of globalisation, India's growing economic stature is widely recognised. In this talk, India's High Commissioner to the UK, H.E. Kamalesh Sharma will address India's future foreign policy challenges and opportunities, both regionally and internationally." This event is free and open to all with no tickets required. For more information or queries on the event, please email events@lse.ac.uk or call 0207 955 6043. Shifting Politics in China: Associations and the Strange Marriage Between the State and Private Business in Beijing(Presented in conjunction with Centre for the Civil Society) Date/time: 23 May 2006, 12.30pm-2pm Michael Leifer Book LaunchTo mark a new book "Order and Security in Southeast Asia: Essays in Memory of Michael Leifer" edited by Ralf Emmers and Joseph Liow. Co-sponsored by the Asia Research Centre and Department of International Relations, LSE Date/time: 22 May 2006 Should you have queries on this event, please contact Dr Jurgen Haacke email: (j.haacke@lse.ac.uk), Lecturer, Department of International Relations. Reform, Innovation and Internationalisation, the Challenges of the New Korean EconomyDate/time: 2 May 2006, 6.30pm In the 1960s, Korea was one of the poorest countries in the world, and was under authoritarian rule until the mid 1980s. Responding to the global environment, Korea has undergone a series of political and economic reforms to emerge as a free market economy and one of the world's most advanced liberal democracies. Korea's economy is now the 11th largest in the world. This puts Korea in a position to be a major player on the world stage and work closely with the UK on a number of important global issues. This political and economic miracle provides the world with a fascinating case study of how a war-ravaged country can develop and reform over a relatively short period of time. This event is free and open to all. However, a ticket is required for entry. For more information the event or queries on tickets, please email events@lse.ac.uk or call 0207 955 6043. Holy Warriors: religious fundamentalism in India todayDate/time: 9 May 2006, 6.30pm The post 9/11 world remains fixated by the threat posed by Islamic fundamentalism. But Islam is not the only religion to be hijacked by the politics of the fanatic. In India, the world's largest secular democracy, the forces of fundamentalism are evident in every major religion. What lies at the heart of this fanaticism and what threat does it pose to India today? Edna Fernandes is author of "Holy Warriors: A journey into the heart of Indian fundamentalism", to be published by Penguin. She is a former Financial Times foreign correspondent. Prior to that she worked for Reuters, Dow Jones and Sky News. Her articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal and International Herald Tribune. Professor John Harriss and Dr Athar Hussain are based at LSE. Jill McGivering is former BBC South Asia Correspondent and currently a BBC World Affairs Correspondent. Purna Sen is Director of Asia-Pacific Programme, Amnesty International. This event is free and available to all with no ticket required. For more information, please email Charles Phua at c.r.phua@lse.ac.uk. Indian Exceptionalism? A Discussion on India's Experiment with Constitutional Secularism(2005/06 CR Parekh Fellowship Lecture) Date/time: 20 April 2006, 6pm The secular state is the most important of contemporary institutional forms available to deal with the problem of sectarian violence in liberal democracies. Despite this, the commitment to constitutional secularism seems to be in crisis, constituting deep fault lines in democratic politics across the world. Within the Euro-American context the secular state seems to have run into trouble with immigrants, especially Islamic communities. Beyond its founding context, well-directed postcolonial polemic in countries like India has seriously questioned the very usefulness of the secular state for non-Western polities. As an avowedly secular state it therefore seems crucial for a profoundly diverse country like India to be able to think through the extent to which the secular state can be defended against some of the challenges being mounted against it. This paper contributes to this contemporary debate on secularism by discussing the claims to an 'exceptional' model of Indian secularism made by the Indian Supreme Court. In doing so it argues with the court on the routes by which such an exceptional model can be (if at all) elaborated and defended. This event is free and available to all with no ticket required. For more information, please email Charles Phua at c.r.phua@lse.ac.uk. 2005/6 ARC Seminar Series (Lent Term): Religion & Politics in AsiaThe lecture series are interdisciplinary, open to public and are mostly held outside teaching hours. The theme of the series in the Lent term is "Religion and Politics in Asia." Sessions scheduled:
This event is available to all with no ticket required. For more information on the seminar series, please email Ms Shunji Cui at s.cui@lse.ac.uk or Mr Charles Phua at c.r.phua@lse.ac.uk. Politics in Taiwan Today: in Dialogue with Mayor Yeh Chu-lanDate/time: Wednesday 8 March 2006, 7.15pm Ms Yeh Chu-lan has been the acting Mayor of Kaohsiung City, the second largest city in Taiwan, since the summer of 2005. She was elected four times to the Taiwan-wide Legislative Assembly and was the Minister of Transport and Communications under President Chen Shuibian. She was vice-president of the Executive Yuan and Chair of its Commission on the Hakka. The event is free and open to all, but tickets are required for entry. A ticket per person will be distributed outside D402 between 6pm and 7pm on 8 March. For queries, please email Mr Charles Phua at c.r.phua@lse.ac.uk. New World of Work - A DiscussionDate/ time: Wed 8 March, 2.30pm-5.30pm Call for paper: Abstract by 16 January 2006 Full-paper (up to 5000 words) by 1 March 2006 Details of New World of Work (Word) Seats are limited. If you wish to attend this event, please email Mr Charles Phua at c.r.phua@lse.ac.uk and reserve your seat in advance. For abstract/paper submission, please contact Dr Sunil Kumar via email at s.kumar@lse.ac.uk. Under the theme of New World of Work, the discussion session will seek to explore the transformation of the traditional employer-employee relationships in both the public and private sectors and its ramifications. Although the focus will be on Asia, the phenomenon is general. The transformation has resulted in a large and expanding pool of workers in a precarious situation. The pool includes the self-employed, the casually employed on a daily or piece-rate basis and the informally employed. Under the theme of 'decent work', the International Labour Organisation has been emphasising the inclusion of all workers in social security schemes, reducing job and income security and promoting health and safety at work and equality of access to employment. The question is how can this agenda be realised given the changes in the world of work. Some of the issues that the seminar will seek to raise are: (i) the need to revisit the employer-employee relationships in terms of who is accountable for correlative rights and duties; (ii) explore whether this calls for a change in the role of the state and the forms of legislation; (iii) explore new forms of workers' organisations that are emerging and assess their ability to scale-up to represent workers rights; and (iv) explore the changing relationships between different actors that the new world of work has created. Details of the events may change and will be notified through this site. Chinese Nationalism in the Global EraDate/time: 6 March 2006, 6.30pm To mark the publication of his latest book, Chinese Nationalism in the Global Era, Dr Christopher Hughes, Senior Lecturer in International Relations will discuss the relationship between rising nationalism and globalisation in China, exploring how this sheds light on the politics behind a number or policy areas, such as information technology, education, science and technology, as well as the international role of China as a rising power. This event is available to all with no ticket required. For more information, please email Ms Chris Lee, Centre Manager of ARC at c.s.lee2@lse.ac.uk. Bridging the Divide(Previously advertised under the title of East Asian Security in a Globalised World: Taiwan's Perspective) Date/time: 13 February 2006, 6.30pm Transcript of 'Bridging the Divide' (PDF) Taipei Mayor, Dr Ma Ying-jeou, looks at Taiwan's current political and economic situation and its relations with the People's Republic of China, and gives his vision for the island's future. Ma Ying-jeou is currently Mayor of Taiwan's capital city, Taipei, and was elected chairman of the Kuomintang, Taiwan's main opposition party, in 2005. This event is available to all with no ticket required. For more information, please email Ms Chris Lee, Centre Manager of ARC at c.s.lee2@lse.ac.uk. 2005/6 ARC Seminar Series (Michaelmas Term)The lecture series are interdisciplinary, open to public and are held outside teaching hours, 6.30-8 p.m. The series in the Michaelmas Term of the academic year 2005/06 will continue with the general theme of India-China comparison and focus on Public Health and Epidemics. Venue: E171 (New Theatre), East Building for the seminars on 25 Oct, 1 Nov & 8 Nov 2005 D202, Clement House for the seminars on 15 Nov, 22 Nov, 29 Nov & 6 Dec 2005 Sessions scheduled: 25 October 1 November 8 November 15 November 22 November 29 November 6 December This event is available to all with no ticket required. For more information, please email Ms Chris Lee, Centre Manager of ARC at c.s.lee2@lse.ac.uk. Salafi Expansion, Political Mobilization and Islamic Radicalism in Post-New Order IndonesiaDate/time: 24 November 2005, 1.30pm This presentation analyses Islamic radicalism that has engulfed Indonesia in the aftermath of the collapse of the New Order regime in May 1998. During this tumultuous and chaotic transition, a number of Muslim radical groups with names like Laskar Pembela Islam (Defenders of Islam Force), Laskar Jihad (Holy War Force) and Laskar Mujahidin Indonesia (Indonesian Holy Warriors Force) achieved notoriety by demanding the comprehensive implementation of the shari'a, raiding cafes, discotheques, casinos and other reputed dens of iniquity and, most importantly, calling for jihad in the Moluccas and other Indonesian trouble spots. Focusing on Laskar Jihad, this presentation exposes the roots of the groups and factors that contributed to their proliferation. Attention will be paid to the relationship between global and national concerns and histories, especially in the context of the expansion of the transnational contemporary Salafi da'wa movement. Within the framework of social movement theory, it also examines how the groups emerged and staged spectacular collective actions in the political arena of Indonesia. Noorhaidi Hasan is researcher currently affiliated to the State Islamic University Sunan Kalijaga, Yogyakarta, Indonesia. His main interest includes various manifestations of political Islam in contemporary Indonesia. He completed his PhD at Utrecht University, the Netherlands, in June this year. This event is free and open to all with no ticket required. For more information, please email Ms Chris Lee, Centre Manager of ARC at c.s.lee2@lse.ac.uk. Making Peace in South AsiaThis lecture addresses the issues of tension between India and Pakistan and the conditions for the resolution of the issues that have divided the two countries for 58 years. Date/time: Monday 7 Nov 2005, 6.30pm Dr Maleeha Lodhi is High Commissioner for the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to the United Kingdom, and an honorary fellow of LSE. Asia Research Centre acknowledges a generous contribution from the Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines (STICERD), LSE towards the organisation of this event . Please visit the website of STICERD for more information on the sponsor. This event is free and open to all with no ticket required. For more information, email events@lse.ac.uk or call 020 7955 6043. India's Position in the WorldNot many years ago India was often thought of as a poor country of relatively marginal significance in international affairs. These perceptions are now changing, because of the recognition of the size and rate of growth of the Indian economy and of her geopolitical significance as a nuclear power. This lecture offers a critical assessment of India's position in the world in the context of globalisation and the changing balance of power. Date/time: Monday 10 Oct 2005, 6.30pm N Ram, Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu group of newspapers based in Chennai, is one of India's most distinguished journalists. This event is available to all with no ticket required. For more information, please email Ms Chris Lee, Centre Manager of ARC at c.s.lee2@lse.ac.uk. |
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