Seventh Annual Research and Orientation Workshop and Conference
on
Global Protection of Refugees and Migrants

Sevasti Trubeta, Magdeburg-Stendal University of Applied Sciences, Germany

Bionote: Sevasti Trubeta is a sociologist and professor for “Childhood and Migration” at the University for Applied Sciences Magdeburg-Stendal, in Germany. The focus of her research addresses the fields of borders, migration, refugees and minorities (especially Roma); eugenics, biopolitics, medicalisation and racism. Her publications include the book Physical Anthropology, Race and Eugenics in Greece, 1880s-1970s (Brill Academic Publishers 2013), joint editorship (with Chr. Promitzer and P. Weindling) Medicalising Borders. Selection, Containment and Quarantine since 1800 (Manchester University Press 2021), and (with Chr. Promitzer and M. Turda) Hygiene, Health and Eugenics in Southeastern Europe to 1945 (CEU Press 2011). Other publications include “Vaccination and the Refugee Camp: Exercising the free Choice of Vaccination from an Abject Position in Germany and Greece”, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (2018); “‘Rights’ in the Grey Area: Undocumented Border Crossers on Lesvos”, Race & Class (2015).

Jonathan S. Parhusip, National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan

Bionote: Jonathan S. Parhusip is a Ph.D. Student at the Institute of Social Research and Cultural Studies, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taiwan. His Ph.D. research explores the employment practices of Southeast Asian migrant fishers onboard Taiwanese fishing vessels, migrant solidarity, ethnography of fishing ports, labor rights activism, and logistical chain of Indonesia-Taiwan migration industry. His recent article titled “The making of freedom and common forms of struggle of runaway in Taiwan (SAQ, 2021). He is also actively advocating the rights of migrant fishers in Taiwanese fishing ports, working closely with self-organized migrant groups and NGOs.

Joyce C.H. Liu, National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan

Bionote: Joyce C.H. Liu, Professor of Critical Theory and Inter-Asia Cultural Studies and Director of the International Center for Cultural Studies, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taiwan. Her research focuses on geopolitics, biopolitics, border politics, internal coloniality, unequal citizens, and epistemic/artistic decolonization. She coordinates interdisciplinary teams in Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, Australia, and Europe on two joint research projects: "Conflict, Justice, Decolonization: Critical Inter-Asia Cultural Studies" (2018-2022, 2023-2027), the Ministry of Education, Taiwan, and "Migration, Logistics, and Unequal Citizens in the Global Context" (2019-2022), CHCI-Mellon Foundation

Ajeet Kumar Pankaj, Assistant Professor in Department of Social Work, Indira Gandhi National Tribal University, Regional Campus Manipur, India

Bionote: Ajeet Kumar Pankaj is Assistant Professor in Department of Social Work, Indira Gandhi National Tribal University, Regional Campus Manipur, India. His research interests cover Caste, Migration, Exclusion, Social Policy and Community Development. He has published several articles in national and international journals. He is also Co-project Investigator and Collaborated with two Universities (TISS, Mumbai and Kashmir University) in India for a joint research project entitled “Migrant Workers and Urbanization in Politically Sensitive Area: A Study in Kashmir & Manipur” funded by ICSSR, New Delhi, India.

Saima Farhad, Assistant Professor in Social Work at University of Kashmir

Bionote: Saima Farhad is an Assistant Professor in Social Work at University of Kashmir. Her research interests include issues of elderly care, season migrants, incarceration, etc.

M. Ibrahim Wani, Assistant Professor at University of Kashmir

Bionote: M. Ibrahim Wani is an Assistant Professor at University of Kashmir. His research interests include media, migration and middle classes.

Baidehi Das, Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Sociology, University of Hyderabad, India

Bionote: Baidehi Das is a Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Sociology, University of Hyderabad, India. Her research interest includes migration, settlement patterns and community relations along the Indo-Bangladesh border. Currently, she is working on understanding inter-community relations vis-à-vis movements along some of the borderland villages of Swarupnagar Block in North Twenty-Four Parganas District of West Bengal.

N. William Singh, JNU, India

Bionote: N. William Singh graduated from Hindu College, University of Delhi. He completed M.A., M.PHIL., and Ph.D. from JNU. He is a DAAD fellow at Centre for Historical Anthropology, Freie University Berlin and has written papers for Economic and Political Weekly, Himal South Asian and Routledge. Teaches Sociology at Pachhunga University College. He is currently working on an ICSSR funded project on Upland Livelihoods.

Yojak Tamang, Presidency University, India

Bionote: Yojak Tamang has completed M.A in political science from Presidency University, India, and is currently engaged in independent research. Yojak’s interests include critical theory, migration studies, study of state and movement of self-determination and visual storytelling.

Santi Sarkar, Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science, Centre for Distance and Online Education (CDOE), Vidyasagar University, Midnapore

Bionote: Santi Sarkar is Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science, Centre for Distance and Online Education (CDOE), Vidyasagar University, Midnapore, and Member, Calcutta Research Group, India. His interest area includes Political Theory, Western Political Thought, Indian Politics, Forced Migration, Dalit, and Tribal Studies

Sonika Gupta, Associate Professor of Global Politics (China Studies, Refugees, Tibet Studies), Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras

Bionote: Sonika Gupta is an Associate Professor of Global Politics (China Studies, Refugees, Tibet Studies), Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. Her current areas of research include the Tibetan Community in India, Himalayan borderlands with reference to state-making, geopolitics, and identity.

Joseph K Lalfakzuala, Dept. of Political Science, Govt. T, Romana College, Aizawl, India

Bionote: Joseph K Lalfakzuala is currently a faculty member in the Dept. of Political Science, Govt. T, Romana College, Aizawl, India. He completed his Ph.D. from Centre for Political Studies, JNU, New Delhi. His areas of interest are North-East Studies, Autonomy and federalism, Borderland studies.

Radhika Mathrani Chakraborty, Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore, Singapore

Bionote: Radhika Mathrani Chakraborty is a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore, Singapore. Her research interests include diaspora, migration, gender and feminist studies, and gender-based violence. Her doctoral research will undertake a gendered analysis of the Sindhi business diaspora in Hong Kong.

Rajat Kanti Sur, Researcher, Calcutta Research Group, India

Bionote: Rajat Kanti Sur is Researcher, Calcutta Research Group, India. He has keen interest in urban studies, popular culture, public health and labour studies, and is currently working on the role of cooperative formation as an alternative method to overcome the socio- economic crisis of the marginal and migrant workers.

Sampurna Das, Doctoral Student of Sociology at the Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, India

Bionote: Sampurna Das is a doctoral student of Sociology at the Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, India. Her doctoral work research draws upon issues of citizenship, water and land governance, and agrarian relations in the context of environment and development discourses, focusing particularly on the floodplains of the north-eastern Indian state Assam.

Sohini Sengupta, Assistant Professor with the Centre for Community Organisation and Development Practice, School of Social Work - Mumbai Campus, School of Research Methodology, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS)-Mumbai, India

Bionote: Sohini Sengupta is Assistant Professor with the Centre for Community Organisation and Development Practice, School of Social Work - Mumbai Campus, School of Research Methodology, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS)-Mumbai, India. She has experience in working with grassroots organisation, drought response programmes and public policy making and has worked with Oxfam and as a research fellow with the World Commission on Dams-Social Impacts Team in South Africa.

Debojyoti Das, Anthropologist of South Asia

Bionote: Debojyoti Das is an anthropologist of South Asia, with a focus on the borderlands of eastern India and the Indian Ocean world. His current work focuses on land relations, climate change, migration, and sustainable development issues among marginalised littoral communities in the Bay of Bengal delta. He is the author of the book The Politics of Swidden Farming Environment and Development in Eastern India (2018).

Nirmal Kumar Mahato, Associate Professor in History and Deputy Director, Centre for Environmental Studies, Vidyasagar University Midnapore, W.B., India

Bionote: Nirmal Kumar Mahato is Associate Professor in History and Deputy Director, Centre for Environmental Studies, Vidyasagar University Midnapore, W.B., India. He was awarded the Charles Wallace Fellowship, 2019. He is also a member of Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group, Kolkata. His recently published book is ‘Sorrow Songs of Woods: Adivasi- Nature Relationship in the Anthropocene in Manbhum', CWEH, 2020, www.sussex.ac.uk › cweh › publications ( Primus, New Delhi).

Shatabdi Das, Researcher,Calcutta Research Group (CRG)

Bionote: Shatabdi Das is Researcher at the Calcutta Research Group (CRG). She has previously worked as Junior Research Fellow at the Centre for Urban Economic Studies, University of Calcutta and has also taught Geography at PG level in Sarsuna College, Kolkata (affiliated to the University of Calcutta). Shatabdi has been working with CRG since 2018 on research projects on migration studies, borderlands, displacement, environment and urban issues and climate change. She has a Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Calcutta. Her Doctoral thesis studies the impact of industrial and urban development on the environment of Asansol-Durgapur Planning Area. She was a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM), Vienna in Austria, in April 2022.

Daniiarova Gulzina Mamatalievna, Department of Professional foreign languages department at Osh State University, Kyrgyzstan

Bionote: Daniiarova Gulzina Mamatalievna is a lecturer in the Department of Professional foreign languages department at Osh State University, Kyrgyzstan. She holds a Master’s Degree in Political Sciences from Osh State University. She is a researcher in the National Academy of Science of the Kyrgyz Republic. Her research currently focuses on causes and consequences of women migration from Kyrgyzstan to Russia. Currently she is conducting a research on the impact of local traditions on migration and wants to find solutions to this problem.

Gorky Chakraborty, Faculty, Institute of Development Studies Kolkata (IDSK)

Bionote: Gorky Chakraborty, Faculty, Institute of Development Studies Kolkata (IDSK). He works on development related issues on Northeast India.

Samik Roy Chowdhury, Former M.Phil scholar at Institute of Development Studies, Kolkata

Bionote: Samik Roy Chowdhury, Former M.Phil scholar at Institute of Development Studies, Kolkata. He specialises on debates and contestations related to citizenship in India.

Ankita Singh, Research scholar at NIEPA

Bionote: Ankita Singh is a research scholar at NIEPA (National Institute of Education Planning and Administration). She has done M.A from Jawaharlal Nehru University and B.A from the University of Delhi. Her research areas are Alternative Methods of Financing Higher Education, Urban Sustainability and Slums. She worked as a research analyst for 2 years at IEG (Institute of Economic Growth) on the project "Evaluation of Scholarship Scheme in India".

Johny K D, Ph.D. Scholar at IIT Kanpur

Bionote: Johny K D is a Ph.D. Scholar at IIT Kanpur. He has done M.A from Jawaharlal Nehru University and B.A from St. Stephen's College, DU, Delhi. His research interests are Urban sustainability, City, Slums, Displacement and Rights. In the past, he had worked with prestigious organisations like the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment (GoI) and Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi in diverse profiles like Research Analyst, Project Monitoring and Evaluation expert, etc. He also has several publications in National and International Journals.

Anasma Gayari , Ph. D. scholar at the Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University

Bionote: Anasma Gayari is currently a junior Ph. D. scholar at the Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Her research focuses on locating migrants from the Northeast in the urban politics of Delhi. She is particularly interested in investigating the social nature, cultural conditions and economic implications of labour involved in the new corporate affective industries, and the kinds of political subjectivity that arise in the process. She has submitted her M. Phil. dissertation titled The Political Economy of Race in Delhi: A Study of New Labour from the North East early this year, and has begun working on her doctoral thesis further along these lines. Her new research tries to probe the manner of training that goes into making of the new affective labour and the role of social capital and networks among the migrant communities in providing access to livelihood, political solidarity and new cultures of consumption. She did both her BA and MA in Political Science from Indraprastha College for Women, University of Delhi.

Bidhan Golay , Political Science at the Department of Political Science, Sikkim University, Gangtok

Bionote: Bidhan Golay teaches Political Science at the Department of Political Science, Sikkim University, Gangtok. He took his M. Phil from Centre for Political Studies, JNU for which he worked on ethnic revivalism in Darjeeling. Bidhan is pursuing his doctoral research from Centre for Political Studies where he is studying the colonial construction of Gorkha identity and the problem of citizenship in India. He began his teaching career at Centre for Himalayan Studies, University of North Bengal in 2006. He moved to Sikkim University in 2012 where he has been teaching political theory and Indian politics. His research interests lay in cultural studies, postcolonial theory and governmentality. Bidhan has participated in several international and national seminars and published some original articles. Some of his published articles and book chapters include, Rethinking Gorkha Identity: Outside the Imperium, Discourse and Hegemony, in T.B. Subba et. al. (eds.) Indian Nepalis: Issues and Perspectives, Concept Publishing House, New Delhi (2009), Between Ethnie and Nation: The Predicament of Nepali Identity, in Arun K Jana et. al. (eds.) Development and Disorder: The Crises of Governance in Northeast and East of India, South Asian Publishers, New Delhi (2010), and, Colonial Governmentality and Nepali Nationalist Discourse, in Café Dissensus, Issue 20, 2015.

Krishanu B. Neog , Ph.D. student and Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University

Bionote: Krishanu B. Neog is a senior Ph.D. student and Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. His Ph.D. research focuses on the forms of visual mobilization used by political leaders, like selfies and posters, in India on social media platforms, and how everyday users circulate, comment on and react to them, for instance, through memes and related images. He has worked as a Project Fellow in ‘For Digital Dignity: PROJECT ONLINERPOL’ where he headed a sub-project dealing with meme content on social media dealing with politics in South Asia. Krishanu’s M. Phil. research looked into the question of the political ‘subject’ (and ‘subject’-formation) online through everyday techno-social and techno-cultural practices such as circulation of memes and digital ‘lurking’. He has a Master’s degree in Development Studies from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, and has published several commentaries on contemporary political events in online platforms such as NewsClick, and The Quint, etc

Rajarshi Dasgupta, Teaches at Centre for Political Studies, JNU

Bionote: Rajarshi Dasgupta teaches at Centre for Political Studies, JNU. Formerly a Fellow at the CSSSC, he did his BA from Presidency, Calcutta, MA and M. Phil. from JNU, and D. Phil. from Oxford. His research and publications address the history of Indian Left, especially in Bengal, the relations of culture and politics, and urbanization and refugee and migrant histories in South Asia. Some of his publications include “Rhyming Revolution: Marxism and Culture in Colonial Bengal” in Studies in History, and "The Ascetic Modality: A Critique of Communist Self-fashioning" in Menon, Nigam and Palshikar eds., Critical Studies in Politics, and “The People in People’s Art and People’s War” in Gargi Chakrabarty ed., P.C. Joshi, The People’s Warrior. Some of his recent publications are “Exceptionalising Democratic Dissent: A study of the JNU event” in Postcolonial Studies, “Capital in Bangla: Postcolonial Translation of Marx” in Chakrabarty et al eds., Capital in the East: reflections on Marx, and “Frontier Urbanism: Urbanisation beyond Cities in South Asia”, co-authored with Shubhra Gururani, Economic & Political Weekly.

Dipanwita Saha, Software Engineer and Visual Artist

Bionote: Dipanwita Saha is a software engineer by profession and parallelly an independent visual artist based in Kolkata, India. Her interest in photography stems from her father. She is from a refugee family and from her childhood she grew up with stories of brutality, hatred, friendship, and culture. She always wants to narrate those stories to the world and chooses photography as a medium. Using personal and subjective modalities in her documentary practice, Dipanwita explores the complexities of societal frameworks and the dynamics of political institutions in contemporary India. Her primary areas of interest are history, cultural narratives, and socio-political changes. Her work has been published in many online magazines and exhibited in many national and international galleries and festivals. In recent years, She has been working for an oral archive on the pre-independence era of India and how it changes the culture of a city. As part of her image-making practice, Dipanwita deploys personal voices, metaphorical exploration, and abstraction to unravel narratives of people, places, and their histories.

Tom Vickers, Associate Professor of Sociology at Nottingham Trent University, UK

Bionote: Dr Tom Vickers is Associate Professor of Sociology at Nottingham Trent University, UK. He is the author of Borders, Migration and Class in an Age of Crisis (2019, Bristol University Press) and Refugees, Capitalism and the British State (2012, Routledge). The overall 'problem' that drives Tom's research is capitalism in its imperialist phase, and more specifically the way that capitalist exploitation is managed and resistance is foreclosed, diverted and contained. Over the last fifteen years Tom has used a focus on borders and racism to examine how exploitation, oppression and resistance operate across fields including employment, volunteering, social work and social care, and the media. This research is intimately connected to his participation in social movements, community organising and community education, as a form of critical public sociology.