India’s recent growth trajectory and the ongoing liberalization of the country’s economy have fuelled conflicts over land rights between state authorities, private investors and rural and urban populations who face threats of dispossession. This seminar will present critical perspectives on the politics of land and dispossession that draws on research in the states of Maharashtra and West Bengal, as well as new forms of “lawfare” related to land rights at the national level.
Kenneth Bo Nielsen and Joel Cabalion are postdoctoral fellows at the Department of Sociology at the University of Bergen, where they are carrying out research on social movements and the politics of land rights as part of the project “Democratizing Indian Democracy? Social Movements and the State in India – Towards a New Research Agenda”.
The event will be moderated by Hugo Stokke, Chr. Michelsen Institute