Results of the second / 2008-9 round of the CACIM Forum Fellowships;
Publication of 2007-8 Fellowship papers
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Dear friends, greetings !
We, as members of CACIM, are happy to announce the
results of the second / 2008-9 round of the CACIM Forum Fellowships;
for details of this programme, please see http://cacim.net/twiki/tiki-
index.php?page=Fellowships.
This year also, just as last year but even more so, we
received a wide range of proposals in response to our announcement.
We hope that the selections we have made have done justice to this
diversity of ideas and proposals and also to the objectives of our
Fellowships programme.
This year's Fellowships have been awarded to the
following four projects and people (for details, see http://cacim.net/
twiki/tiki-index.php?page=CFF0809):
LOCATING DALIT RIGHTS CONCERNS IN CIVIL SOCIETY INITIATIVES IN INDIA
ELIZABETH ABRAHAM, based in New Delhi, is an Associate Fellow of the
Indian Institute of Dalit Studies. Her research proposes to
understand the convergence between Dalit groups and civil society
initiatives in India around issues of caste and their attempts at
addressing issues other than anti-caste struggles. More specifically,
how far are democratic forums like the World Social Forum and the
India Social Forum, which are primarily anti-globalisation forums,
successful in addressing primary issues such as dignity,
discrimination, deprivation, and land rights - that Dalit groups are
struggling for ? And how far Dalit groups do identify themselves
with mainstream anti-globalisation issues - since opposing neoliberal
policies has never been the prime concern of Dalit groups ?
WSF AND THE DEBATE ON ALTERNATIVE DEVELOPMENT IN INDIA
JANAKI SRINIVASAN, Lecturer in Department of Political Science,
Panjab University, Chandigarh, is a PhD candidate at the Centre for
Political Studies, School of Social Sciences, JNU (Jawaharlal Nehru
University), New Delhi, on the theme ‘Redefining Development: A
Critical Enquiry into the Discourse and Practise of Alternatives in
Contemporary India’. Her proposed study under the CFF 2008-9 seeks to
examine the nature of debates on alternative development in the WSF
and to gauge the impact of the WSF process on the politics of
alternative development in India.
ALL ARE DIFFERENT, ALL ARE EQUAL ? : THE POLITICS AND POETICS OF
SEXUAL DIVERSITY AT THE SOCIAL FORUMS IN INDIA
OISHIK SIRCAR is a human rights lawyer and researcher based in
Kolkata. His study seeks to trace the journey of ‘Rainbow
Planet’ (RP) between the Asia Social Forum, held in Hyderabad 2003,
and the India Social Forum held in New Delhi 2006, as a large and
strong network of organisations across India, campaigning against
discriminatory laws (notably Sec 377 of the Indian Penal Code and the
Immoral Traffic Prevention Act) and demanding a life free of violence
and stigma for the sexually marginalised. He will look into the
history, politics, and dynamics of RP and the lessons it can offer
for coalition building for other movements within the WSF space. The
study also intends to raise questions regarding the potentials and
perils of coalition-building in the context of sexuality rights.
While RP emphatically declares: “All Are Different, All Are Equal”,
how does this actually translate into practice? Are there sexual
hierarchies within RP’s own operations ?
WORLD SOCIAL FORUM AND QUESTION OF GRASSROOTS PARTICIPATION
UDDHAB PRASAD PYAKUREL, a Nepali citizen and involved with the Forum
organising process in Nepal, is currently working towards a PhD
Degree from Centre for the Study of Social System, School of Social
Sciences, JNU, New Delhi. His proposal under the CFF 2008-9 programme
is to examine impressionistic similarities between the Indian and
Nepali WSF processes and in particular, the question of equal access
to vernacular groups and organisations from marginalised communities
and regions as opposed to well-connected groups based in urban
centres. In short, the proposed study wants to critically analyse the
real challenge of the WSF as an ‘open space’ with its assumption of
equal access, on an equal footing, to democratic dialogue.
The 2007-8 Fellowships
We feel that the first round of the CACIM Forum
Fellowships, announced in late 2007 and that has been underway during
2008, has gone very well, and we would like to express our gratitude
to all those who have helped us in making this process successful.
The research papers that have been prepared by the
2007-8 Fellows will be presented at the Final Workshop and Symposium
under the Fellowships programme on August 29, titled ‘Struggles for
Social Justice in India Today : How Relevant is the World Social
Forum ?’ (as earlier announced; see http://cacim.net/twiki/tiki-
index.php?page=SJnWSFNote).
These papers are also now being published by CACIM as
part of its new occasional documents publication programme, Critical
Engagement - and these three, plus three other papers presently also
being published under this programme, will shortly be available at
http://cacim.net/twiki/tiki-index.php?page=Publications :
Susana Barria, August 2008 – ‘Main debates around the WSF 2004 in
Mumbai’
Mayur Chetia, August 2008 – ‘World Social Forum and the Reaction from
the Indian Left’
Mamata Dash, August 2008 – ‘The World Social Forum… as movement
groups in India see it’.
Please do go up there after a few days’ time and feel
free to download these papers.
Many of you have been generous with your time and
resources in supporting the research undertaken by the 2007-8 Fellows
- Mamata Dash, Susana Barria, and Mayur Chetia – and we feel we have
been fortunate to have had your support in this process.
In particular, we thank those who had agreed to be, and
have acted as, Advisors or mentors to the Fellows in the 2007-8
round : Aditya Nigam (CSDS, Delhi), Andrej Grubacic (San Francisco),
Giuseppe Caruso (London and New York), Janet Conway (Toronto and
Brock University, Ontario), Naveen Chander (Delhi), Peter Waterman
(The Hague), and Sonia Alvarez (University of Massachusetts - Amherst).
Once again, we would like to thank everyone for your
interest in the process and your encouragement to us, and we do hope
to keep this interaction alive through the various spaces we are
continuously trying to create for a critical engagement with the
World Social Forum and with the ideas that inform and breathe through
the Forum. With warm greetings -
For CACIM, New Delhi
Jai, Madhuresh, and Vasudev
