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CSSS organises a talk by Hélène Guétat-Bernard

CSSS organises a talk by Hélène Guétat-Bernard

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CSSS organises a talk by Hélène Guétat-Bernard
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Centre for the Study of Social Systems

School of Social Sciences

 

Invites you to  CSSS Colloquium

on

 

The death of the rivers in the Deccan

Water management and gender asymmetries in South India

 

by

Hélène Guétat-Bernard

(French Institute of Pondicherry)

 

September 12, 2019 (Thursday), 11am

CSSS Committee Room (No: 13), SSS-II

 

Abstract: The increasing climate variability and the consequences of the current agricultural system is linked to the effects of the Green Revolution on soil and water resource degradation.   Women farmers have their own social constraints and in the context of social division of labor they also have specific knowledge. At the same time, limited range of voices is left to them to defend their point of view in criticizing the model, particularly on water management, and groundwater. The concept of inter-sectionality of inequalities show that not all women have the same skills and knowledge about nature and that environmental damage does not affect all women in the same way: they are obviously more or less meaningful depending on class, race, age, etc., and the sexual division of labor. This division of women's groups is very present in our field of study between women belonging to the dominant caste of the Lingayats who own land, the lower castes of small landowners, often without wells, and the tribal communities. The example of groundwater in Chamrajnagar district, Karnataka, is a good illustration of the difficulty of thinking about water and especially, the ground table as a Common. Individualistic use of water, without collective rules, has dried up many borewells used as the principal method of irrigation, to the extent that some entire villages are coming back to rainfed agriculture. The disappearance of rivers is also the consequence of excessive use of the ground water table and lack of care of the environment. But some research makes a link between the two phenomena and rivers are disappearing in silence without any social movement (except on dam problems) or mass mobilisation. Women farmers are voiceless, even those from land owning families because water use decisions about irrigation is a male question.

 

Bio: Dr Hélène Guétat-Bernard is the Head of the Department of Social Sciences at the French Institute of Pondicherry. She has specialized in social geography and sociology of agrarian and rural changes with a focus on spatial mobility, sexual division of labour, access of resources, empowerment and gender, feminism. Her current work focuses on the agroecology as a social movement, the defense of agrobiodiversity/food quality and the links with care environment and ecofeminism based on fieldwork in India,Brazil, Sénégal, France.Coordination of an international network on Gender/feminism and Agroecology.

A warm welcome to the modified and updated website of the Centre for East Asian Studies. The East Asian region has been at the forefront of several path-breaking changes since 1970s beginning with the redefining the development architecture with its State-led development model besides emerging as a major region in the global politics and a key hub of the sophisticated technologies. The Centre is one of the thirteen Centres of the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi that provides a holistic understanding of the region.

Initially, established as a Centre for Chinese and Japanese Studies, it subsequently grew to include Korean Studies as well. At present there are eight faculty members in the Centre. Several distinguished faculty who have now retired include the late Prof. Gargi Dutt, Prof. P.A.N. Murthy, Prof. G.P. Deshpande, Dr. Nranarayan Das, Prof. R.R. Krishnan and Prof. K.V. Kesavan. Besides, Dr. Madhu Bhalla served at the Centre in Chinese Studies Programme during 1994-2006. In addition, Ms. Kamlesh Jain and Dr. M. M. Kunju served the Centre as the Documentation Officers in Chinese and Japanese Studies respectively.

The academic curriculum covers both modern and contemporary facets of East Asia as each scholar specializes in an area of his/her interest in the region. The integrated course involves two semesters of classes at the M. Phil programme and a dissertation for the M. Phil and a thesis for Ph. D programme respectively. The central objective is to impart an interdisciplinary knowledge and understanding of history, foreign policy, government and politics, society and culture and political economy of the respective areas. Students can explore new and emerging themes such as East Asian regionalism, the evolving East Asian Community, the rise of China, resurgence of Japan and the prospects for reunification of the Korean peninsula. Additionally, the Centre lays great emphasis on the building of language skills. The background of scholars includes mostly from the social science disciplines; History, Political Science, Economics, Sociology, International Relations and language.

Several students of the centre have been recipients of prestigious research fellowships awarded by Japan Foundation, Mombusho (Ministry of Education, Government of Japan), Saburo Okita Memorial Fellowship, Nippon Foundation, Korea Foundation, Nehru Memorial Fellowship, and Fellowship from the Chinese and Taiwanese Governments. Besides, students from Japan receive fellowship from the Indian Council of Cultural Relations.