JNU | RTI | Directory | Contact Us | Emergency Services | List of Holidays
-A A +A

Lively Commodities, Nonhuman Labour, Encounter Value

Lively Commodities, Nonhuman Labour, Encounter Value

Event End Date
Event Title
Lively Commodities, Nonhuman Labour, Encounter Value
Event Details
<strong>Centre for the Study of Social Systems School of Social Sciences</strong> <strong>CSSS Colloquium</strong> <strong>Dr. Maan Barua</strong> (School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford) a paper on <strong>Lively Commodities, Nonhuman Labour, Encounter Value</strong> Date: <strong>28 January 2016</strong> <strong>Abstract: </strong>Rendering nonhuman life for sale is a fundamental facet of contemporary capitalism. Political economy extensively examines how nature is commodified, but fails to analyze the difference liveliness of animals makes to processes of commodification. Drawing upon empirical work on lions and elephants in the political economies of tourism and biodiversity conservation in India, this talk proposes analytics for understanding commodification and accumulation in relational and less humanist terms. First, it develops Donna Haraway's concepts of 'lively commodities' and 'encounter value', foregrounding animal ecologies to rework political economic categories of the commodity, labour and production in more-than-human terms. Second, it examines how lively commodities and encounter value configure political economies, mapping their specificities and economic potential. The talk advances potential diagnostics and vocabularies through which ecology and non-dualist accounts of agency might be integrated into the nature-as-resources approach of political economy. <strong>Bio Data: </strong>Maan Barua is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the School of Geography and the Environment. His research is focused on generating new understandings of the politics, spatialities and governance of the living and material world, engaging political ecology and posthumanist thought. Of particular interest are nonhuman ecologies and processes pertaining to production, landscape and knowledge, and situations in which different ecological epistemologies are brought into conflict. Maan's past and ongoing research projects include work on animals' geographies, nonhuman labour and the economy, and most recently postcolonial urban ecologies. Maan has a DPhil in Geography from the University of Oxford, and is an Early Career Fellow of Somerville College.

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.