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The following event announcement is being forwarded to your mailing

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contact event organizers directly for any further information.

David Magier

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/indiv/southasia/cuvl/

 

==============

 

WATERS OF HOPE?

 

The role of water in South Asian Development

Nordic Association for South Asian Studies (NASA) Bi-annual Conference

Voss, Norway, 20-22 September 2001.

 

Call for papers

 

Aims of the conference

 

The main aim of the conference is to put more firmly water on the Nordic

research agenda on development issues in South Asia. The conference

will present a mix of well-established and new water-related research

topics through keynote lectures, contributed papers, and films, in order

to stimulate more attention to investigate the complex society-water

relations in a comparative framework. The logic of the theme calls in

particular for multi- and interdisciplinary approaches.

 

 

Venue and time

 

The conference will be held from Thursday Sept. 20 through Saturday

Sept. 22 2001. Venue will be Fleischers Hotel (www.Fleischers.no) at

Voss, a village and famous tourist resort located in the midst of

magnificent Norwegian mountains. Voss is reached by 45 minutes train

journey from Bergen, or six hours from Oslo.

 

Suggested topics for plenaries

 

Water and Regional Conflicts

 

Current scenarios for freshwater needs predict an escalation of water

acquisition strategies dominated by the two largest Asian states, India

and China. These states are expected to pursue strategies at the expense

of less powerful states, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal. India and

Chinas competitive strategies are also seen emerging in highly

contested agreements and negotiations between for example India and

Bangladesh and between India and Nepal on ownership and access to

supplies through diversions, damming and inter-basin transfers. The

escalation of this demand, together with a deteriorating water quality

and increasing supply deficit could cause regional conflicts, with

potentially devastating consequences.

 

On the other hand, current and emerging riparian co-operations may

indicate a stronger recognition of the overall importance of economic

and social development which brings one closer to embark on new

large-scale interregional projects (such as in the Eastern Himalayas).

Changes in global patterns of winds, rainfall zones and pressures appear

to influence the long drought in Rajasthan and seasonal floods and

droughts in Bengal due to the shifts in temperature and heat in the

words major oceans. What are the possible implications of climate

change for food production, food security, and disaster preparedness and

ultimately for the security scenarios outlined above?

 

Water management and Development

 

This theme invites interdisciplinary analysis of selected cases of water

control systems, distinguishing four major dimensions; the institutional

dimension, the socio-cultural, the economic-political and the

technical/physical dimension. The approach invites a framework that

relates to the interfaces between national institutions (such as the

parliaments and central drinking water/irrigation departments) and the

local management and technical systems (such as traditional methods of

water harvesting, micro hydro power, access to groundwater, drinking

water supply), and their gendered and socially differentiated users.

 

Water, Health and Poverty

 

We know that water plays a major part in the formidable environmental

health problems faced by South Asia. The theme invites disciplinary and

interdisciplinary analyses of the connections between culture and the

environmental consequences of modern agriculture, water control, health

care systems and poverty. Among the many environmental health problems

we could mention that only an estimated 20 per cent of the continent's

population have access to safe drinking water facilities. In Nepal and

Bhutan as much as two-thirds of the population do not have safe water.

The child mortality records show a staggeringly high incidence of

gastro-enteritis and other waterborne diseases. Continuous and

indiscriminate patting of underground water depletes the water table,

excessive use of toxic fertiliser probably triggers chemical changes in

the soil and the occurrence of arsenic poisoning. In some areas

environmental health problems are made worse by salination of freshwater

caused by depletion of the seashore mangrove forests, in other areas by

the stagnant water in vast flood control structures.

 

Ritual Aspects of Water

 

In practical terms, water may be categorised as fit for drinking,

washing, energy generation, or irrigation, according to degrees of

chemical or biological pollution. In addition to such a material

typology, water is ascribed the quality of religiously purifying

powers. Water is an essential part of Hindu as well as of Islamic

rituals, and as such may be used as an analytic intake to the study of

those systems of thinking about the world. For example, Sadhus of the

Pasupatinath temple in Kathmandu no longer use water from the holy river

Bagmati to clean the deities, due to heavy biological pollution of the

river. It seems, then, that culture (ritually cleansing water) is

somehow related to nature (biological pollution). Socially as well,

water is used as a marker of rank and exclusion, in the manner that

water cannot be accepted from certain castes (Nepali: pani nachalne

jat). It is a question, then, how such ritual or indigenous perceptions

intervene into development schemes of water.

 

Abstracts specifiations:

 

We welcome abstracts within these themes, and also encourage to submit

abstracts even if the themes listed above do not fit your research

field. The abstracts should not overcome 350 words, and should be

written preferably in Times New Roman, font 12. Please send the

abstracts to nasaconf as an attachment (preferably) or

embodied in the email. It is also possible to send by ordinary mail.

Deadline for abstract: June 1st.

 

Visit the webpage for more information: http://www.svf.uib.no/sfu/nasa