Dialogues and Conferences
Venue: University of Ghana, Accra
Date: July 26-30, 2021
Programme Schedule... CLICK HERE
Abstracts of the Panelists... CLICK HERE
Report... CLICK HERE
A Conference to Commemorate the 150th year of the Publication of Karl Marx’s Capital (Volume One) - Capital in the East
The first volume of Karl Marx's Capital (Volume one), published in 1867 was considered for long throughout the world as the most important guide to understand the ills of capitalism, the origin of the working class, and the materiality of the exploitation of the workers. The book was translated worldwide in numerous languages, and arguably became the most important book in the last two centuries. Then in the last three decades as socialism collapsed and neoliberal capitalism spread to various corners of the globe, Capital became a redundant treatise to many. Its analysis was held outdated, fit for only intellectual consumption and curiosity. However, the world financial crisis of 2008 brought Capital to renewed attention of critical theorists, social scientists, and progressive movements. Its analyses are being considered even more relevant today. Newspapers have focused attention on the contemporary relevance of many of its arguments. In the developing world the drive towards developmentalism,expansion of market, financialisation, weakening of state’s welfare services, rampant privatisation, and boundless exploitation of natural and human resources have become major issues of concern. In this milieu Capital has returned to attention. The conference aims to discuss this return of Capital to attention and enquire the new questions in this light.
The Conference is being held jointly by several institutions and in
collaboration with Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung
Venue: Rangdarbar, Swabhumi, Kolkata || Date: 30-31 January 2018
Conference Statement ... CLICK HERE
Brochure... CLICK HERE || Programme Schedule... CLICK HERE
Conference Poster.. CLICK HERE
Roundtable
discussion at Presidency University will be held at the A.J.C. Bose
Auditorium (Main Building, Ground Floor), 4-6 pm on January 29, 2018. .. CLICK
HERE
Conference Papers... CLICK HERE
Conference Report... CLICK HERE
Roundtable on Étienne Balibar & Immanuel Wallerstein’s Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities
Jointly Organised by Calcutta Research Group & Rabindra Bharati University In Collaboration with Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin.
Venue: Kabi Janani Sarada Kaksha (2nd Floor), Arts Building, Rabindra Bharati University, B.T. Road Campus, Kolkata-700 050
Date: 11 January 2018 || Time: 1.30 —5.30 pm
Programme Schedule... CLICK HERE
Abstracts of the Panelists... CLICK HERE
Report... CLICK HERE
Sixth Critical Studies Conference on 'Refugees, Migrants, Violence and the Transformation of Cities', 23-25 August, 2017
Refugees, Migrants, Violence and the Transformation of Cities
Cities world over are attracting increasing numbers of people fleeing villages, small and big towns, other countries and continents to escape conflicts, wars, violence, environmental degradation and natural disasters. Political, economic, social and cultural reasons have combined in this phenomenon of massive and mixed migration. Displacements being protracted immigrants arrive often to stay. Cities are facing the brunt of this development and are imperceptibly or radically being transformed. In this background the Sixth Critical Studies Conference will be an interdisciplinary attempt to map in a comparative framework the restructuring of cities under the impact of refugee and migration flows. It will explore cityscapes in various parts of the world as inbuilt destination spaces of refugee and population movements, such as irregular and subsistence labour as guest workers, trafficked victims, smuggled women and children, immigrant workers in care and entertainment industry, and above all masses of urban refugees and environmental migrants. The conference will thereby seek to understand how with refugees and migrants as inbuilt components of their formation, today’s cities constitute and contest at the same time the parallel scales of the local, national, and the global; how as migrant spaces cities become the battleground of discourses on rights, security, economy, citizenship, populism, and culture; and yet how cities can develop as public spaces and spheres of participation in which varied actors negotiate diversity including race, class and gender. With this broad aim this research conference will bring to light in historical and comparative perspective the urban experiences of restructuration.
On the themes and details of the five previous critical studies conferences, visit – http://www.mcrg.ac.in/dg_critical.asp
For Details CLICK HERE
IASFM 14: ‘Contested Spaces & Cartographic Challenges’
The 14th Conference of the International Association for Studies in Forced Migration (IASFM) will be hosted by Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group, Kolkata, India,January 6-9, 2013. This is the first time that this conference is being hosted in South Asia.
The nature and character of migration, particularly ‘forced' migration, today is different from that in previous decades. But while this is not a new observation, it has not been acknowledged in such a manner, because of what underlined the refugee regime and what regulated the management and protection of refugees. This has been underscored by migratory patterns in much of the colonial world (read, Africa and Asia, for instance) as against the European context. The UN however, acknowledged this by noting in its 10 Point Plan of Action that migration is characterised by mixed movements. Even then, the underlying institutions that aimed at securing the rights of refugees in the last few decades did not change. Refugees continued to be those that fled political persecution leaving a large number of people who fled due to other factors outside the legal definition and thus protection regime. Second, internal displacement gained prominence as a category of rights bearing subjects but the role of UN institutions was curtailed or expanded depending on the state that produced the internally displaced. Thus, even though forced by circumstances, government policies or government inaction/impunity, internally displaced persons were not accorded the same kind of protection that refugees were. Thus it is not uncommon for internally displaced persons to call themselves refugees even while they are within the physical borders of the state.
