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FRIHUMSAM-Fri prosj.st. hum og sam

Democratizing Indian Democracy? Social Movements and the State in India: Towards a New Research Agenda

Alternative title: Å Demokratisere Indias Demokrati - Sosiale Bevegelser og den Indiske Staten: Mot en Ny Forskningsagenda

Awarded: NOK 3.6 mill.

India today is a country marked by extreme contrasts: the country's impressive rates of economic growth and new-found importance in international society contrasts with persistent poverty and increasing inequality among vulnerable social groups. Yet at the same time, many of the groups that have been excluded from India's recent growth story have been mobilizing politically to improve their standard of living and to challenge the structures of power that have left them on the margins of development. And t he primary aim of this project is to assess the extent to which these social movements are capable of deepening Indian democracy in a way that promotes social justice and political participation. The project has looked at the relationship between social movements, the state and democracy in India in a long-term perspective and in ethnographic depth. Starting its investigation in the 1920s, when mass mobilization for Indian independence from colonial rule started to gather momentum, the research has sought to understand how the Indian state was shaped by the freedom movement, and, conversely, how the state that emerged after independence in 1947 related to the political claims and demands of marginalized social groups in the country. Simultaneously, the project has looked in depth at social movements in contemporary India in order to understand how vulnerable groups mobilize to gain social rights and protect their livelihoods in the context of a globalizing economy. The project has been carried out by a team of three researchers (a principal investigator and two postdoctoral researchers) and has resulted in a series of publications that, taken together, define a new research agenda for the study of democracy and development in India. The research team is currently working on an extensive monograph as well as a series of articles for peer-reviewed journals based on the project.

To what extent are social movements capable of deepening democracy in India? This is the central question to be addressed in this research project, which will seek to develop a new research agenda on the relationship between social movements and the state in India. Drawing on the Principal Investigator's long-standing engagement in the field, a 3-member research team will address this question through an ambitious agenda of empirical research that comprises (a) a historical-sociological analysis of the ch anging character of relationships between social movements and the state in India, (b) an ethnographic exploration of the emergence of rights-based legislation in India and its relationship to the politics of social movements, and (c) an ethnographic expl oration of popular resistance to development-induced displacement. In addition, an international seminar series will (a) broaden the empirical scope of the project and (b) contribute to the forging of a global scholarly network in this research field. Pro ceeding through a comprehensive and critical dialogue with existing scholarship in this field, the project will seek to craft an innovative conceptual framework that puts the dialectic of enablement and constraint that characterize the encounters of subal tern groups with the Indian state at the centre of its analytical optic. This ambition is also reflected in the methodological design, which combines a range of qualitative data collection techniques that will allow the research team to decipher the mutua lly constitutive relationship between macro-structural master change processes and the micro-processual space-time rhythms of ethnographic sites. In addition to putting forth a new research agenda through a series of prestigious publications, the project will promote the formation of a global network of scholars working in this research field, and make a decisive and lasting contribution to global development as a strategic research area at the University of Bergen.

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FRIHUMSAM-Fri prosj.st. hum og sam