[WSF-Discuss] CACIM Forum Fellowship Announcement 2008-09

[Madhuresh]

Monday, 25 August 2008

Dear Friends,

Greetings !

We are happy to announce the second round of CACIM Forum Fellowships and 
would like to express our gratitude to everybody who has helped us in 
making this process successful. Many of you have been generous with your 
time and resources in supporting the research process of the Fellows 
Mamata Dash, Susana Barria and Mayur Chetia, we are fortunate to have 
had your support in this process.

This year also we received a wide range of proposals in response to the 
announcement. We hope the selections we have made have done justice to 
this diversity of ideas and also the objectives of our programme.

The first batch of Fellows will be presenting their work at a Symposium 
we are organising this next week in Delhi : On the theme ‘Struggles for 
Social Justice in India : How relevant is WSF ?’, on August 29 2008 at 
the YWCA, Ashoka Road, New Delhi 110 001, from 9:30 am onwards. Please 
see the theme note and programme at http://cacim.net <http://cacim.net/> 
and do join us.

This year's Fellowships are being awarded to the following four 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 Indian 
Institute of Dalit Studies. Her research proposes to understand the 
convergence point between Dalit groups and civil society initiatives 
around the issues of caste and their attempts at addressing issues other 
than anti – caste struggles. More specifically, how far democratic 
forums like World Social Forum and India Social Forum, which are 
primarily anti-globalisation forums, has been successful in addressing 
the primary issues like dignity, discrimination, deprivation and land 
rights that Dalit groups are struggling for ? And how far Dalit groups 
can identify themselves with the mainstream anti-globalisation issues 
since opposing neo - liberal policies has never been the prime concern 
of the 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 on the theme ‘Redefining 
Development: A Critical Enquiry into the Discourse and Practise of 
Alternatives in Contemporary India’. Her proposed study seeks to examine 
the nature of debates on alternative development in the WSF and 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 
Asia Social Forum, Hyderabad 2003 and India Social Forum, 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 marginalized. The proposed study 
will look in to the history, politics and dynamics of RP and 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 operation?

*WORLD SOCIAL FORUM AND QUESTION OF GRASSROOTS PARTICIPATION*

UDDHAB PRASAD PYAKUREL, 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 is to examine the impressionistic similarities between Indian 
and Nepali WSF process and question of equal access to the vernacular 
groups and organizations from the marginalized community or regions as 
opposed to well connected groups based in urban centres. In short, the 
proposed study wants to critically analyze the real challenge of the WSF 
as ‘open space’ with its assumption of equal access on an equal footing 
of the democratic dialogue.

We would once again like to thank everybody for their interest in the 
process and do hope to keep the interaction alive through various spaces 
we are trying to create for a critical engagement with the ideas around 
the Forum. To keep abreast of the activities around the Forum do 
subscribe to WSFDiscuss, an open and unmoderated forum on the World 
Social Forum by sending an empty email to 
worldsocialforum-discuss-subscribe at openspaceforum.net . Keep looking for 
more details on www.cacim.net / www.openspaceforum.net

Regards

Madhuresh, Jai Sen and Vasudev

For CACIM, New Delhi

PS : Research papers of the Fellows are being published by CACIM as part 
of its /Critical Engagement : /CACIM’s Publication Programme and will be 
available at the symposium. They would also be available for free 
download from September 1 @ www.cacim.net <http://www.cacim.net/>. 
Thanks ! //

-- 

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