Shreya Sen
Shreya Sen is a Doctoral Fellow at University of Calcutta. She
participated in the workshop. She can be reached at shreya69@gmail.com
The Faculty of
Social Sciences at the University of Lapland in Rovaniemi, Finland recently
organized an International workshop on Gender,
Development, Resistance between the 7th and 8th of
June 2015, bringing together activists, practitioners and academics dedicated
to the research, analysis and discussion of upcoming issues in these areas of
study. The workshop was a follow up of the Ninth Feminist Research Conference
on ‘Sex and Capital” sponsored by ATGENDER, a European organization for gender
documentation and research, which also took place at the University of Lapland,
from 3rd to 6th June 2015. Altogether, there were 21
papers presented at the workshop over eight panels and over a span of two days,
with a keynote lecture by Dr. Paula Banerjee of the Department of South and
Southeast Asian Studies, University of Calcutta and a concluding talk by
workshop host and post-doctoral researcher at the University of Lapland, Dr.
Tiina Seppala.
In her opening
remarks, Dr. Paula Banerjee (University of Calcutta) explained how the
development paradigm favored by much of the post colonial world has resulted in
massive displacement, since the cost of development is not borne equally by all
sections of society. The most vulnerable of the population such as the indigenous
people, minorities etc. she argued, bear the cost of development while the more
endowed enjoy the fruits of development. After providing an overview of women’s
resistance to dams, mining and other development projects in Northeastern India
and in the Indian states of Orissa and West Bengal, Dr Banerjee concluded that
women occupied a significant portion of the resisting population owing to a concern
for their children and future generations, their training in Satyagraha and
their longstanding struggle against state, patriarchy and capital.
The first session
of the workshop chaired by Dr. Tiina Seppala, began with Elina Onias
(University of Helsinki) exploring contemporary forms of feminist resistance
and protests through varied responses to Femen, an activist group in Tunisia in
2013. Anitta Kynsilehto (Tampere) followed by examining corporeal forms of
resistance, highlighting the potential of mobile persons to disturb
administrative power which regulates and prevents irregular global mobility by
adopting a policy of containment. Eija Ranta (University of Helsinki )then entered
into a discussion of the aspirations and experiences of women in Kenya who
venture into political forums and national decision making.
The afternoon
session was chaired by Dr. Paula Banerjee and opened with Sreya Sen (University
of Calcutta) analyzing the impact of river erosion induced displacement on the
lives of women in Malda, West Bengal (India) and Khulna, Bangladesh,to see how
this phenomenon triggers resistance among the women displaced instead of simply
making them victims of the process.By looking at three case studies from
Hyderabad, India, Dr Nanda Kishore (Leiden University) then spoke about
livelihoods that have been disrupted as a consequence of development induced displacement,
emphasizing the gendered nature of development politics, especially with regard
to decision making. Neetu Pokharel (Nepal Institute of Peace) explored how the
empowerment of women has been narrowly understood and defined in Nepal by identifying
lacunae in policies and practices for this purpose. Som Prasad Niroula (Nepal
Institute of Peace) highlighted complexities in women’s rights movements in
Nepal by sharing his interviews with key women’s rights activists in the
country.
The concluding
session of day one chaired by Tiina Seppala, saw Roopshree Joshi (Lutheran
World Foundation) sharing findings from her research on women’s access to
citizenship by comparing how Nepalese women married to Tibetan men and single
Nepalese mothers were incapable of transferring citizenship rights to their
children. This was followed by Bhagavati Adhikari (Nepal Institute of Peace) offering
some perspectives on gender from within slum communities in Nepal.
Session one of
day two with Dr. Nanda Kishore as the chair began with Signe Arnfred
(Amsterdam) discussing women’s rituals in Northern Mozambique with a focus on
spaces of resistance and forms of knowledge, drawing inspiration from the
notion of material knowledge. Janet Conway (Brock University, Toronto) then explored
the myriad and inter connected transformations in feminism such as the forging
of alliances with non feminist others around common struggles, by studying the
World March of Women and its politics of allegiance surrounding food
sovereignty in the last decade. Leones Ansems de Vries (Queen Mary University,
London) showcased the relation between resistance and governance in the context
of refugee subjectivities in Malaysia in her talk, by examining resistance
practices and the context in which these emerge, thus moving away from the
notion that refugees are mere victims who are subjected to control and
violence. Paola Vizcaino Suarez and Rocio Serrano Barquin (Mexico) shared
preliminary results of their ongoing research which seeks to assess empowerment
processes among women artisans who are vendors and producers of ethnic clay
crafts in a central Mexican destination for cultural tourism. This was followed
by Carolina Serrano Barquin, Rocio Serrano Barquin and Adelaida Rojas Garcia
(Mexico)analyzing the interpretation and assimilation of the body image binary
by student athletes from the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico.
In the afternoon
session chaired by Tiina Seppala, Wendy Guns (Amsterdam) investigated whether
women friendly international norms could be established only if women were made
to be a part of the law making process, concluding that while gender plays a crucial
role in this regard, so do the ideas of the women who are involved, after which
Lotta Gammelin (Uppsala University) spoke of how spirituality and healing is
constructed and gendered in a Mybeyan community in Southern Tanzania, raising
the question of whether women’s religious narratives and experiences built on
power, fertility and sexuality, could be explained in a post-colonial setting. EnniMik
Konen (Lapland University) then addressed the changing social position of women
in rural communities of Nepal, scrutinizing the external and internal forces
that drive this transition after which Heidi Alatalo (Lapland University)
engaged in an examination of African conceptions of development via their own
discourses by exploring two different social interest groups in three East
African countries, to offer a new understanding of future development in
Africa. Through an argument of how rationalities and technologies of the modern nation state find reproduction in contemporary
times by individualizing social ills and pathologizing the poor, Sara Motta
(Australian National University)then explained the legitimization of continued
and increasing interventions to remove children from refugee, poor white and
indigenous families.
The final session
was chaired by Dr. Paula Banerjee and began with Afroja Khanam (Lapland
University) discussing the extent to which women’s lives have been affected as
a consequence of multiple migrations due to river erosion in Char Batia,
located in the Bogra district of Bangladesh, stressing on the dire impact this
displacement has had on women’s social status, within the family and community,
their livelihoods and their security. The workshop concluded withDr. Tiina Seppla
(Lapland University) critiquing resistance and autonomy in South Asia,
highlighting the importance of decolonizing forms of feminist solidarity and
reflecting on the challenges and potential that it brings in the context of engaged
social movement research, through an analysis of ethnographic fieldwork with
social movement activists in Kolkata, India and in Kathmandu, Nepal.
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