南アジア研究関連新着情報 2015/10/05
11/14開催 国際会議Social Transformation and Cultural Change in South Asiaのご案内
秋晴の候、皆さまにはいよいよご清栄のこととお慶び申し上げます。
東京外国語大学現代インド研究センター（FINDAS）では、11月14日（土）9時半より、大東文化大学との共催国際会議「Social Transformation and Cultural Change in South Asia: From the Perspectives of the Socio-Economic Periphery（南アジアにおける社会運動と文化変容――周縁からのアプローチ）」を開催いたします。
http://www.tufs.ac.jp/ts/society/findas/archives/1735
ご多忙の時期と存じますが、ふるってご参加いただきますようお願い申し上げます。
※予約不要で、どなたでもご参加できます。
2015年度 FINDAS・大東文化大学共催国際会議
「Social Transformation and Cultural Change in South Asia: From the Perspectives of the Socio-Economic Periphery（南アジアにおける社会運動と文化変容――周縁からのアプローチ）」
日時：2015年11月14日（土）9：30－20：00
場所：大東文化大学東松山キャンパス 管理棟3階大会議室
http://www.daito.ac.jp/english/access/index.html
The International Conference Organized by
The Graduate School of Asian Area Studies, Daito Bunka University
The Institute of Modern Asian Studies, Daito Bunka University
The Institute of Oriental Studies, Daito Bunka University
The Center for Modern India Studies, Tokyo University of Foreign Languages
Acharya Bangalore B School, India
Keynote Address
Takashi Shinoda (Professor, Daito Bunka University)
South Asia has become one of the growing centers in the developing world after economic liberalization and globalization in the recent years. Accordingly, the area has gone through various changes that have resulted in enlarging disparities among regions, religious groups, social groups, income groups and rural/urban divisions. This social transformation has also brought about cultural changes in the mode and function of various social organizations such as family, caste and local community, and has changed the code of conduct and the sense of values.
What kind of influence has this rapid social change had on a life of people particularly who belonged to the periphery of the society such as minorities, weaker sections, subaltern, dalits, adivasis and backward classes? How have those who belonged to the periphery tried to explore their new code of conduct and identity through their political, social and religious movements?
In this one-day workshop we are interested in papers with a theoretical perspective and empirical data on social transformation and cultural change from the perspectives of the socio-economic periphery.
Date: 14th November, 2015
Venue: Convention Hall, 3F, Administration Bldg.
Higashimatsuyama Campus, Daito Bunka University
560 Iwadono, Higashimatsuyama-shi, Saitama, 355-8501, Japan
PROGRAM
The 1st Session, Economics (9:30-12:00)
1. Changing Face of Micro Financing: Unveiling the Human Face
H. R. Venkatesha (Director, Acharya Bangalore B School
2. The Role of Financial Institutions and Foreign Employment in the Recovery from the Damage by the Earthquake in Nepal
Toshihiko Suda (Professor, Daito Bunka University)
3. Food and Identity among the Students of Gujarat Vidyapith
Takashi Shinoda (Professor, Daito Bunka University)
4. Gender, Labour and Women’s Work: Issues, Experiences and Debates in India
Indrani Mazumdar (Senior Fellow & Associate Professor, Centre for Women’s Development
Studies)
Discussant: Shinkichi Taniguchi (Professor, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies)
Abhay Joshi（Lecturer, Kanazawa Seiryo University）
Chair: Masahiko Togawa (Associate Professor, Hiroshima University)
Kiyoshi Sugimoto (Lecturer, Tokai University)
Lunch (12:00-13:00)
The 2nd Session, Society and Culture (13:00-15:30)
1. Coming Face to Face with God: Gandhi’s Temple Entry Movements
Tridip Suhrud (Director, Sabarmati Ashram Preservation)
2. Constructing Communities of Devotion and Affection: The Role of Churches in India
Takako Inoue (Professor, Daito Bunka University)
3. Adivasi Search for Self Identity in Gujarat
Achyut Yagnik (Founder-Secretary, Setu- Centre for Social Knowledge and Action)
4. Still out of Place?: Women in Public Space in Contemporary Nepal
Seika Sato (Professor, Teikyo University)
Discussant: Shinya Ishizaka (Associate Professor, Ehime University)
Misako Kanno (Junior Fellow, Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa)
Chair: Sachiyo Komaki (Professor, Takasaki City University of Economics)
Kodai Konishi (Associate Professor, Tokyo Gakugei University)
Tea Break (15:30-16:00)
General Discussion (16:00-17:30)
Discussant: Hideaki Ishida (Professor, Daito Bunka University)
Chair: Kodai Konishi (Associate Professor, Tokyo Gakugei University)
Kiyoshi Sugimoto (Lecturer, Tokai University)
Conference Dinner (18:00-20:00)
ABSTRACT
The 1st Session, Economics (9:30-12:00)
1. Changing Face of Micro Financing: Unveiling the Human Face / H. R. Venkatesha (Director, Acharya Bangalore B School)
Micro finance has come a long way. Micro finance under laissez fair, government regulation, without/with national and international support, with research inputs and professional managers’,
Micro financing has shown many ‘faces’. But micro finance has not passed the human face phase.
MFIs have to think and act differently. It is need of the hour for MFIs to look beyond lending loan. The human face of MFIs can be unveiled in the following ways: A. Pre and Post-disbursement financial literacy needs to be researched and introduced. Most of the beneficiaries of MFIs are neither educated nor taught about utilization of borrowed money, resulting in squandering of borrowed money.
B. There is a need for developing and organizing social and political mechanism to fulfill unproductive, but necessary requirements of the beneficiaries like food, housing, medical, and education for children, ritual and ceremonies. Can MFIs form and work with NGOs/Government/Philanthropic institutions to guarantee the above social security requirements of the beneficiaries.
C. Entrepreneurship skill development is another yeoman service MFIs can do. Walking with the beneficiaries in their entrepreneurship journey would not only help the beneficiaries, but also facilitates proper recovery of the debts.
D. In order to give human touch to the activities of MFIs, they can venture into the following.
・ Employee code of conduct by MFIs.
・Establish grievance redress mechanisms.
・Free Medical Checkup for clients.
・ Medical Insurance.
・Coordinating benefit program from Government and other organizations.
・Researching mechanisms to reduce the cost of micro financing.
・Advocating with Governments and financial institutions to lend fund to MFIs at lower rate of interest under beneficiary friendly terms.
This paper attempts to decipher the ways and means in which MFIs can unveil the human face in micro financing.
2. The Role of Financial Institutions and Foreign Employment in the Recovery from the Damage by the Earthquake in Nepal / Toshihiko Suda (Professor, Daito Bunka University)
Nepal was hit by a devastating earthquake in April 2015. The death toll amounted to more than 8700. It also damaged numerous houses. The number of “fully collapsed or beyond repairs” buildings reached 499 thousand and the damage of houses (replacement cost of destroyed houses etc.) is estimated as much as 13% of GDP.
The author surveyed the damage of the earthquake and how the damage of houses will be recovered in an earthquake hit village. The result of the field survey revealed that 98% of the total houses (1429 households) were classified as “fully collapsed or damaged beyond repair.” although nobody was killed. The government prohibited to live in these damaged houses and most of them must be replaced by new houses.
The cost of making a new house is expected to be from 3 to 10 lac NPR (Nepalese Rupee) or more depending on the size and the materials. It is equivalent to 5 to 10 years’ income for many households. The government will provide subsidy and low interest long term housing loan. The loan will be provided to each household through financial institutions like banks and credit cooperatives.
In conclusion, following two factors are essential for the smooth recovery from the damage by the earthquake: (1) efficient and sustainable financial institutions which enable supply of long term loans to many households including the poor and (2) high level and stable income sources for repayment of large and long term loans. For the first requirement, experiences of micro financial institutions (MFIs) should be shared among all financial institutions involved in housing loan since MFIs have rich experiences of lending to / collection from a large number of small clients. For the second requirement, already common foreign employment for Nepalese like employment in Gulf countries shall be further encouraged. Collaboration between financial institutions and manpower exporting companies will also increase resilience from the damage by the earthquake.
3. Food and Identity among the Students of Gujarat Vidyapith / Takashi Shinoda (Professor, Daito Bunka University)
This paper is aimed at analyzing food and identity among the Post Graduate (PG) students of Gujarat Vidyapith, which was founded by M.K.Gandhi in 1920. In recent years most of the students belong to the backward classes from all over Gujarat. The author conducted a survey during 2012-14 on the food habits of PG students through questionnaire and group interviews. This paper intends to reveal changes in food and identity as follows.
There were fairly diversified types of grain consumption ten years ago, but various miscellaneous millets seem to be losing grounds which are substituted by wheat in recent years in Gujarat. Moreover, deployment of sales network and outlets made it possible for consumers even in a remote village to buy fast food and soft drinks, resulting in the unification of food culture across regions.
The disparity of food items and food culture among the social groups tends to decrease in the past ten years. Sanskritization has been working as a very important factor for reorganizing food culture as is shown in the survey results regarding the massive shift of food culture from non-vegetarian to vegetarianism among the Backward Classes. Sanskritization has been promoted and enhanced by the Hindutva movement and the religious movement like the Swaminarayan and the Swadhyaya movement in Gujarat.
In this paper, the author emphasized the necessity to regard fasting as the very important aspect of food culture. Although individual difference was large about the motive and reason for fasting, the fasting was also affected strongly by the influence of social political change and religious movement.
To conclude, change of food culture has been closely related with the reorganization of identities in terms of region, social group and economic class. This reorganization of identities has been strongly affected by globalization, Sanskritization and various political and religious movements as far as food culture is concerned.
4. Gender, Labour and Women’s Work:Issues, Experiences and Debates in India / Indrani Mazumdar (Senior Fellow & Associate Professor, Centre for Women’s Development Studies)
Terms and concepts such as ‘women’s empowerment’, ‘gender and development’ have become part of the routine language of international bodies, government institutions in developing countries, and Non-governmental organizations (NGOs), particularly in south Asia. A parallel level of discourse around ‘informal sector/economy’, ‘feminization of labour’ also has much currency in academic literature; the former originating in the 1970s, while the latter is of slightly later vintage and linked to policies and practices of globalization and related trends towards flexibilisation of labour.
This paper argues that these terms that are so routinely used and have so much currency are methodologically and empirically inadequate for framing analysis of actual trends in work, employment and labour for women in India. It plots the course of theoretical debates from ‘Women in Development (WID)’ to Gender and Development (GAD)’ against experiences and trends in the forms of women’s labour in India, and posits the need for a more structural approach that is grounded in the historical experiences of the contemporary phase of capitalist development, and foregrounds the centrality of the agrarian question in the framing an appropriate approach to the forms of gendered labour in India.
Drawing on empirical trends in women’s employment, the paper demonstrates that far from feminization of labour, India has seen declines in women’s work participation rates. and even an absolute fall in the number of women workers during its most distinctive phase of accelerated GDP growth. Further, despite the high share of informal work in women’s employment, a persistently low share of women in informal sector employment suggests that there is less of an intrinsic relationship between informality, gender and labour than is often assumed.
The 2nd Session, Society and Culture (13:00-15:30)
1. Coming Face to Face with God: Gandhi’s Temple Entry Movements / Tridip Suhrud (Director, Sabarmati Ashram Preservation)
One of the marks of untouchability is the restriction of temple entry. It is a denial like no other. It denies one the right to come face to face with the Divine; to gaze upon the divine and in turn be gazed upon by Him/Her. The temple entry movement was one of the features of M K Gandhi’s struggle against untouchability. The paper would examine two moments/ movements which sought to address this right of temple entry. These are the Vaikom Satyagraha and the temple entry debates in Travancore area. These occur at two different points in Gandhi’s understanding of untouchability and indicate the evaluation of his ideas, which occur also because of his dialogue with Dr B R Ambedakar.
2. Constructing Communities of Devotion and Affection: The Role of Churches in India / Takako Inoue (Professor, Daito Bunka University)
This paper concerns the construction of Christian communities with a focus on churches in metropolitan cities. It also examines the role of churches by focusing on the various activities
carried out by both the clergy and congregation. I pay particular attention to the importance of their mental aspects that help to inspire a sense of belonging and unity, as well as the feeling of
security that is provided by those who share the same feelings of devotion and affection; a typically virtuous mentality prevalent among Christians.
Over the past two decades, Christians living in metropolitan cities in India have faced serious problems. They belong to the religious minority in India with Christians constituting only 2.3% of the total population, according to the 2011 census. Recently, anti-Christian violence has been increasing as communal tension between Christians and Hindus mount. Additionally, as this religious exclusiveness spreads across India, city dwellers, who consist primarily of immigrants that left their native villages, usually find many difficulties in daily life ranging from a lack of help, cooperation, collaboration, and communication as well as an inaccessible secure safety net that should have been provided by the government.
To understand how Christians enhance their sense of devotion and affection and how their communities consolidate their mutual relations, based on my fieldwork out on Bangalore and Chennai, I explain how church festivals are important gatherings that attract large congregations, how church choirs allow the congregation to express themselves through songs, and the benefit of charitable activities for disabled children. I also refer to the vast diversity of Indian Christians based on caste, language, and ethnicity, as well as their diverse sects that cause scattering of small groups and sects that can barely collaborate.
3. Adivasi Search for Self Identity in Gujarat / Achyut Yagnik (Founder-Secretary,Setu-Centre for Social Knowledge and Action)
The Adivasi community, mainly concentrated in the central belt of India, extending from Gujarat to Assam is facing multiple challenges and one of the major challenges is search for meaningful self identity. For more than hundred years, various groups and subgroups of Adivasi have been struggling for upward mobility and adopting different routes to get self identity in India and Gujarat. While most of the Adivasi opted for ‘assimilation’ approach by adopting religion and language of the main stream of Gujarat society, a minority section among them advanced ‘assertion ‘ approach by raising their voice for Adivasi heritage, culture and worldview.
With a focus of Gujarat, I would like to trace social change among Adivasi community and their struggle for positive identity during last hundred years. Previous to last quarter of the 19th
Century, by and large, their life-pattern was marked by food gathering, hunting and shifting cultivation. They were considered ‘uncivilized, uncouth and primitive’ by mainstream society. With increasing access to education and employment, they came in contact with the mainstream Gujarati society and stared looking for ways to establish positive identity. In the early decade of the twentieth century a small section of the community, joined Bhagat movement or Christian sect in the north and central Gujarat. Parallel to them from third decade, many groups in south Gujarat came under the spell of Gandhian workers. Such interactions led them towards Hindu or Christian religious folds. From third quarter of the twentieth century, more and more sections of Adivadsi community joined modern Hindu sects under the influence of Swaminarayan sects and Vishwa Hindu Parishad programmes.
In 2001 Census, vast majority of them, about 97.8% claimed affinity with Hindu religion. Interestingly, a small section of younger Adivasi established ‘Adivasi Ekta Parishad’ in the last
decade of the twentieth century and started asserting Adivasi heritage and culture. Throughout the eastern Adivasi belt, the Parishad has been acquiring greater support from the younger generation of Adivasi community. It appears that the ‘assertion’ approach may get further support among the Adivasi of Gujarat in coming years.
4. Still out of Place?: Women in Public Space in Contemporary Nepal / Seika Sato (Professor, Teikyo University)
In the state-restructuring process after the Maoist insurgency, hitherto marginalized social groups in Nepal have been actively demanding the full and equal participation or ‘inclusion’ into every public sphere of the society. So far the demand appears to have mainly revolved around proportional representations across various – political, administrate, educational, professional, and other -arenas of Nepali society. What is more than obvious here is that number-crunching practice only is not enough in order for a fully ‘inclusive’ society to be realized. While balanced participation /representation of various groups in every sphere of society is certainly important, the balance should not be mistaken as the achievement of inclusion in itself, especially when it is realized by reservation. What is equally important to consider is the conditions that enable or hinder people from diverse walks of life to participate in every sphere in substantial and meaningful way.
This paper attempts to shed light on one of those conditions – the organization of public space such as street, workplace, or other public facilities – from the viewpoint of one of those hitherto marginalized minority groups: women. Given participating in public life basically presupposes physical presence in public space, the way they are taken / treated there matters profoundly. Traditionally in Nepal, women have been deemed to belong to her ‘home’. So, what is happening, when they try to go out of home and venture into public space, to fully participate in public life? Mainly based on the interviews of working women across class and occupational standings on their work and lives conducted in Kathmandu, physical, social, or cultural barriers women face when they go out of home and how they react against or negotiate those barriers will be explicated. What it takes to annul or overcome those barriers will make another issue to be explored.
ご不明な点がございましたら、FINDAS事務局（ findas_office@tufs.ac.jp ）までご連絡をいただけますと幸いです。
お手数をおかけいたしますが、どうぞよろしくお願い申し上げます。
FINDAS事務局
鈴木真弥