Category: Archives & Recordings

Tuesday, October 8th, 2019

12:30 PM-1:45 PM

Chung-wen Shih Conference. Room – Suite 503

Elliott School of International Affairs

1957 E Street, NW, Washington, DC 20052

Event Description:
Is the process of state building a unilateral, national venture, or is it something more collaborative, taking place in the interstices between adjoining countries? To answer this question, this book takes a comparative look at the state building process along China, Myanmar, and Thailand’s common borderland area. It shows that the variations in state building among these neighboring countries are the result of an interactive process that occurs across national boundaries.

Departing from existing approaches that look at such processes from the angle of singular, bounded territorial states, the book argues that a more fruitful method is to examine how state and nation building in one country can influence, and be influenced by, the same processes across borders. It argues that the success or failure of one country’s state building is a process that extends beyond domestic factors such as war preparation, political institutions, and geographic and demographic variables. Rather, it shows that we should conceptualize state building as an interactive process heavily influenced by a “neighborhood effect.” Furthermore, the book moves beyond the academic boundaries that divide arbitrarily China studies and Southeast Asian studies by providing an analysis that ties the state and nation building processes in China with those of Southeast Asia.

About the Speaker:
Enze Han is an Associate Professor at the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Hong Kong. His research interests include ethnic politics in China, China’s relations with Southeast Asia, and the politics of state formation in the borderland area between China, Myanmar and Thailand. Previously he was Senior Lecturer at the Department of Politics and International Studies at SOAS, University of London. His research has been supported by the Leverhulme Research Fellowship, and British Council/Newton Fund. During 2015-2016, he was a Friends Founders’ Circle Member of the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, USA. He is the author of Asymmetrical Neighbours: Borderland State Building between China and Southeast Asia (Oxford University Press, 2019), and Contestation and Adaptation: The Politics of National Identity in China (Oxford University Press, 2013).

Wednesday, September 18, 2019

12:00 PM – 1:15 PM

Room 505

Elliott School of International Affairs

1957 E Street NW, Washington, DC 20052

Grounded in multidisciplinary and multi-pronged research, Dr. Rajput presents the results of an important scholarly work that enhances an understanding of conflict-induced internal displacement in comparative, institutional, and human perspectives. The content ranges from high-level interviews, ethnographic participant-observation and oral histories to policy analysis, taking the audience to not only the geographically dispersed societies across the globe, but across societal levels: comparing national elite policy and institutional actors with the lived experience of families within compartmentalized ‘migrant townships’.

Focused primarily on the forcibly displaced Kashmiri Pandits, forced out from Kashmir Valley in 1989, the analysis also includes case studies of similarly displaced communities of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Serbia, and Sudan (Darfur).

The book helps answer two of the most perplexing questions surrounding conflict-induced protracted displacement, namely:  how do positions embraced by key actors inform IDP policies, and why despite the official return policies, families remain reluctant to return and equally reluctant to embrace host communities?

About the Speaker:
Dr. Sudha G. Rajput is the author of Internal Displacement and Conflict: The Kashmiri Pandits in Comparative Perspective (Routledge). Her 31-year career at the World Bank touched on multiple aspects of international development, working on thirteen countries of the former Soviet Union. Her co-authored book chapters appear in Scientific Explorations of Cause and Consequence across Social Contexts (Praeger) and in State, Society, and Minorities in Southeast Asia (Lexington Books). She writes for the Forced Migration Review. Her doctoral research has investigated issues of conflict-induced displacement in Kashmir, with a focus on societal and policy reform, leading her efforts to the development of a graduate course, Refugees and IDP Issues, drawing students from fields of conflict resolution, international development, humanitarian assistance and peace-building.

She is a Senior Researcher at the Refugee Law Initiative, a U.K. based think-tank. She is a Consultant/Trainer for USAID, designing and conducting capacity building workshops in Khartoum, Sudan, promoting cross-border co-existence. As a Professional Lecturer, at George Washington University, she teaches at the
Elliott School of International Affairs, where she brings multi-disciplinary approaches to her course on Refugee and Migrant Crisis. She is a trainer for the Forage Center for Peacebuilding Education, where during a 4-day humanitarian assistance simulation, she coaches students on systematic understanding of protracted displacements. She teaches at the University of Maryland Global Campus, delivering the MBA program for the military students. Her interests on post-conflict issues include her past travels to: Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Sudan, and Ukraine.