Conference on multitude and democracy at OKDISCD

Guwahati, Feb 16: The Omeo Kumar Das Institute of Social Change and Development in collaboration with Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), Norway is going to organize an intertiol conference on Multitude and Democracy: Experiences from Northeast India and Myanmar on February 19 & 20, stated a press release.  The conference is an attempt to engage with the idea of democracy through the conceptual apparatus of “multitude” that tries to accommodate within it innumerable differences and contradictions in terms of cultures, ethnicities, races, sexual orientations etc. This would also address different autonomist, separatist and secessionist movements within their historical contexts and try to understand how these movements are related and poised in contradiction to the vision of democracy as practiced by the states. The issue of women’s empowerment in democracy is an important theme of this conference. It proposes to look critically how the issue of women’s representation and gender inequality has been addressed by the tion state as well as its contesting movements. The conference would see the participation of scholars from different intertiol academic institutions like London School of Economics, UK; University of Kent, UK; University of the Basque Country, Spain; Stockholm University, Sweden;  School of Oriental and African Studies, UK; University of London, UK; University of Ghent, Belgium and Mahidol University, Thailand. It would also see the participation of scholars from various reputed tiol academic institutions like tiol Institute of Advanced Studies and Jawaharlal University apart from the participants of the host institutions. The Keynote Ambiguities of Sovereignty: The Politics of Peace in Northeast India would be delivered by Prof. Sanjib Baruah of Bard College, New York at the Conference Hall of the Institute on February 19 at 3.30pm.