Category Archives: Voices

Sylff Leaders Workshop: Not Only a Global Partnership but a Global Friendship

September 26, 2019
By 24927

Anna Plater-Zyberk, a 2014 Sylff fellow at Jagiellonian University and one of 20 participants in the first Sylff Leaders Workshop, held in fall 2018 and spring 2019, gives her impressions of the Visioning and Road Mapping methodology used during the discussions at the workshop.

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It was nearly a year ago that 20 fellows from all over the world came to Japan for the first Sylff Leaders Workshop. We were a highly diverse group in terms of nationality, academic background, and occupation, but we also had some things in common. First, earlier in our career, Sylff helped us to achieve some of our academic goals, and, second, we were all focused on helping our respective communities.

My adventure with Sylff started in 2014 when I was struggling to finish my PhD thesis. This was particularly difficult as simultaneously I had to work full time. It is really thanks to Sylff funding that I was able to finish my doctoral thesis, obtain the degree, and move on to pursue a career at the Polish Academy of Sciences. Now, once again, I am truly thankful to Sylff for an amazing experience offered to us during the Leaders Workshop.

The workshop was composed of two one-week-long residential sessions (one in September and one in April) which took place in Japan, as well as reading assignments in between the sessions. The workshop’s key topic, “The Future of Food Production,” turned out to be an excellent field for a strategy thinking exercise and our further deliberations. The topic was preselected in such a way that none of the fellows was an expert on the subject matter. This made it easier to work without any preconceptions and to engage all of us in vibrant and stimulating discussions.

During our session in September, which took place mostly in Sasayama, thanks to excellent facilitators from German-based Foresight Intelligence, we learned about Visioning and Road Mapping methodology. We applied a back-casting approach to the food production theme. This exciting planning methodology started with defining a desirable goal in the future and then working backwards to identify the actions needed to link that desirable future to the present.

In other words, we started with a desirable goal set in 2030 and worked step by step back to the present. For the purpose of the exercise, we adopted two-year time intervals: 2028, 2026, 2024, and so forth. With every step we had to ask ourselves what needed to happen at that stage and what factors could prevent us from achieving our 2030 goal. Again and again, we brainstormed, drawing on our diverse backgrounds and extensive work experience. At the end of the exercise, when we reached 2018, we had a detailed work plan with actions scheduled until 2030.

Learning about Visioning and Road Mapping methodology.

I come from Poland, which in Japan is mostly recognised as the homeland of Chopin or Maria Skłodowska-Curie. Apart from these two extremely talented and influential persons, Poland is also known for its turbulent past. The country’s tumultuous history has heavily affected our behaviour, making us skilful improvisers and good short-term planners but less engaged in long-term planning activities. In our contemporary, strongly interconnected world, this attitude is significantly hindering our development. Thus, I found the back-casting methodology and other long-term strategy building tools extremely interesting and useful in furthering my work.

Apart from our stay in Sasayama, renowned for its picturesque landscapes and delicious food, including black soybeans, sake, and tea, during the September session we were also able to experience the stunning beauty of Kyoto and the vibrant capital of Japan, Tokyo. During our final presentation in the offices of the Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research, fellows presented their vision of the future and discussed the main challenges that lay ahead.

Intensive group discussion in the spring session.


The second residential part of the workshop took place in April 2019 in Beppu on the island of Kyushu. This beautiful town located in Oita Prefecture is renowned for its natural hot springs and delicious, steam-cooked food. Upon reaching Fukuoka we were extremely happy to meet other fellows, facilitators, and the Sylff team again. The training part was hosted by Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University. This time we were asked to come up with concrete project proposals that would strengthen global food security, broaden ethical dimension, or raise awareness in the area of food production.

The fellows came up with a number of extremely interesting applications ranging from a mobile phone app linking food grown by ethical producers to a network of vegetable community gardens set up for victims of sexual violence. Our projects were reviewed by Dr. Steven McGreevy, an expert in environmental science and associate professor at the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (RIHN). His expertise was crucial and helped to both ensure the projects’ relevance and broaden our perspective.

The Sylff Leaders Workshop was an amazing opportunity to challenge ourselves in a truly friendly and stimulating environment. I enjoyed every moment and every discussion with other Sylff fellows, Foresight Intelligence facilitators, and participating experts. For me, the key thought that came up during our workshop was the growing understanding that whatever bad happens locally has global consequences but that whatever good happens locally will have global applications only if we make a joint effort. In our interconnected world the global perspective is no longer a choice, it is an obligation and an opportunity. The amazing Sylff network provides us with tools to share best practices and to transform our initiatives into globally relevant projects.

The session in Beppu concluded with a number of exciting cultural activities set in the stunningly beautiful sceneries of Kyushu. We participated in a Buddhist ceremony at the Monjusen-ji and visited Dazaifu, including the ruins of the Mizuki and Ono Fortress.

The Sylff Leaders Workshop offered us a unique chance to see the most picturesque places in Japan and to immerse ourselves in the stunningly beautiful Japanese culture, not to mention the Japanese cuisine. Thanks to the truly friendly and hardworking staff of the Sylff Secretariat who were our dear hosts and guides, we had a unique chance to gain new insights into the incredibly rich and diverse life of Japan. After this amazing experience we developed strong bonds, and it was really hard for all of us to say good-bye to a group of friends, as well as to the Land of Cherry Blossoms.

Participants of the workshop in front of cherry blossoms at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University.

 

Carceral Logics and Social Justice: Women Prisoners in India

September 20, 2019
By 19827

Rimple Mehta, a Sylff fellow at Jadavpur University, and her project partner, Mahuya Bandyopadhyay, an associate professor at the School of Development Studies of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, implemented a year-long social action project with funding from the Sylff Leadership Initiatives (SLI). Their project is intended to build a network with practitioners, scholars, and activists to work as a pressure group to ensure the rights of women prisoners in India and raise awareness beyond the network to change the negative perceptions around the issues at hand. In this article, Mehta and Bandyopadhyay write about their SLI-funded project.

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Women Prisoners in India

Women prisoners in India constitute five percent of the prison population. They are often incarcerated in wards within larger prisons for men. Women prisoner wards then become “prisons within prisons.” There are only a few all-women prisons. Once in prison the women are ostracized by their families, as they are perceived as breaking not only legal codes but also social norms, therefore doubly deviant. Ostracization by families means that their access to justice is limited. Seclusion through imprisonment is not just a physical seclusion but also an alienation from their familial and kin networks. This indicates their marginalization both within the institution and outside it.

Institutions like the prison in India do not receive adequate media or public attention because of the perceptions around crime and criminality. Although the ideas of incarceration have shifted from punishment to reform, in reality prison administration and the public beyond prison walls continue to be dismissive of any efforts toward reform and rehabilitation and of any attempts to talk about the concerns of prisoners and prison administration.

 

Conceptualizing Social Justice

Social justice for women prisoners in India is a neglected area but has been the focus of our research for a decade now. This project, although in continuity with our efforts, marks a departure in two ways: First, it expands the boundaries of research and understanding of the lives and contexts of women’s imprisonment through the inclusion of activists, scholars, social work practitioners, and administrators. Second, we have consolidated our previous ethnographic fieldwork experiences to move beyond the specificities of site and initiate discussions on advocacy around issues of women prisoners. One of the first steps toward social change, we believe, is reflexivity. While evaluating our research on women prisoners, we felt compelled to reflect on our positions and our location within the academic and certain disciplinary contexts. With years of research on, learning about, and understanding of women’s imprisonment, we were able to see the need to move out of the confines of our locations to collaborate with those who are engaging with similar issues in different capacities. The SLI award enabled us to put this idea to action.

 

Activities and Approach

The main foci of the project were to find and engage with those committed to bringing about a change in the lives of women prisoners and to open up a space for discussions on their lives. We have realized this by organizing meetings—in Mumbai, Kolkata, and Delhi—and a workshop titled “Carceral Logics and Social Justice: A Dialogue between Practitioners, Scholars and Activists” that brought together scholars, activists, social work practitioners, and administrators.

Most of the participants in the workshop contributed papers detailing their work and experiences with women prisoners to our book, Women, Incarcerated: Narratives from India. Through this edited volume we will be able to reach out to the general reader interested in women offenders, concerned citizens, and organizations working for social justice. The narratives of women prisoners from different parts of the country featured in the book will enable readers to access their lives and conditions of imprisonment, which are otherwise invisible.

Further, the book, as it moves beyond the constrained domains of academic disciplines, is written in a manner and style that are easy to connect with and enable a wide readership. In including various perspectives outside of academic research, we have broadened the horizons of knowledge and understanding about women prisoners in India.

Professor Surinder Jaswal, deputy director, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, speaks at the workshop in Mumbai titled “Carceral Logics and Social Justice: A Dialogue between Practitioners, Scholars and Activists.”

 

Dialogues

We were able to enter into multiple dialogues through this project. The process of organizing the meetings enabled us to understand the complexities and the challenges involved for those working on the ground to address concerns in women’s imprisonment. The meetings that we held in different cities brought forth diverse concerns from specific local contexts of women’s imprisonment. For instance, at the meeting in Kolkata, the absence of sanitary napkins and baby food for children in prison emerged as a major concern. When this issue was brought up in the Mumbai meeting, it was observed that this was being provided and was, therefore, not an issue of prime concern in that locality. At the meeting in Delhi, the need was emphasized for formalizing alliances to work on specific issues around women’s imprisonment.

The participants of the three meetings asserted the need for an online platform to share existing knowledge, brainstorm on emergent issues, and respond to crisis situations with regard to women prisoners. They felt that even though individuals and organizations were doing substantive work trying to push for reforms in the treatment of women prisoners, much of this work remained isolated efforts. Consolidation of this work through a larger and formalized network was suggested. The Indian Prisons Network (IPNet), for which these three meetings were held, was endorsed and has been initiated through this project.

The need for different people to speak at a common forum and the difficulties of doing so were highlighted in our workshop, which was organized with the contributors to our edited volume. The different ideological positions initially generated some discomfort among the participants. But the discussions stand testimony to the fact that the participants’ work was geared toward bringing out a change in the everyday lives of women prisoners. The papers in the volume lay bare women’s experiences of exclusion, marginalization, and violence and the ways in which incarceration intersects with different institutions in their everyday lives. The ongoing dialogues with our contributors as we edited the papers have added a qualitative edge to the way in which these issues of women prisoners have been represented.

In this entire process, we have also built stronger connections with some of our supporters and collaborators who have been actively working within the prison space. These connections have opened up the space to work toward making the prison more accessible to researchers and practitioners. The opening up of the prison through dialogue and writing disrupt the singular narrative of the woman prisoner as “mad woman,” “socially deviant,” and “morally bankrupt,” paving the way for empathy.

Uma Chakravarti speaks at “Carceral Logics and Social Justice: A Dialogue between Practitioners, Scholars and Activists.”

 

Looking Forward

The significance can never be overstated of the publication and dissemination of ideas in an area where information and knowledge are scarce and, even when available, are articulated only in terms of certain dominant and powerful narratives. Through this project we have attempted to communicate the lives, contexts, and treatment of women prisoners in India. By presenting multiple perspectives, we have countered the idea of a single narrative about a woman prisoner that rests on an assumption of breaking a moral code. We seek to continue this effort through more field engagement, research, and writing about prisons in India.

Moreover, this project has brought forth and strengthened the idea of experiments within governance and reform, such as the cultural therapy initiative in West Bengal. We would like to further explore and document these ideas, to see if there are other experiments in the country including documentation of the open prison. Advocacy initiatives through networking can further strengthen these activities, and we hope that through IPNet we will be able to harness the strength of a collective. Networking on an issue that has limited field accessibility increases the value of networking. We envisage that this may be possible because IPNet has adopted a multi-stakeholder approach, where individuals and organizations value empirical research and experiential participation in prison administration.

 

Sylff: Making a Significant Difference to Early Childhood Development in South Africa

September 19, 2019
By 25517

Sylff fellow Louis Benjamin has been proactively engaged in early childhood development in his home country of South Africa through the Basic Concepts Program. Developed by Benjamin, who has incorporated the contexts of the South African educational system into education for preschool and early primary school students in disadvantaged communities, the Basic Concept Program undertakes “a structured metacognitive intervention approach for educators to address language, learning, information processing and socio-emotional barriers in young children, particularly from disadvantaged communities” (quoted from the Basic Concepts Unlimited website: http://www.basicconcepts.co.za/about/about). Benjamin believes in the immense potential of early educational intervention for children in disadvantaged communities, which generates lasting impact on their motivation for learning, thereby contributing to their higher educational achievement for better career opportunities. Benjamin has received a Sylff Project Grant (SPG) to disseminate the Basic Concepts Program in the Northern Cape, one of the poorest provinces in South Africa. Over the three years of the SPG period and beyond, Benjamin is trying to achieve his vision to provide the program to all preschool and early primary school children through workshops and follow-ups for school teachers of the province.

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I am most honored to have been awarded a Sylff Project Grant for the next three years. The funding will be used to implement an early years intervention program for children run by class teachers in the Northern Cape, South Africa. The program is called the Basic Concepts Program (BCP) and aims to improve both teaching and learning in the preschool years and first three years of formal schooling. The BCP was developed by me during my PhD degree at the University of the Western Cape, which was generously funded by Sylff.

I am a native of the Northern Cape. I grew up and was educated in the diamond town of Kimberley, a town well known for its Big Hole dating back to the Diamond Rush at the turn of the twentieth century. It is therefore no surprise that I was drawn back to the province that holds my earliest and most precious memories. The Northern Cape is the largest province in the country but is also the most sparsely populated. Although it is endowed with many mineral deposits, the Northern Cape is one of the poorest and least developed provinces. More than half the population in the province lives in abject poverty (Statistics South Africa [Stats SA], Poverty Trends in South Africa, 2017). Research has shown that children from poor socioeconomic backgrounds are more likely to fare poorly at school and/or drop out and have poor educational and vocational opportunities (as cited in the OECD Report Equity and Quality in Education, 2012), and the Northern Cape is no exception. Although approximately 87% of children attend school, only 1.5% attain a tertiary qualification (Stats SA, 2016). The Northern Cape has the second highest (28%) illiteracy rate in South Africa (Stats SA, 2016).


A map of South Africa, with the Northern Cape in red.

The Big Hole, Kimberley.


There is a critical need to improve these educational outcomes if children in the province are to break out of the poverty cycle. The focus of the current project is to give children who are starting school a preparatory boost to ensure that they are able to learn successfully when they receive formal instruction and are taught how to read, write, and calculate. The research data we have gathered over the years (2008–2018) show that the majority of learners who start school are very poorly prepared for school learning. These children without exception come from moderately to severely deprived living circumstances and consequently have limited exposure to the kind of early childhood experiences that would have prepared them for formal, higher-order school learning.

What Is the Basic Concepts Program?

In the BCP, there is a focus on both the development of cognitive processes, such as accurate perception, matching, comparing, classifying, seriation, perspective taking, and conservation (Figure 1), and the expansion of understanding of conceptually structured content (Figure 2). The content of the BCP includes the following higher-order conceptual domains: color, shape, size, position, number, and letter and their associated subordinate concepts. These concepts are used to mediate the cognitive processes in the program and are particularly important for children who have not had adequate early childhood educational experiences or who start school with deficient language abilities. The BCP thus provides the classroom teacher with an extensive higher-order conceptual language for instruction that is easily transferrable and linked to the curriculum.

Figure 1

Figure 2


In addition, the Concept Teaching Model (Figure 3) provides a detailed, systematic scaffold for mediators of the program. While the program was developed as a cognitive intervention program, it can also be run in the mainstream classroom to improve teaching and learning. Teachers are trained and assisted to run the program with small groups of learners who need intervention, but in Grade R (Reception Year) the program is used as a curriculum and is run with all learners. While the teacher works with one group on the mat inside, the other learners work on related activities in rotation. The teacher works with each group for approximately 15 minutes and sets aside around 60 minutes per day to run the BCP sessions.

Figure 3


The Northern Cape Province was one of the first provinces to introduce the BCP. I in fact started my work in the province while I was still busy with my PhD. I conducted a trial of the program in the Namaqua Education District in collaboration with the Rural Namaqualand Education Trust (RNET), starting our work in a small cluster of schools before expanding to around 80 Grade R classes.


The results of the initial pilot projects were recognized by the Northern Cape Department of Education, which wanted to extend the program and make it available to all its Grade R teachers. (See an example of results in the chart below.) There are approximately 800 Grade R teachers in the province. A Memorandum of Understanding was subsequently signed between Basic Concepts Unlimited (the organization responsible for the Basic Concepts Program) and the Northern Cape government, and the Basic Concepts (BC) Advocacy Project was born. The BC Advocacy Project in the Northern Cape (2019–2023) aims to improve the school preparedness of Grade R learners by between 20% and 30%, thereby improving the overall literacy and numeracy outcomes of learners in the Foundation Phase (Grades 1–3). Baseline testing was done on a sample of Grade 1 learners drawn from the project schools. It showed that a majority (72%) of the learners were not prepared for school learning.

A total of 350 teachers from the districts of the province were selected to participate in the BC Advocacy Project. The district officials are responsible for supporting and monitoring the project teachers, and they will also be responsible for the continuation of the project and the training of the remaining teachers in the province once this project comes to an end.


Phase 1 of the project was initiated at the start of 2019 with approximately 85 teachers in two of the education districts. The teachers have thus far attended four days (out of the six days) of training and have implemented three of the six conceptual domains. Approximately 2,200 learners are receiving intervention. The project is supported and monitored by the local district officials who are ably assisted by teams of mainly retired teacher-volunteers who do regular classroom mentoring visits. 

Provincial and district officials and volunteers in the JTG District.

Teachers at a training session in the Pixley Kaseme District.

Teachers mediating the BCP to small groups of learners. (1)

Teachers mediating the BCP to small groups of learners. (2)

The teachers have already made wonderful progress as they learn to become mediators of the program. We have begun to hear increasingly more complex learner verbalizations while the teachers have become more confident in demonstrating the Concept Teaching Model. The change in the teaching style of teachers has in many cases been dramatic. For many teachers this has been the first time that they have used more interactive and questioning-based approaches in their teaching. The majority had previously used more recitation-based approaches, where the children merely copied what the teacher said. While it is very exciting to see these initial signs of change in these classes, we are aware that it takes time for these to become a permanent part of the teaching repertoire. Admittedly, there have also been some teachers who have required additional support and encouragement to implement the program and to run it on a regular basis. It is for this reason that each phase of the project is run over a period of two years. This allows the teacher time to become a mediator and to use the program with increasing frequency and confidence.

In conclusion, we have been very pleased with what we have observed over the first six months of the project. The teachers have responded positively, and we have also been most encouraged by the response of the local and provincial officials to the project. The enthusiasm for the project remains high, with high levels of participation. As our baseline data show, it is essential that we try to shift the preparedness of the learners in Grade R for school learning. The BC Advocacy Project offers teachers a tool to significantly improve the prospects of their learners. The BCP not only provides teachers with a way to better access their learners but also develops those nascent and often fragile cognitive functions needed for school learning. The core philosophy of the BCP emerges clearly in this project—that children, notwithstanding their circumstances, have the unlimited potential to learn and to continue learning, provided they are given regular classroom mediation by an involved and caring adult.

For more information about the project, please click here.

Potters’ Locality: The Socioeconomics of Bankura’s Terracotta

August 26, 2019
By 21711

This report is based on the master’s research by Soumya Bhowmick, a Sylff fellow at Jadavpur University, India, in 2014—15. It originally appeared in FIRSTPOST. a web-based leading media in India. Bhowmick, currently research assistant at Observer Research Foundation’s Kolkata Chapter, continues  writing on the changing socioeconomics of the potters’ community known for the terracotta Bankura Horse, which  is historically valued in Indian society, especially West Bengal.

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The norwesters in the potters’ village of Panchmura is magnificent in ways more than one. The extremely dry atmosphere during the summer months of April–May make one compare the place to a hot desert with red dust smeared all over your clothes. This period is marked by the holy time of Baisakh, when the potter’s wheel is stopped as it is believed that during this time Lord Shiva appears from the wheel. Many justify it with a scientific reason: that the terrible heat easily exhausts the artisans and causes cracks to develop in the pottery items. After a heavy rainfall, the sweet petrichor is one of the strongest in this part of the town owing to the large amounts of terracotta clay all over the place. The potters are relatively free during these months and are very eager to have a chat with you over tea in their workshops.

An artisan uses the potter’s wheel in Panchmura village.

Mahadeb Kumbhakar, 56, proudly proclaims, “The trademark Bankura Horse [uniquely styled terracotta horse made in Bankura] came into existence because people would offer them as a mark of devotion to different deities and even on the tombs of Muslim saints. It is used as the official crest motif of the All India Handicrafts Board.” He woefully adds that a large number of youngsters in the area, including his own son, have moved to Kolkata not only because of the money but also because of their inability to commit to the labor required for this kind of artistry. Mahadeb justifies that there is no harm in working in an office while at the same time being a marginal potter. That way, the skill is never wiped out from the family.

Unfinished Bankura Horses at Panchmura village.

Panchmura village near Bishnupur, Bankura District, is one of the main hubs of terracotta in West Bengal. Historically, the politically stable Malla Kingdom indulged in a lot of cultural activity and invited high caste Brahmins, expert craftsmen, and masons to Bishnupur, and through the amalgamation of religion and culture, these people contributed largely to the trade and commerce of the region. The Bankura artisans gradually scattered to different parts of the country, but today only the few remaining in Panchmura are still striving to keep this art form alive.

A usual day in Bishnupur.

The origin of terracotta in India can be traced back to the Indus Valley Civilization. Terracotta came into existence in Bengal due to the unavailability of stones and large endowments of alluvial soil left by the main rivers in the Bankura District: Damodar, Dwarakeshwar, and the Kangsabati. The soil thus gets a perfect blend and density for it to be crafted intricately and fired in order to produce the required terracotta products. A Panchmura artisan says that a Durga idol made in Bankura is at least three times as heavy as an idol of the same size made in Kolkata because the soil found in Bankura is much more dense and mineral rich, making the crafting process extremely laborious.

The cultural transformation in the community is well captured through the terracotta craft embossed on the walls of various temples, towers, and smaller objects in the region. Many scholars have interpreted this as a translation of the primitive Sanskrit literature into mainstream Bengali narratives that allowed the emergence of such popular cults in Hinduism as Durga, Krishna, and Kali. The terracotta temples in Bankura are mostly Radha-Krishna temples, which drew inspiration from Vaishnavism.

The Munshiganj District in Bangladesh, which is close to the confluence of the Padma and Brahmaputra rivers, is a storehouse of terracotta work on the other side of Bengal. Almost all the temples are dedicated to Shiva, and the temple roofs are distinctly different from the ones found in Bankura, as the ones in Munshiganj are more longitudinally conical.

A terracotta temple in Munshiganj District in Bangladesh.

Narratives on terracotta were sources of both information and entertainment for the people, depicting stories from the mythological texts of Ramayana, Mahabharata, Hitopodesha, Jataka, and Panchatantra. There has been emphasis on scenes indicating rural life, farming techniques, male and female dancers, musicians, and village gardens. Bengal architecture is uniquely different from the architecture that coincided with the Muslim rule in India, and by the end of the sixteenth century a new Bengali style of temple art became prominent and established itself as an artistic Hindu expression.

The exquisite Rash Mancha in Bishnupur.

Unlike most of the other art forms that emerged with the purpose of aesthetic value in creativity, terracotta was made to serve practical purposes, such as food and water storage, weapons, and utensils. From being necessary commodities of daily use, these artifacts evolved into something more creative imbued with a high level of craft, making terracotta a cultural commodity with great marketing potential.

A shop in Bankura.

The Bankura District is known for its popular handicrafts in the form of terracotta, the Dokra handicrafts of Bigna, the stone craft of Susunia, and the Baluchari silk of Bishnupur. The global interest in Indian terracotta can also be found in a letter by Swami Vivekananda regarding the time when Okakura Kakuzo, the famous Japanese scholar, visited India in 1901–1902. Okakura was extremely impressed by the craftsmanship of a common terracotta vessel used by the servants and, owing to the fragility of these handicrafts, he requested Swami Vivekananda to replicate the piece in brass for him to carry it back to Japan.

Terracotta is still of high interest in the global market, and Panchmura, Surul, Chaltaberia, and Shetpur-Palpara are the major villages in West Bengal that export terracotta to international markets. However, the artisans face a number of key problems that are crippling the market for this kind of artwork, including the issues of equipment, transportation, and other logistical problems; the lack of interaction between the artisans and the urban consumers in Kolkata; and the high dependence of terracotta artisans on local patronage. Moreover, the inadequate capital, sluggish marketing, and falling demand are causing these marginalized artisans to become extinct, and the lack of interest from the new generation along with insufficient government schemes further add to the woes.

Terracotta craftwork in progress at Bishnupur.

Toton Kumbhakar, 30, says, “We get some idea of consumer preferences in the handicrafts fair in Kolkata every year, where people mostly demand the Bankura Horse, since it has a certain traditional value as a regular showpiece in the Kolkata households.” The potters admit that they charge much more for the handicrafts in Kolkata and are also financially dependent on the various regional festivals, for which they make large idols for relatively hefty prices.

The terracotta temples in Bishnupur show a much better quality and precision than the artifacts being produced today. For example, the details on the terracotta tiles used in the temples are much more intricate and portray a more complex network of lines, curves, and dots. How is this possible despite improvements in technology and intruments? The extinction of skill-specific labor is the answer to this. According to the locals, the process of terracotta production in Bankura previously included three major classes of workers: the clay collectors and sievers, who would give a fine texture to the clay; the artisans, who would add the intricate details; and finally the market traders. There is no specific class of labor anymore for each of these three roles.

Ancient temple architecture in Bishnupur.

“Bankura is my native place, and so terracotta has a special place in the lives of my family members,” says an urban consumer in Kolkata. “Apart from items to decorate the house, we use terracotta items for daily use. For example, in summer we do not drink cold water from the refrigerator but instead use an earthen terracotta vessel. My mother makes it a point to do a certain fish preparation in spite of it being time consuming, so that she can use the particular terracotta utensil.”

In the urban milieu, the demand for terracotta goods in Kolkata households has reached a saturation point. As the central government actively pushes for the promotion of various handicrafts from different states, art forms of other regions, particularly Madhubani paintings and Rajasthani handicrafts, are certainly very popular. Bankura’s terracotta seems to be lagging behind in this regard.

Bankura’s terracotta is a classic case of a dying cultural heritage. Sustaining the art is a social responsibility. Unlike the rest of West Bengal, the parliamentary constituency of Bankura has voted against incumbent leaders and political parties twice in the last decade, which is a major indication of people’s awareness and urgency of development in the region.

Culture is a matter of recognition, and aesthetics is more about perception than materiality. Very recently, the West Bengal state government has reportedly nominated Bishnupur’s terracotta temples for the UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. This should be considered as a massive step toward drawing attention to this part of Bengal’s history and culture. However, only time will tell how efficiently such measures could facilitate the socioeconomic advancement of the potters’ community in Bankura.

(Note: All the pictures used in this article were taken by the author in Bankura District, India, and Munshiganj District in Bangladesh during the surveys.)

 Reprinted, with editing, from FIRSTPOST, https://www.firstpost.com/living/bankuras-terracotta-can-timely-measures-facilitate-socio-economic-revival-of-potters-community-7001001.html.

 

Listen to Your Uber Driver: A Comment on the Economic and Emotional Vulnerability of Uber’s Silent Partner

July 12, 2019
By 22416

With the support of the SRA award, Emma McDaid, a 2017 Sylff fellow at the UNSW Business School, carried out her doctoral dissertation research concerning “sharing economy” through interviews of Uber drivers on active duty in Europe. In this article, McDaid shares her research findings as well as her personal experience and viewpoints on fieldwork.

* * *

 

With the advent of sharing organizations, or platforms, like Uber and Airbnb, consumers and entrepreneurs have inherited more choice and flexibility. Sharing marketplaces are disintermediated, meaning that they operate without a middle partner, so information is shared by individuals online in a reciprocal fashion when they leave star ratings or reviews on their peers. As accounting scholars, we have been busy investigating the impact that such online ratings and rankings (the TripAdvisor ranking index and Amazon product ratings, for example) have on traditional notions of accountability and, indeed, how these mechanisms are responsible for a new audit society—an era heralded by a heavy focus on the verification of lived experience. However, a small number of us are also beginning to address how these metrics are used by organizations to manage platform users. For example, Uber drivers must maintain a customer rating of 4.6 stars (out of a possible 5 stars) in Sydney, Australia, if they want to maintain job security. A rating lower than this and “deactivation,” or dismissal, occurs. Hence, for these drivers, a 3-star rating often means the difference between being employed and being unemployed. In my research, in addition to conducting research in Australia, I have been able to travel overseas with the help of the Sylff travel scholarship to investigate how the rules of platform organizations affect the service providers who hold a key position in the value chain.

The Uber organization reflects a new kind of disaggregated labor market, accessible to its users through a technology application on a mobile device. It is the largest of the ride-sharing model, holding over two million drivers in partnership around the world. With Uber, the users are passengers who request a ride (consumers) and drivers who have the time, skill, and vehicle to provide the service (service providers). Physically, Uber’s service providers are globally distributed, rarely coming face to face with a manager in any centralized hub or factory floor; the nature of work also means that they rarely come face to face with each other. Indeed, the courts continue to deliberate over whether these drivers hold the status of employee or contractor. Regarding this, Uber has argued from the start that its drivers are independent contractors, citing the drivers’ freedom to choose when they source work through the application and the legalities surrounding freedom of uniform and insurance requirements. However, drivers counterargue employee status based on the control that Uber sets over remuneration rates and the limitations surrounding a driver’s rights in choosing trips and accessing such information as trip destination. But while the contractor-employee debate rages on, the critical role that drivers play in the value chain for the Uber organization is sharp and definite. They are the key stakeholders responsible for the creation of economic value for the Uber empire. And this is a valuation that is continuing to rise; the organization was recently valued as the wealthiest privately owned company in the world, with its market capitalization at US$62.5 billion.

Source: Retrieved from Business Insider, December 2015, https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-valuation-vs-market-cap-of-publicly-traded-stocks-2015-12.

 

Their unique conditions of work prompted me to investigate how drivers were being managed by the organization. Data collection and analysis is ongoing in this regard, but in the following paragraphs, I outline some of the reflections that I have formed from my 2017 and 2018 data collection in Europe and Australia. These reflections are twofold: the first is with respect to conducting field research in these new technologically mediated and disaggregated workforces, and the second regards the most material challenges that I feel Uber drivers are currently facing.   

 

Field Research and the Sharing Economy

I initially collected data in Australia from around the end of 2015. But in 2017, using my Sylff SRA, I left Sydney and arrived in London to conduct field interviews. From there, I traveled on to Paris and Copenhagen. The duration of my research abroad was four weeks in total, and I conducted ten formal interviews with Uber drivers, which supplemented the interviews that I had conducted in Australia. While in Europe, I also gathered a significant amount of data from drivers via phone and through online chat rooms. Although I had mapped out the field and my intentions for data collection, I found that the logistics surrounding field interviews of this type meant that my plans changed frequently. I had to be resourceful and at times imaginative so that I could conduct interviews. Most Uber drivers work perilously hard, and although many expressed interest in being part of my research, interview times were often restricted to moments when demand was low on the application. It was not unusual to have drivers cancel an interview because they had just been pinged through their device for a trip. It was also not unusual to interview drivers before the sun came up, in coffee shops in suburbs surrounding airports—where they might expect a surging fare to come about soon. In short, without the humdrum of everyday organizational life, the field researcher needs to be sensitive to a highly changeable environment, building a significant degree of flexibility into their data collection plans. This requires more perseverance in the field, but being agile in an environment like this can also be deeply rewarding. When successful, researchers are immersed in the participant’s natural lived experience and thus extract a richer ethnographic account of the field.

 

An Uber Driver’s Challenges

In conducting the interviews, it became clear that Uber drivers are facing a number of challenges. Changes to the minimum fare for a trip, accessing Uber personnel to resolve pay disputes, and defending themselves against customer complaints are examples of some of the more rigorous challenges. These challenges have both economic and emotional effects on drivers. For example, when Uber entered the French market in late 2011, the minimum fare that a driver could demand was approximately €20. Over the past number of years, this has dropped down to €6, marking a 70% reduction. And while advocates for the organization will likely insist that higher minimum fares were required in order to enter new markets, many drivers have become financially vulnerable after signing on with high expectations. Drivers can also be financially vulnerable in times when their pay is incorrect, is delayed, or fails to arrive in their bank accounts—common war stories that participants offered. In these cases, they reach out to Uber through the “Help” function on the application—essentially a chat bot—waiting up to five days for an adequate, non-system-generated response. An Australian driver provided an example of a standard response issued at times like this in the image below.

Unsurprisingly, drivers go through a range of emotions in respect to this treatment. A sense of frustration was commonly expressed. While they accept that the terms and conditions of operating as a driver can often change, these unilaterally imposed rules often change without warning and explanation. Drivers describe having little control other than to start and stop driving. Driver John* commented, “They call it a partnership; there’s no partnership,” while another, Driver Mike*, explained, “See, I’m just a number. I’m just a nobody.” The setting of prices or fares by the technology proved most frustrating, as drivers believe they personally incur costs that should be built into the fare. Driver Paul* described the logic as follows: “They just don’t get it. They have no idea what it costs to run a motor vehicle. To us, us guys who do it full time, it’s a business, a small business. . . . Ask us. Have a round table conference. What are your costs? How can you set base fares and not know what people’s costs are?”

The drivers’ levels of take-home pay are inadequate, which is highlighted in an Australian government report that finds that their earnings fall short of the minimum wage (Stanford, 2018). This has led many people whom I have talked with to use metaphors of slavery when discussing the nature of platform work. And the use of technology as a tool to delegate terms and conditions on a platform does nothing to sooth the feelings of low self-worth that people doing this work experience.

These challenges exist for drivers in an environment where the customer’s voice has much more power than their own. Again, the Uber organization will say that customer complaints should be taken seriously, and indeed they should because of the nature of the service being sold. But drivers complain that their voices often go unheard when complaints are raised. At times like this, refunds are frequently and immediately given at the expense of the driver, and drivers are often deactivated from driving until they protest their rights. For this reason, many drivers now operate a dashcam in their vehicle—as a means to record trips and protect themselves in the event of an unfair complaint.

Dashcams are one of many responses to the position that drivers find themselves in. Other academic studies are reporting evidence that they have worked together to try to manipulate surge pricing by organizing mass deactivation, effectively gaming the technology (Mohlmann and Zalmanson, 2017), and that they continue to engage in strikes and efforts to join trade unions around the world. The precarious legal nature of the work is a problem faced by drivers fighting for change and for solutions to the challenges they face. In researching this field, it is hard not to empathize with their position. It is clearly one that belies the rhetoric often heard with regard to the sharing economy. 

 

Conclusion

Uber has done great things for customer choice, achieving global disruption of an industry long considered the gold standard of secure economic sectors. Introducing competition has made transport more affordable and reduced unemployment rates. However, investment has fallen out of the taxi industry, with market value wiped from taxi plates in many major cities and reduced demand affecting that workforce. And taxi drivers have been vocal about these effects. But despite all the noise that Uber has created, it is important to be mindful of the challenges that are imposed on the Uber driver. We hear frequent hagiographic accounts of what it is like to “be your own boss,” in the media and in society in general, but less about the effects of working in these conditions. These are new industrial practices that use technology in new ways—creating, in effect, a new employee. Action in this regard may need to be taken if consumers want to responsibly enjoy the Uber service.

 

References

Mohlmann, Mareike, and Lior Zalmanson. “Hands on the Wheel: Navigating Algorithmic Management and Uber Drivers’ Autonomy.” Proceedings of the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2017), December 10–13, 2017.

Stanford, Jim. “Subsidising Billionaires: Simulating the Net Incomes of UberX Drivers in Australia.” Centre for Future Work at the Australia Institute, March 2018.

*Names have been changed to preserve confidentiality.

Beyond the Treasures? Beyond the Nation? Museum Representations of Thracian Heritage from Bulgaria

June 27, 2019
By 24507

Ivo Strahilov is a Sylff fellow from Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski.” His doctoral dissertation scrutinizes the social construction of the ancient Thracian heritage and its uses in modern Bulgaria. With the support of the SRA award, he visited Paris where he explored the making of three museum exhibitions of the so-called Thracian treasures. In this article Strahilov discusses some of his findings and suggests a direction for future debate.

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Introduction: At the Margins of Europe

The notion of “Europe” alongside its territorial borders is not self-evident, nor coherent. One of the major uncertainties in this seemingly apparent concept is marked by the tension between the western and eastern parts of the continent. During the last decades, this problem has been investigated at length in academic literature, and several new analytical paths have been opened. Scholars have questioned both the cultural cultivation of the idea of Europe and its various regions, which are differently positioned on the symbolic geography around the prestigious core.[1] The Balkan Peninsula or Southeastern Europe, which also includes Bulgaria, represents a peculiar case in this regard. Recent critiques have delved into the historical role of “the Occident” in the “invention” of “Eastern Europe” as a specific category that is rarely recognized as truly European.[2] Other studies have outlined a hegemonic Western discourse that ascribes the Balkans to a zone of backwardness between “Europe” and “the Orient,” seeing them in a predominantly negative way and reproducing their stigmatization.[3] This, however, is not simply a foreign categorization; it is also shared by the people in such countries as Bulgaria, where this traumatizing lack of Europeanness equally functions as a self-perception. On the other hand, Balkan political and intellectual elites adapt themselves to this framework, manipulate it, and take advantage of their position in diverse situations and with varying goals. This is why some authors have also underlined that Balkan states have appropriated this understanding and even contributed to the reinforcement of the “otherizing” discourse and thus to the regionalization of the continent.[4]

 

Thrace as a European Heritage

This rather complex constellation is one of the starting points of my doctoral research. Examining the museological representations of the ancient past, I hypothesize that Bulgaria exploits the potential of cultural heritage to overcome its assigned position at the margins of “Europe.” To explore this assumption, I focus on the international exhibitions of the so-called Thracian treasures. These exhibitions have been organized by the Bulgarian state for more than 40 years in some of the most prominent museums all over the world, including India, Japan, Canada, the United States, Mexico, Cuba, Russia, and especially Western Europe. This project originated in the early 1970s, and since then it has been an indispensable instrument of Bulgaria’s national cultural diplomacy, which involves significant political and academic commitment.[5] Today it is deemed by some historians the most successful cultural product of Bulgaria. At the core of the project are ancient archaeological objects excavated within the territory of the present-day country. Many of them are made of precious metals and provoke strong interest both in professional circles and in the general public. The exhibited objects themselves are traditionally attributed to the Thracian tribes that inhabited the area of present-day Southeastern Europe in antiquity.[6]

In 2015, however, the fundamental premises of this project were reconsidered. During the preparation of the upcoming exhibition for the Louvre Museum in Paris, it became clear that the long-held concept and reading of the ancient past are becoming a subject of tense negotiations. The remaking of the exhibition’s narrative, which was produced through a dynamic Franco-Bulgarian collaboration, highlighted the complexities of setting a new mutually agreed interpretation of cultural heritage. Hence, I decided to pay particular attention to this exhibition in order to track the dynamics underlying the process of social construction of heritage. Thanks to the SRA award I was able to conduct fieldwork in Paris in 2018, where I interviewed museums curators, archaeologists, historians, and other experts. I also explored different institutional archives and media reports, and I contextualized them further through examination of previous studies available in specialized libraries.

Opening of the exhibition “Découverte de l’art Thrace: Trésors des musées de Bulgarie” at Petit Palais Museum (Paris, 1974). © Archives of Petit Palais Museum.

The concept of the Thracian exhibition is a heterogeneous phenomenon with many aspects, but here I would like to underline its presentation in a Western European context. As mentioned above, one of the hypotheses of my dissertation is that the Bulgarian state introduced this self-representational strategy and mobilized precious ancient objects to compensate for its marginal position on the continent. Thracian heritage, in this sense, is one of the usable concepts for the desired symbolic repositioning because it supposedly refers to Europe’s origins. To put it in a simplistic way, ancient heritage “europeanizes” Bulgaria retroactively.

The making of the exhibition at the Louvre in 2015, however, revealed for the first time that the heritagization of the Thracian legacy and its valorization abroad could entail serious turbulences. My findings suggested that discrepancies had occurred not only between Bulgarian and French (together with other foreign) scholars, but also within Bulgarian academia itself—between museologists, art historians and archaeologists, and between politicians, administrators, and scientists. Although the discussions and preparations resulted in a well-publicized exhibition accompanied by a conference and a representative catalogue including a significant number of authors and institutions,[7] it is worthwhile to revisit the representational logic that underlies the Thracian exhibition as a phenomenon. There is no doubt that the latter is an essential promotional tool for contemporary Bulgaria, but it also raises some questions.

 

Promotional material of the exhibition “L’or des Thraces, trésors de Bulgarie” at Jacquemart-André Museum (Paris, 2006–2007). © Archives of Jacquemart-André Museum.

 One of the questions comes from the fact that the Thracians’ legacy is spread across the territories not only of Bulgaria but also of neighboring countries—especially Romania, Greece, and Turkey. This is why their national historical disciplines have elaborated a rather ambivalent partnership on this issue.[8] Although with different intensity, they all research and popularize the Thracian past and thus transform it into a topical scientific problematic on a global level. The perimeter of their joint efforts is nevertheless restricted, and this limitation is exemplified by such exhibitions. The very act of an international presentation tends to legitimize a given national state as an heir of a certain legacy, and this is a well-known approach. A significant illustration here, captured in archival photos, is the Bulgarian national flag that covered the display cases in the museums during some inauguration ceremonies in the 1980s.

 

Heritage beyond the Nation?

Admittedly, organizing glamorous events abroad that promote the official image of a country is understandable and expected within the framework of cultural diplomacy. The point here is whether, after becoming a member of the European Union, Bulgaria (and other respective states) should maintain the same strategy driven by national interests. Would it not be more appropriate for political and academic authorities to enable transborder and transnational cooperation in terms of cultural relations that would demonstrate the richness and complexity of Thracian heritage? Hopefully, such an approach, which reconsiders archaeological practices and broadens the horizon of historical reading, would be a modest response to rising nationalisms. Thus, I would argue for a new multinational Thracian exhibition that would gather together scholars as well as precious collections of national museums in Southeastern Europe and beyond.

 

Promotional material of the exhibition “L’Épopée des rois thraces. Découvertes archéologiques en Bulgarie” at the Louvre (Paris, 2015). © Archives of the Louvre Museum.

 

While academic and governmental inflexibility predominates in terms of advanced cooperation, we are also witnessing new tendencies. For example, in 2018 an agreement was signed between archaeological museums in North Macedonia, Bulgaria, and Serbia that envisages a joint exhibition on the Necropolis of Trebeništa. The ancient site is situated in the Republic of North Macedonia, but due to complex and controversial historical developments it was excavated consecutively by Bulgarian, Serbian, and Macedonian archaeologists. Thus, the objects that were found have been dispersed in the three countries, and their interpretations have been incoherent.

Time will show whether this project will succeed in reconciling national historiographies and overcoming the restrictive representational narratives that traditionally accompany heritage. Yet it is already a sign of positive and needed change. Surely such a collaborative process will be slow and difficult; it will require concrete efforts and provoke shared uneasiness. But if we manage to take such a step, we will have a greater chance of developing a more constructive understanding of the territory we live in. After all, this is the territory in which we will have to face many new challenges; and making out of the past something that further divides us is definitely not relevant to the more acute economic, social, and ecological threats that affect our lives. On the other hand, if we leave aside the representational aspects of heritage, perhaps there would be room for a type of archaeology that would be engaged in a different way. Instead of being a tool that supports tight national agendas, it could be a bridge between them. Instead of delivering “treasures” for the tourist industry that deepens the gap between local people and elitist touristic imagery, it could be in service of some larger issues or specific environmental needs of the explored region itself. In sum, going back “down to Earth,” tracking the old answers and new questions that Earth contains will eventually help us to realize that the presentation of ancient heritage in seemingly stable national categories is possible but is only one of many options.[9]

 

[1] On the concept of “Europe” see Delanty, Gerard. 1995. Inventing Europe: Idea, Identity, Reality. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan.

[2] See, e.g., Wolff, Larry. 1994. Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

[3] See, e.g., Todorova, Maria. 2009. Imaging the Balkans (updated edn). New York: Oxford University Press; Goldsworthy, Vesna. 1998. Inventing Ruritania: The Imperialism of the Imagination. New Haven and London: Yale University Press; and Bjelić, Dušan I., and Obrad Savić (eds). 2002. Balkan as Metaphor: Between Globalization and Fragmentation. Cambridge and London: MIT Press.

[4] Mishkova, Diana. 2018. Beyond Balkanism: The Scholarly Politics of Region Making. London and New York: Routledge.

[5] The history of this exhibition is thoroughly presented and analyzed in Roumentchéva, Sofia. 2014. Exposer les Thraces. Les collections thraces de la Bulgarie. Politique d’exposition officielle à l’étranger de 1958 à 2013. Mémoire de recherche. Paris: École du Louvre.

[6] The chronological and territorial aspects are the subject of ongoing academic debates. A recent overview of the question about the Thracians is available in Valeva, Julia, Emil Nankov, and Denver Graninger (eds). 2015. A Companion to Ancient Thrace. Wiley-Blackwell.

[7] Martinez, Jean-Luc, Néguine Mathieux, Alexandre Baralis, Milena Tonkova, and Totko Stoyanov (eds) 2015. L’épopée des rois thraces: Des guerres médiques aux invasions celtes 479-278 avant J.-C. Découvertes archéologiques en Bulgarie. Paris: Musée du Louvre/Somogy éditions d’Art.

[8] Marinov, Tchavdar. 2016. Nos ancêtres les Thraces. Usages idéologiques de l'Antiquité en Europe du Sud-Est. Paris: L’Harmattan.

[9] Part of this conclusion has been inspired in a certain way by Latour, Bruno. 2018. Down to Earth: Politics in the new climatic regime (translated by Catherine Porter). Cambridge: Polity Press.

JU-SYLFF LANS Meet 2019

May 21, 2019
By 21581

When the Local Association Networking Support (LANS) was launched in September 2017, the Jadavpur University Sylff Association (JU-Sylff Association) was the first to take advantage of it. In March 2018, the association organized a two-day event in Kolkata, India, inviting JU-Sylff fellows from other parts of India, as well as Britain and Ireland. This year it organized another one, as successful as the first but with more depth in contents. The following is a report on the meeting.

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Our Vision for LANS 2019

JU-SYLFF began in 2003 with the vision to create an interdisciplinary research platform for students who hold the capacity to lead social change. Fifteen years on, the collective has grown to number over 40 fellows who have carried within themselves the ethos of SYLFF in their deeply diverse yet convergent projects.

In 2018, JU-SYLFF received the inaugural Local Association Networking Support (LANS) grant from the Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research. The meeting organized with this grant brought together fellows, graduated and current, along with mentors, who discussed their research and deliberated over the potential of capacity-building measures. They attempted to imagine ways in which collective goals could be achieved that may go on to address social, cultural, and environmental issues that concern us all in different ways.

It also marked the beginning of something new—the potential to create something whose impact could be greater than our individual projects and research interests. The note of enthusiasm on which LANS 2018 had ended ensured that the conversation would be carried on beyond the one-day meet. Several months of meetings and electronic communication later, the theme for LANS 2019 was centered around the idea of inclusivity, interpreted in its widest possible sense.

It became a matter of great honor for JU-SYLFF to receive the LANS grant for a second time in 2019. LANS 2019 gave us a fresh chance to create stronger networks within the SYLFF community for building an inclusive sphere of knowledge within academia and beyond. The meet was held over two days, March 14 and 15, 2019. The first day consisted of our annual visit to the Premananda Leprosy Mission Hospital as part of the Social Action Program at JU-SYLFF. The second day was assigned for capacity building through deliberation on four different areas in which the academic and professional experiences of fellows converge. The aim of creating such panels was to provide a thematic direction to our discussions on inclusivity.

 

JU-SYLFF LANS Meet 2019, Day One

Visit to Premananda Memorial Leprosy Hospital

As part of the JU-SYLFF Association’s Social Action Program, current and graduated fellows visited the Premananda Memorial Leprosy Hospital on March 14, 2019. The hospital is located adjacent to the Manicktola Christian cemetery in the northern part of the city and was established in the year 1986 by Reverend Premananda Sen of the Oxford Mission as a treatment center for leprosy sufferers. It is currently run by the Leprosy Mission Trust India.

As with every year, fellows gathered at the SYLFF office in the morning to set out for the day. Reaching the hospital at 11 am, the team, along with the head of staff, Mr. Mark Moloy Ambros, went around the inpatient and outpatient wings to meet everyone at the hospital. The fellows met Dr. Helen Roberts, medical superintendent of the hospital, to learn about the many positive changes that had taken place at the hospital since their previous visit. Among the new additions to the existing infrastructure of the hospital was an elevator that could accommodate stretchers; the previous could only accommodate patients who were sitting or standing. Hospital beds with side rails had also been arranged for patients who might run the risk of falling off. The hospital has also begun to visit schools and organizations by invitation for the purpose of conducting awareness campaigns on leprosy free of charge.

As the helpful staff of the hospital took us around, they introduced us to individual patients. Our exchanges with them were heartening. But the story of one patient, Jamshed, particularly inspired us.

Prior to his ailment, Jamshed worked as a bricklayer in his village, Gangarampur, in South Dinajpur. He not only sustained himself with the money that he earned but also took care of his siblings and supported their education. He was admitted to the Premananda Memorial Leprosy Hospital in 2016 with the help of Pastor Nicholas Hembrom shortly after he was diagnosed. Despite his severe ailment, Jamshed was not only determined to recover from leprosy and begin working again but was also committed to bringing the services of the Premananda Mission Leprosy Hospital and the Leprosy Mission Trust India to his hometown, where many men, women, and children similarly suffered from leprosy. The hospital has been engaged in community outreach for over two years, ever since Jamshed’s efforts began to take shape in 2016. In their many visits to Gangarampur as part of their community outreach program, the hospital has conducted extensive surveys and awareness campaigns across the village with the help of Pastor Hembrom and Jamshed to tend to the poor who suffer from leprosy. Medical treatment and supplies have been distributed for free.

In 2017 the total number of patients treated at the village was 187, whereas this year over 360 patients were treated on the hospital’s visit on March 9. The hospital envisions more frequent visits to the village, perhaps on a quarterly basis from this year onward. Jamshed has also been rehabilitated by the hospital and is currently employed as the watchman of the premises. His story and his determination to help his people are heroic and of unparalleled inspiration to all of us at JU-SYLFF.

With contributions from the JU-SYLFF family, the fellows were able to offer medical supplies, fruits, and sweets for the patients at the hospital. Along with the supplies offered, a sum of 3000 INR was donated for prosthetics. It will be of foremost interest to us in all our future visits to the hospital to continue collecting funds for prosthetics.

A special lunch was arranged for the patients. Our team was delighted to be accompanied by the doctors and staff for lunch. A popular film, Dangal, was screened in the afternoon. The team departed from the hospital in the evening after a truly inspiring day.

Our team interacting with patients at the Premananda Memorial Leprosy Hospital.

 

 JU-SYLFF LANS Meet 2019, Day Two

Introspections on Inclusivity

Day two at LANS 2019 was arranged around the academic and professional experiences of fellows and the theme of inclusivity. The discussions were divided into four panels on pedagogy, environment and sustainability, gender and sexuality, and historiography. The 12th edition of the annual newsletter of JU-SYLFF, Fellows, was released.

The 12th edition of the annual newsletter of JU-SYLFF, Fellows, being released.

Pedagogy

“Why is difference important?” was the question that opened the first session of LANS 2019. In order to make it interactive, the audience was divided into groups and asked to present their views. A number of varied responses were recorded. While some thought that difference is required as a marker of distinctiveness, others noted how difference is imperative to the very foundation of democracy. This process of debating and deliberating in turn became an exercise in including difference. What emerged was a holistic perception of “inclusivity” that caters to the recognition and acknowledgement of difference. Speaking on inclusivity with respect to pedagogy, Anindita Roy questioned the politics of and preference for exclusion. She emphasized the importance of linguistic diversity, showing how bi- and multilingualism can promote an inclusive pedagogic practice for children.

Gender and Sexuality

If the first session aimed to explore the measures taken for inclusivity, the second panel brought to the fore what often remains excluded in our rather clinical attempts to include. This panel was chaired by Professor Kavita Panjabi, JU-SYLFF mentor and faculty at the Department of Comparative Literature, Jadavpur University. One of our earliest SYLFF fellows and now an international expert and activist on issues of intersexuality and sport, Payoshni Mitra spoke about the lack of awareness about the multiplicity of bodies that results in discrimination against female athletes with hyperandrogenism. She suggested that inclusivity may be comprehended in several ways. It is not enough to simply bring change in policies and regulations to include nonnormative bodies; the need of the hour is to critique and problematize the “norm” itself, as it is deeply rooted in structures of oppressive power. Mitra cites the example of how those female athletes with DSD should not be seen as having a “disorder” (as this implicitly entails a negative deviation from the norm) but a “difference” of sexual development. A reframing of the term can be a simple step toward inclusivity.

In her talk on the metamorphoses of LGBTQ+ policies in the postcolonial states, Natasha Upadhyay explained how inclusivity is a dynamic and ever-evolving phenomenon. Asserting that research in gender ought to be by principle inclusive, she shed light on some of the contemporary debates on inclusive policies at the intersection of postcolonial politics and Queer International Relations.

Rimple Mehta, who was a doctoral SYLFF fellow, discussed how she had to recalibrate her research questions in order to arrive at an inclusive, and thereby more nuanced, understanding of her subject. She illustrated the problems of being strictly rooted in and single-mindedly driven by one’s own research questions, to the extent that one ends up excluding that which needs the most attention. Mehta has worked extensively with Bangladeshi women prisoners on either side of the Indo-Bangladesh border. Although initially poised on the question of violence, her research gained more ground when she realized what had been excluded: the prisoners’ stories of love and love as the truest form of resistance. Including these unheard narratives finally led her to posit these women as “resisters” of violence, not simply its victims. She thus urged researchers to be self reflexive at every point and strive for “epistemological inclusivity.”

Fellows and mentors discussing questions of inclusivity.

 

Environment and Sustainability

This panel was chaired by Professor Joyashree Roy, founder-advisor at JU-SYLFF and Bangabandhu Chair Professor at Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand. She prefaced the session by mentioning that the thrust of the panel was threefold: to inquire how, if at all, inclusivity is operational in one’s field of work; to see who remains excluded; and to consider how one can be more inclusive with respect to environment and sustainability. The three panelists explored these concerns from their individual areas of research.

Duke Ghosh shared his concerns about the key human aspects, such as environmental health hazards, that are seemingly accounted for on paper but are excluded when infrastructural projects are eventually undertaken on the ground.

Shyamasree Dasgupta’s discussion was hinged on the need for an inclusive evaluation of forest resources so as to serve the cause of all stakeholders involved. She insisted that it is only through an inclusive evaluation of what natural resources provide that one can ensure distributional fairness and ecological sustainability. Related to this notion of the value of the natural environment is how indigenous communities continue to situate themselves at the crossroads of nature and civilization.

Extending the notion of inclusivity beyond anthropocentrism, Sudeshna Dutta spoke of adidharam. This is the principle that directs indigenous peoples to hold relations not only with fellow human beings but also with their surroundings, including the flora, fauna, and their natural habitat. According to this, inclusivity becomes a way of life—a mode of perceiving the world without hierarchies of power. However, Dutta mentions that such an inclusive approach is difficult to adopt and is only possible when one acknowledges one’s own epistemic limitations.

Historiography

The final panel of the day was chaired by Professor Abhijit Gupta, JU-SYLFF mentor and professor at the Department of English at Jadavpur University. The panel reflected on three broad areas of historiographical inquiry. Purbasha Auddy spoke about her work on nineteenth-century periodicals published in Bengal. Between 1818 and 1867 there was a profusion of newspapers and magazines, most of which were published by upper-class and upper-caste Bengalis who had access to the means of textual production. Reading between the lines of the existing bibliographical records, Auddy indicated three main lines of inquiry that her work has followed: What ideologies do they represent? What are the gender politics that are decipherable here? And out of what geographies and spaces do they emerge?

Ritajyoti Bandyopadhyay's presentation was an attempt to understand the “postcolonial passage” marked both as a temporal and paradigmatic shift in India’s history and the terrain of official recordkeeping. What, he asked, does this shift mean for the “historian’s craft”? Bandyopadhyay’s talk was peppered with personal anecdotes and recollections, which served to illustrate his point about the transition. One in particular referred to the arbitrary manner in which archival records from Bengal were divided up between West Bengal and Dhaka. He pointed out the importance and contested status of archives built and maintained by communities that engage in political or social resistance in the face of state oppression. Bandyopadhyay suggested that in the postcolonial period, when India’s archiving mechanism went into decline compared to the colonial period, these archives have made the field far richer and more diverse. This proliferation and diversification, he argued, is what makes it difficult for the historian trained in colonial historiography to engage with contemporary histories.

In her talk, Neha Chatterjee took up the question of “historical conspicuousness”—what makes a particular movement visible and why communities might opt for an idiom of protest that is integrationist. She looked at the case of the Paundra Dalits of south Bengal—dubbed by some as “not-yet-fully mature Dalits”—and argued that even though it was a member of the Paundra Dalit community who authored the first “cross-caste Dalit solidarity in Bengal,” their decision to remain outside of dominant Dalit movements is backed by an awareness of the need to assert difference. Chatterjee argued that the Paundra Dalit movement has not caught the limelight of historical narratives because of this desire to be recognized for their contributions to social causes that include participation in the Indian freedom movement and the Tebhaga movement.

 

The day ended with a screening of the film In the Name of Pride directed by Payoshni Mitra, who has worked extensively in the field of gender and sport in both India and the world.

Fellows and mentors at a panel.

Looking Ahead

Over the two days at the LANS meet on March 14 and 15, 2019, fellows at JU-SYLFF found the opportunity to forge new friendships and renew old bonds that can continue to help them in creating positive change and transformation in the world around us. The active participation of our fellows and mentors culminated in the creation of a set of constructive ideas that we aim to take forward. They may be summarizes as follows:

  • The creation of a blog: A virtual platform that will encourage fellows to contribute ideas and insights from their latest research and professional experiences and will make these available to a wider public readership.
  • The possibility of collaborative research among fellows: A positive outcome that emerged from the structured discussions of day two was the realization of how the individual research of several fellows overlap in key areas and hold the potential of collaboration to make their respective work more inclusive and holistic. It gives us immense happiness to share that this potential is already being explored by our fellows and several discussions have begun.
  • Outreach networks: Drawing on the suggestions of LANS 2018, which looked at the possibility of bringing together partners and subjects of individual research, options were explored in more detail. The possibility of creating outreach networks through grassroot conversations and multi-engagement of stakeholders are under consideration.
  • Leadership meet: Building on the above recommendation, a larger leadership meet is being envisaged that may create an inclusive platform for future dialogue and engagement.

LANS 2019 ended on a note of constructive energy that has made clearer the pathway for JU-SYLFF as an inclusive platform for social change. The constant support and encouragement from the Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research has kept our endeavors brimming with sincerity and success. We share our heartfelt gratitude for all fellows, who, through the work that they carry on at their respective individual levels and by ceaseless participation at a collective level, helps JU-SYLFF grow as a family. This meet has benefited immensely from the presence and guidance of our mentors: our former project director and founder-advisor at JU-SYLFF, Professor Joyashree Roy, and current project director at JU-SYLFF, Professor Shibashis Chatterjee.

The JU-SYLFF family hopes to keep working with energy and dedication for our collective dream of living in a beautiful world that is just, inclusive, and equitable.

Toward an International Academic Career

April 23, 2019
By 19642

Mihoko Sakurai, Sylff fellow at Keio University’s Shonan Fujisawa Campus in 2013, is currently a senior research fellow and associate professor at the Center for Global Communications (GLOCOM) of the International University of Japan. She is dedicated to helping build a more sustainable society through her research on resilient information systems. While receiving a Sylff fellowship at Keio University, she applied for and received an SRA award to study abroad at the University of Georgia in the United States. This experience strengthened her desire to pursue a research career from an international perspective. This is the story about her international academic career started from the SRA award. 

                                                                  * 　*　 *

My Journey from the United States to Norway

Several months after living in Athens, Georgia (United States), for around six months in total, during which my living expenses were partially covered by the Sylff Research Abroad (SRA) program, I finished writing my doctoral dissertation. I received a PhD in 2015 from the Graduate School of Media and Governance, Keio University.

Mihoko, left, and Rick.

My experience in the United States eventually took me on a wonderful journey. In summer 2014, I was at the University of Georgia (UGA) having a chat with my supervisor, Professor Richard T. Watson (Rick), on the way back to the office from his lecture. In the morning of the same day, he told me about a job opening at the University of Agder (UiA) in Norway. The university was offering a postdoctoral research fellow position in the area of information systems and disaster management. The description of the position fit well with my background, and Rick knew people well in that university.

The journey to the United States had already been something big to me, since it was my first time staying abroad for an extended period. I had not thought about working abroad after my stay at UGA. At the same time, however, my eyes had gradually opened during those months. I found that a university is a very international place, something that I did not feel much when I was at Keio. My curiosity was expanding. I started dreaming of having more international experiences at the beginning of my academic career. I decided to apply for the position.

City of Kristiansand, Norway.

One year later, in summer 2015, I flew to Kristiansand, a beautiful town in southern Norway. I was given a two-year position at UiA, where I ultimately worked for three years. It was indeed a wonderful and exceptional journey.

There are only a few so-called universities in Norway. On the other hand, there are many institutions called university colleges. The merger of university colleges was advanced as a national policy over the past decade plus, and UiA was founded by merging several regional university colleges in 2007. UiA has about 10,000 students and about 1,000 people working as academic and administrative staff. There are six faculties, and I belonged to the Department of Information Systems of the Faculty of Social Sciences. The department employed around 20 people, including PhD students; a PhD student is a paid job in Norway, which is an extremely good environment compared to the Japanese context.

 

The Research Environment in Norway

Universities in Norway are differentiated from university colleges in that they have PhD courses and focus on international-level research. The Research Council of Norway releases annual rankings of academic conferences and journals. Each publication is scored in these rankings, and each department reports the points earned by its academic staff to the university every year. These results indirectly affect budget allocations within the university. Individual research funding can be obtained according to the points. I was surprised to learn that Norwegian universities organize research activities in such a systematic way. Each department has research groups and collaborates not only with internal researchers but also quite actively with external researchers.

Members of the EU project and staff of the Kristiansand city office.

In my case, my research activities were based on a large-scale research project funded by the European Commission, a multinational version of Japan’s Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (KAKENHI). The project was called Smart Mature Resilience, or SMR for short. It received a total of 4.6 million euros in funding over three years. The participants comprised four universities, seven local governments, and two nonprofit organizations from eight countries in the European Union. The competition was intense, as only 10 percent of proposals were accepted. I was fortunate to join the project.

The project was very ambitious, having as its main aim the creation of universal knowledge by people from different countries based on research activities. Collaboration with practitioners was strongly encouraged. Even within Europe, there are diverse historical and cultural backgrounds, and different customs mean different languages. I found that it was not easy to have a common awareness. While meetings were regularly held by web conference, there were opportunities for project members to gather once every few months in consortium member countries: Spain, Norway, Britain, Sween, Germany, Latvia, Italy, and Denmark. The budget for travel expenses was huge, which I understand is one of the project’s uniqueness, enhancing collaboration between people of different backgrounds. From an efficiency point of view, it may be better to focus only on domestic projects, as this would make it easier to create a common understanding of the subject. But international projects have special benefits not found in domestic projects, and all things were priceless experiences for me.

There is another collaboration network called the European Research Center for Information Systems (ERCIS). Twenty-two countries from all continents, including Australia and the United States, participate in the inter-university network on information systems research. Only one university can participate from each country, and UiA represents Norway. A workshop is held once a year, and this network provides a platform to generate proposals for research funding including EU projects.

Resilience Research in Europe

After moving to Norway, I continued writing papers with Rick. Our aim is to elaborate the notion of resilience under the context of disaster and information systems. We used the concept of capital, which Rick has been studying for many years, as an analysis lens in revealing how information systems and their surroundings (including people) recovered after the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 2011. For my dissertation, I proposed a framework for “Frugal Information Systems” as a means of achieving a resilient society. In the capital paper, we submitted practical insights on how to make information systems more frugal and resilient. We used different types of capital in this context: economic, human, social, organizational, and symbolic. Our initial idea was presented in the International Hawaii Conference on System Sciences (HICSS) in 2016 and awarded as the best paper under the digital government research track. The paper reports three cases from the field survey on the earthquake and shows how each capital interacted with the others and formed a recovery process after the devastating earthquake and tsunami. We are currently elaborating this paper and trying to submit it to the top-tier journal in the information systems research domain.

While working on the earthquake, I had been involved in a large-scale EU research project called SMR, as discussed above. The overall purpose was to develop, test, and demonstrate a pilot version of the European Resilience[1] Management Guideline. The guideline comprises five tools to promote city resilience: the Resilience Maturity Model, Risk Systemicity Questionnaire, Resilience Building Policies, City Resilience Dynamics Model, and Resilience Information Portal. Each tool can guide cities to achieve high-level resilience maturity in different ways. I was mainly involved in the development of the Resilience Information Portal. The portal aims to create a collaborative environment among key partners (first responders and citizens) in resilience building activities. We developed the prototype of the portal and a standardization document that can be used by non-project members in creating such a portal. After a three-year project period, three series of standardization documents were developed. Five tools are available online.

 

Looking Back on My Output in the Past Three Years

During my three years in Norway, I produced two journal publications and eleven conference papers. It was indeed a very productive period. I may have worked too much. I also had the opportunity to co-teach three courses and offer several guest lectures to Norwegian students, which gave me great teaching experiences. I met wonderful people from all over the world through international conferences, the SMR project, and a researchers’ network centered around UiA. I am grateful for the environment and know this is not something that is available to everyone who wants it.

I hope that my story about this journey that began in the United States can give insights to those who aspire to develop an international career. I felt strong anxiety in my first year in Norway, but a colleague of mine encouraged me by saying, “Take it easy, have fun!” I always remember this comment when I feel any fear.

As a concluding remark, I would like to thank the Sylff Association for supporting me in my journey toward a wonderful academic career.

University of Agder

 

 

[1] The ability of a system, community, or society exposed to hazards to resist, absorb, accommodate to, and recover from the effects of a hazard in a timely and efficient manner, including through the preservation and restoration of its essential basic structures and functions. (2009 UNISDR Terminology on Disaster Risk Reduction)

 

Holistic and Empirical Approaches to Ensuring Food Security

April 8, 2019
By 24939

Mohammed Nuruddeen Suleiman, a 2013 Sylff fellow at the University of Malaya and one of 20 participants in the first Sylff Leaders Workshop, reports on the fall session of the 2018-19 workshop, held from September 16 to 23 in Sasayama and Tokyo, Japan.

*     *     *

I was preparing to travel to Japan for a historic experience to participate in the inaugural Sylff Leaders Workshop when, exactly one week before my trip, a catastrophic typhoon struck Kansai International Airport, where my flight was supposed to land. The airport is a prestigious landmark that testifies to the ingenuity of the Japanese people, and it consolidates the imagination of mankind, the site being reclaimed from the sea to give way to a majestic structure. But now, the airport was closed, and my flight was cancelled about 24 hours before my departure due to the structural damage caused by the typhoon. Against all odds, however, the workshop organizers were determined to fly every participant to Japan. Their courage and determination paid off, as I was at Kansai International Airport barely 2 hours after its reopening.

I was more determined than ever not to miss this event, since the topic chosen for this inaugural workshop, “The Future of Food Production in 2030,” was very close to my heart. I felt this multicultural, multidisciplinary, and transborder gathering would provide some answers to food insecurity in my constituency. I am from Nigeria, a country in sub-Saharan Africa, a region where some countries are witnessing famine, poverty, hunger, civil war, and high infant mortality rates and where government corruption is preponderant. Furthermore, despite all these delicate fragilities, the continent’s population is growing at an alarming rate, implying with definite certainty that food insecurity would persist unless some radical measures are taken.

Fortunately, the Sylff Leader’s Workshop provided approaches to incubating hybrid strategies for sufficient and efficient food production in the future. The diversity of the participants, coupled with the methodology of Visioning and Road Mapping provided by Foresight Intelligence, a German-based consortium that facilitated the workshop, was superb. Although the participants were not necessarily experts in agriculture, the methodology enabled their reasoning capacity to provide holistic and empirical approaches toward the future of food production. Amazingly, these approaches enabled us to envision how best to ensure food security through modern technology and good governance, particularly in the global South, where hunger has been one of the daunting challenges.

Suleiman (standing) at the session in Sasayama

In the cultural and social realm, the majestic hospitality of our host throughout our stay in Japan was warm and breathtaking. In particular, the lovely Sasayama community is one of the most amazing places I have ever visited. The mountains and architectural landscape of the community provided a spectacular window into the well-preserved and exquisite cultural heritage of Japan. My brief stay in Sasayama afforded me the opportunity to understand the significance of culture and patriotism through a Japanese prism. Likewise, years before, I read the history of great Japanese military warriors like General Tadamichi Kuribayashi during the battle of Iwo Jima, and this eradicated my ambivalent notions about the history of Japan.

Apart from the organizing team of the workshop, I have made 19 new friendships which are defined by multiculturalism from across the globe. And these friendships I am cherishing because of the love, devotion, and honesty each and every participant has shown to me, particularly on my arrival after a missed flight from Abuja to Osaka. 

I strongly believe that at the end of the second session of the workshop in April 2019 the communiqué or report would certainly provide ample solutions to one of the most debilitating challenges facing mankind.

An Amazing Experience in Effective Teamworking and Accountable Leadership

April 8, 2019
By 24778

Nermeen Varawalla is one of the 20 fellows participating in the first Sylff Leadership Workshop. The following is her report, on behalf of Working Group 2B, of the fall session of the Workshop, held in September 2018. Varawalla received her Sylff fellowship in 2000 while studying for her MBA at INSEAD. Since then, based in London, Varawalla has combined her background in academic medicine with business skills to enjoy a career as a business leader in the global pharmaceutical and healthcare industries. She is passionate about innovative approaches to the cost-effective development of new medicines.

*    *    *

The “Future of Food Production in 2030” proved to be an excellent and engaging topic for the inaugural Sylff Leaders Workshop held in September 2018. The reasons for this include the multidisciplinary subject matter, its global impact, and the urgency required to address this challenge. The fact that none of us were an expert on the subject matter but still cared deeply about this topic made it truly compelling. Sasayama, with its long-standing tradition of responsible farming and specialist, artisan food production, was an inspiring and picturesque setting for our deliberations.

Our working group comprised five fellows, namely, Anna Plater, Evgeny Kandilarov, Kabira Namit, Susan Banki, and myself, Nermeen Varawalla. The group was extraordinarily diverse, as we came from very different academic, professional, and cultural backgrounds. This enabled the sharing of different viewpoints, the application of varied experiences, and the examination of multiple social perspectives. The friendly but dynamic relationship within the group allowed for vibrant discussions that challenged conventional perspectives.

Members of Group 2B, from left, Varawalla, Namit, Plater, Kandilarov

Banki

We embraced the Visioning and Road Mapping methodology that required us to present our ideas as punchy newspaper headlines. Further, each of us was able to credibly voice our particular viewpoints, namely, those of economic policymakers, global business leaders, responsible academics, and politicians seeking reelection. In addition, we shared insights from our experiences of working in Africa, Asia, Central Europe, and the United States, hence able to imagine the impact of our proposals in different countries and economies.

After we had articulated our goals for Global Food Security by 2030, we undertook the back-casting exercise wherein we asked hard questions as to what would need to happen in 2028 before the realization of the 2030 goal. Having thus defined the necessary penultimate stage, we probed our collective understanding to figure out what factors could prevent the realization of that 2028 penultimate stage. Once we spelled out the preventive factors—in other words, the hurdles that needed to be overcome in pursuit of our goal—we brainstormed how to overcome these hurdles, thereby landing on our action plan for 2026. We repeated these steps for every two-year interval until reaching the present in 2018.

Using different colored sticky notes, we assembled all our ideas jotted down as punchy headlines in to a roadmap encompassing 12 years, from 2018 to 2030. Furthermore, we were able to group the collection of hurdles, solutions, and outcomes into different strands, such as Innovation, Business, Policy, and so on, making our output comprehensive and multi-dimensional.

Working group session in Sasayama.

This was an amazing experience in terms of both effective teamworking and accountable leadership. Because of the special group dynamics, tailored methodology, and conducive working environment, we were as a group able to articulate ideas and a vision that we all felt committed to but would have never been able to derive in isolation. We exclaimed, only partly in jest, about how wonderful it would be for the world if global leaders we able to work through issues in the same manner that we had!