Duke Ghosh, FMP (Fellows Mobility Program)*-2006

Field of Research: Economics

Home Institution: Department of Economics, Jadavpur University

Host Institution: Australian School of Banking and Finance, University of New South Wales

Period of Research at Host Institution: May-July, 2006

Research Summary:

With the help of the FMP, I could carry out the following activities-

• Interacted with AGSM faculty/scholars who were working in the areas of Risk Management, Financial Engineering and Entrepreneurship Development

• Conducted interviews of some SMEs in Australia to understand the management characteristics, organization behaviour, business goals and various other aspects. Such interviews pointed to the problems that these SMEs were facing during my visit. The interviews were conducted through a structured questionnaire prepared under the supervision of an expert from AGSM

• Conducted interviews of officers of Financial Institutions who lend to the SMEs in Australia. These interviews were conducted to understand the risk perceptions (about SMEs) in the organized financial markets, and also the policy of such institutions about funding SMEs. The interviews pointed to the various risk management techniques followed by these institutions to mitigate credit risk. The interviews were conducted under the supervision of an expert from AGSM.    

• Studied the SME Development Strategy being followed by Australia, under the supervision of AGSM faculty

• Used the library and other available resources to understand the SME Development strategies adopted by the Australian Government.

*Please Note: The Fellows Mobility Program (FMP) was a support program for SYLFF researchers, sponsored by the Tokyo Foundation (TKFD). This support program no longer exists and has now been replaced by the SYLFF Research Abroad Award (SRA).

Madhuchanda Ghosh, FMP (Fellows Mobility Program)*- 2006

Field of Research: India-Japan Relations

Home Institution: Department of International Relations, Jadavpur University

Host Institution: Graduate School of Political Science, Waseda University

Period of Research at Host Institution: February- June, 2006

Research Summary:

With the help of an FMP, my research work was conducted on the doctoral dissertation entitled:  India and Japan: Prospects for a Strategic Convergence and was based on the research methodology of the deductive approach which tests hypothesis in the empirical field based on existing theories. The research was conducted at the Waseda University, Tokyo under the supervision of Professor Yamamoto. For getting access to the field, which included not only the Japanese Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade and Industry but also the academic experts, personal introductions were of importance. The access to data also depended to a great extent on the successful networking and construction of the researcher identity in the field.  I was able to get formal access. Research interviews of some top-ranking policymakers and dignitaries including some notable Members of Japanese Parliament were conducted.

In sum, the field research under Fellows Mobility Programme provided me in-depth knowledge and invaluable insights into the social processes in contemporary India-Japan relations.

*Please Note: The Fellows Mobility Program (FMP) was a support program for SYLFF researchers, sponsored by the Tokyo Foundation (TKFD). This program no longer exists and has now been replaced by the SYLFF Research Abroad Award (SRA).

SREERUPA SENGUPTA, SRA- 2009

Field of Research: HIV and AIDS, Gender and Human Rights, Health Communication

Home Institution: School of Women’s Studies, Jadavpur University

Host Institutions:

• Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Howard University
• The Cynthia Nelson Institute of Gender and Women’s Studies, American University in Cairo

Period of Research at Host Institutions:

• Howard University (September – October 2009)
• American University in Cairo (November 2009)

Research Summary:

With the help of the SRA, I visited two universities. In the USA, the objective was to do a comparative study between India and United States of America on the integration of rights-based approach within the public health framework in the context of HIV and AIDS. Another major concern of research was to understand the discourses on HIV, gender and human rights at the international level which influence the framework, messages and the visuals of HIV communication materials in developing countries. As part of my fieldwork I also explored the ways in which faith-based organizations engaged with issues of HIV, sexuality and gender and incorporated such issues in their everyday theological conversations.

I visited and conducted in-depth interviews in several organizations working on the issues of gender, health, health communication, HIV and human rights.

The responses from these interviews together with extensive literature review of global health policies and AIDS communication contributed towards the formulation of the conceptual framework of my research. It also helped me to plan a chapter on international and national models and practices of AIDS communication.

In Cairo, the main objective was to explore how religion has been tackled in HIV communication materials and the strategies adopted to talk about safe sex, contraception and rights of women to their bodies and sexual health given the religious diktats. Such experiences I felt will provide critical perspectives and open up new ways of thinking of designing campaigns on similar issues in India to make it more contextualized.

My fieldwork in the American University of Cairo helped me to conceptualize a chapter on religion, AIDS communication and rights.

SHYAMASREE DASGUPTA, SRA- 2010; 2013

Field of Research:  Response of Indian industries to sustainability goals with focus on energy use and emission

Home Institution: Department of Economics, Jadavpur University

Host Institution (at which the Award was tenable):

• Utrecht University School of Economics, Utrecht, Netherlands in 2010
• Joint Global Change Research Institute (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the University of Maryland collaboration) in 2013

Period of Research at Host Institution: August- November, 2010; September- December, 2013

Research Summary:

India focused on the scheme Perform Achieve and Trade (PAT) to mandate energy intensity targets for the selected energy intensive manufacturing industrial units in Indian under National Action Plan on Climate Change (2008). Underachievers either have to pay a stipulated penalty or to purchase energy saving certificates from the overachievers.

With the help of the SRA, during my visit to Utrecht School of Economics, my objective was to develop a framework for comparing the mechanism of PAT with the existing framework of European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU-ETS). The analysis suggests that for successful implementation of PAT, benchmarking and allocation, price volatility, linkage with CDM and other mechanisms, working of re-bound effect, accounting predictability and transparency of the mechanism will play important roles. In JGCRI, I aimed to extend the existing Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM) developed by the host institution with disaggregated industrial sectors for India and to analyse their response to global climate goals. Using the model, a carbon policy scenario which restricts the global mean temperature not to exceed 2ºC was run successfully. The scenario demands a sharp decline in emission from non-energy intensive industries, phasing out of coal and significant increase in the use of clean electricity in industrial production.

For more information about Shyamsree’s research, please refer to the following link:

http://www.tokyofoundation.org/sylff/13512

SHUBHASREE BHATTACHARYYA, SRA- 2010

Field of Research: Comparative Literature/Cultural Studies

Home Institution: Department of Comparative Literature, Jadavpur University

Host Institutions:

• Department of Sociology, Howard University
• Department of Political Science, York University

Period of Research at Host Institutions: September- November 2010

Research Summary:

With the help of SRA, the research at Howard University and Library of Congress, USA, encompassed work songs collected especially in the African American context. The focus was on understanding the politics of archival collections and the resultant historiography through close analysis of recordings and field notes. This work provided the background and elements for the comparative perspective of the thesis. The research at York University, Canada, was focused on soundscapes. An analysis of sonic historiography and varied approaches in sound studies helped shaping the alternative framework of engaging with work sounds proposed in the thesis.

RIMPLE MEHTA, SRA- 2012

Field of Research:  Narratives of women prisoners on Social and Political borders

Home Institution: School of Women’s Studies, Jadavpur University

Host Institution: Department of Gender Studies, Central European University

Period of Research at Host Institution: 3^rd September, 2012- 28^th February 2013

Research Summary:

Research was carried out in two detention facilities- in Ziest (The Netherlands) detention center and Bekescsaba (Hungary) detention center. The main objective of carrying out field work in these facilities was to understand the tactics and mechanisms on which migrant women rely for survival in these facilities and the ways in which systems, laws, procedures which process women shape these mechanisms.

Ziest detention center largely had women detainees from Surinam and different countries in Africa. Bekescsaba detention center had women detainees mostly from Kosovo. Love had emerged as an important tactic for survival by young Bangladeshi women in the two prisons in Kolkata where I carried out field work for my thesis. However, in Ziest and Bekescsaba detention centers though love played an important part in their narratives its functional role was different. Their interactions with male prisoners were similar to the interactions Bangladeshi women prisoners had with male prisoners. However, the difference lay in the way these interactions were viewed by different sets of women in three different contexts. What the Bangladeshi women labeled and experienced as love was seen by the different migrant women in Ziest as merely a way to pass their time. They held on to their relationships outside the detention center as sacrosanct.  This difference may be attributed to the difference in institutional structures in the three scenarios. In Bekescsaba the inmates of the detention center were allowed to use computers with internet connection. This allowed them to be in touch with their family members through Skype or emails. In Ziest they were allowed to make phone calls to their family members from the detention center. In Kolkata prisons the Bangladeshi women only had to rely on surreptitious ways to get in touch with their families. There was no institutionalized way by means of which they could get in touch with their families. While individual agency is an important consideration to make in the case of migrant women, it cannot be denied that institutional structures lie in the background of these of these agential acts and shape both the tactics as well as the narrative of those tactics. Love in the prison seemed to have an important prevalence in the lives of Bangladeshi women in the two prisons in Kolkata. On the other hand, religion seemed to play an important role in the narratives of women in detention centers in Ziest and Bekescsaba.  Therefore, agency does not manifest itself in vacuum. It adapts itself to the existing social conditions and the tactics and mechanisms used to be an agent is context specific. What may be a tactic in one context might be taken for granted as a way of living in another context. Therefore, acts of agency which contribute to the creation, recreation and preservation of identity of these women prisoners and detainees will do so differently in different contexts.

For more information about Rimple’s research, please refer to the following link:

http://www.tokyofoundation.org/sylff/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/rm-report.pdf

ANINDITA ROY, SRA- 2012

Field of Research: Narrative and Identity; Childhood Studies, Culture, and Cognition

Home Institution: School of Cognitive Science, Jadavpur University

Host Institutions:

• Department of Psychology, University of Bath
• Centre for International Research in Childhood: Literature, Culture, Media and Winnicott Research Unit, University of Reading

Period of Research at Host Institution: April- June, 2013

Research Summary:

With the help of the SRA, I could conduct an advanced research in the United Kingdom.

OBJECTIVE: Understanding existing and ongoing research in United Kingdom within paradigms of emotional adjustments in adolescents, and using these research methods for analysis on information collected in Kolkata.

METHODS EMPLOYED:

1. Development of codes based upon bonding and individuation as emergent within narratives. The codes have been generated on the basis of existing guidelines, and as an adaptation to suit the Indian context for grounded research.
2. Systematic review of longitudinal studies with emphasis on children in adverse environmental conditions and their approaches to anxiety, and aggression.
3. Thematic analysis to understand the efficacy of story- telling as a medium to interpret minds, and cognition alongside more prevalent psychological medium such as conversational analysis.
4. Advanced literature review to understand concepts and constructs of Culture and Childhood within the scope of Anthropology and Childhood Studies 

For more information about Anindita’s research, please refer to the following link:

http://www.tokyofoundation.org/sylff/12116

SREYA MAITRA ROYCHOUDHURY, SRA- 2012

Field of Research:  International Relations

Home Institution: Department of International Relations, Jadavpur University

Host Institution: Departments of International Relations and Political Science, University of Colombo

Period of Research at Host Institution: 1^st November- 1^st December, 2012

Research Summary:

The thesis examines the historical causes and the implications of armed state responses to select internal ethnic conflict situations in India and Sri Lanka and critically analyses their efficacy. The research at the host institution in Colombo, carried out with the help of the SRA was focused on gathering relevant material on the LTTE-led conflict in Sri Lanka. It involved the collection of primary data through interviews with prominent civil society actors (scholars, human rights’ activists, journalists, lawyers and government officials), systematic survey of newspaper reports, government publications and extensive review of secondary literature (mainly local publications). This was significant in developing the civil societal narrative on not just the military conflict in Sri Lanka, but also the deeper issues of the ethnic divide and the unilateral approach of the government in recent times. Local interactions with students and scholars also provided clues for sociological insights in the present traumas of the post-conflict society. The readings on the Tamil separatist movement in Sri Lanka were also helpful in building a comparative study with India, keeping in mind the differences in their operational dynamics.

For more information about Sreya’s research, please refer to the following link:

http://www.tokyofoundation.org/en/articles/2013/ethnic-conflic-in-sri-lanka

NEHA CHATTERJI, SRA- 2013

Field of Research: MODERN HISTORY

Home Institution: Centre for Historical Studies, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University

Host Institutions:

• Oriental Institute, University of Oxford
• The British Library, United Kingdom

Period of Research at Host Institutions: 4^th May- 16^th July, 2014

Research Summary:

With the help of the SRA, I am, mainly, collecting highly valuable and relevant research material from the British Library, London. I am looking at Bengali vernacular tracts produced in early twentieth century Bengal (most of which are not quite available in India now) which extensively bring out the different ways in which different castes and religious communities articulated their ideals of self-cultivation, spiritual-perfection and self-improvement. The material that I am perusing consists of invaluable resources for tracing historical movements from cultural perceptions of values and moral imperatives - from domains of the sacred, of faith and belief - to the realms of political practice, identities and contestations.

SHYAMASREE DASGUPTA, SRA- 2010; 2013

Field of Research:  Response of Indian industries to sustainability goals with focus on energy use and emission

Home Institution: Department of Economics, Jadavpur University

Host Institution (at which the Award was tenable):

• Utrecht University School of Economics, Utrecht, Netherlands in 2010
• Joint Global Change Research Institute (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the University of Maryland collaboration) in 2013

Period of Research at Host Institution: August- November, 2010; September- December, 2013

Research Summary:

India focused on the scheme Perform Achieve and Trade (PAT) to mandate energy intensity targets for the selected energy intensive manufacturing industrial units in Indian under National Action Plan on Climate Change (2008). Underachievers either have to pay a stipulated penalty or to purchase energy saving certificates from the overachievers.

With the help of the SRA, during my visit to Utrecht School of Economics, my objective was to develop a framework for comparing the mechanism of PAT with the existing framework of European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU-ETS). The analysis suggests that for successful implementation of PAT, benchmarking and allocation, price volatility, linkage with CDM and other mechanisms, working of re-bound effect, accounting predictability and transparency of the mechanism will play important roles. In JGCRI, I aimed to extend the existing Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM) developed by the host institution with disaggregated industrial sectors for India and to analyse their response to global climate goals. Using the model, a carbon policy scenario which restricts the global mean temperature not to exceed 2ºC was run successfully. The scenario demands a sharp decline in emission from non-energy intensive industries, phasing out of coal and significant increase in the use of clean electricity in industrial production.

For more information about Shyamsree’s research, please refer to the following link:

http://www.tokyofoundation.org/sylff/13512

NIKHILESH BHATTACHARYA, SRA- 2014-2

Fields of Research: Olympic Games; history of sport; field hockey; British India

Home Institution: School of Cultural Texts and Records, Jadavpur University

Host Institution: The Hockey Museum, UK

Period of Research at Host Institution: May-August, 2015

Research Summary:

My research aims to explore the intertwined roles of hockey and the Anglo-Indian community in the social life of India in the first half of the twentieth century. The SRA grant allowed me to spend three months in the UK to conduct library/archival work at three sites: one, the Hockey Museum in Woking, Surrey, which has one of the largest collections of documents, book, magazines, photographs, equipment and memorabilia connected to the game; two, the British Library, and in particular the India Office section, which has a wealth of material connected to colonial governance in British India; three, the Dockland Campus of the University of East London, which houses the British Olympic Association archives. A separate grant, from the International Olympic Committee (IOC), allowed me to spend over a month in Lausanne, Switzerland and look through the IOC archives at the Olympic Studies Centre as well as the archives at FIH, the world governing body for field hockey. My research at these five sites spread across two countries, coupled with my earlier work in the National Library in Kolkata, gave me an insight into the evolution of hockey as an international game in the inter-war years. For the Anglo-Indians, who patronised the sport in India, the same period was one of uncertainty and unease as the demand for home rule grew louder. The India Office papers contain some of the stories of how the community was trying to negotiate with the British Government to secure its future in the land where they were born.

To read the full report, please visit the link: http://www.tokyofoundation.org/sylff/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/07-Bhattacharya-SRA-2014-2.pdf

Sebanti Chatterjee, JU-SYLFF MA-level Fellow (2009-2010)

Home Institute- Jadavpur University

PhD Candidate, Delhi School of Economics, Department of Sociology, University of Delhi (2013 onwards)

Host Institute- Royal Holloway, University of London (October 10 2016- December 7 2016)

Towards an Aural Archive: Sonic Impressions of Goa and Shillong

Objectives:

1) Identify the musical styles that resonate with the present Choral and Vocal repertoire linked to Goa (15th century onwards) and Shillong (19th century onwards).

2) To locate documents in the India Office Records and Private Documents and Sound Archive of the British Library, missionary archive at the School of Oriental and African Studies and travel and missionary documents pertaining to Welsh Colonies in South Asia at the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth.

3) To understand the pedagogies-in action that (used to be and) are ordered around the protocols of Trinity College, London: the first and the widely popular Examination Board across India.

Methods Employed:

I embarked on organizing my literature review specific to the research objectives. After being directed towards certain documents, I immersed myself into the process. In each library, I had a different approach. At the British Library (BL), I spent a lot of time reading and creating a database for the two months apart from looking at documents, manuscripts and books at the India Office Records, Music and Rare Books and the Sound Archive. At SOAS, I focused on the London Missionary Society documents and records related to Goa and the South of India. For Trinity College documents, I had to visit the old office building at Blue Fin followed by the Trinity Laban library at Greenwich. I was constantly guided by Mark Hunter, Jackie Rosewell and Claire Kidwell during the process of accessing data relevant to understand the presence of Trinity College as one of the foremost examination boards and a marker of musical knowledge across India. At the National Library of Wales (NLW), the Calvinist Methodist Archive (CMA) has a remarkable collection of data for researchers working on North-East India. Given the time constraint, I focused on personal letters and documents of those working in hospitals and education centres.

Major Findings:

The CMA at the NLW pointed me to data that helped me trace hymn singing in the Khasi Hills and how the Presbyterian Church seamlessly became part of their culture, despite initial clashes with their indigenous traditions. The manuscript of Thomas Stephens found at SOAS will be helpful in understanding the origin of Krista Purana and its rejuvenated practice in Goa in the present times. Trinity College Archives allowed me to rethink my section on pedagogy in my thesis. Finally, the BBC 3 Shillong Chamber Choir interview that I found at the Sound archive of the BL, is very crucial in understanding the role of media in image construction of the Choir. The time spent collating books and materials available at the music and rare books section proved to be most productive for generating writing ideas.

To see the full report, please visit http://www.tokyofoundation.org/sylff/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Report-for-SRA-Sebanti.pdf

REEP PANDI LEPCHA, SRA- 2016

Field of Research: Narratology, Oral History, Folklore

Home Institution: Jadavpur University

Host Institutions:

§  Department of Estonian and Comparative Folklore, University of Tartu

§  Leiden University Libraries

Period of Research at the Host Universities:

§  University of Tartu (April-June 2016)

§  Leiden University (July-August 2016)

Research summary:

My research focuses on the oral narratives of the Lepchas, who are autochthonous to Sikkim. The research involves collecting and corroborating narratives while analysing the contents for situations which directly comment on the identity, history and socio-cultural existence of the community.

 My visit to the Department of Estonian and Comparative Folklore, University of Tartu was to primarily develop the methodological and theoretical approaches of my thesis. Through interactions with faculty members and also distinguished visiting professors, provided me with an opportunity to discuss my research at length with the experts. My comprehension about the discipline of folklore improved through these interactions and lectures which I attended, this is clearly reflected in my work.

With the help of SRA I was also able to access the 182 Lepcha manuscripts in the Van Manen Collection, Leiden University.  This was important, as it has been decades since these manuscripts have been removed from the community, so it was important for me to examine the contents of these manuscripts in order to understand what was recorded in them. There always existed speculations among the people from the Lepcha community regarding these manuscripts, on close examination, I was able to draw a conclusion that majority of the manuscripts although in Lepcha script mainly comprised of translations of Buddhist religious texts.

 For more information please refer to the following link:

http://www.tokyofoundation.org/sylff/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/8cd21e14f7d2a218c01c04e4c5b0be5d.pdf