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NEISP is organising a seminar by Nima Lamu Yolmo

NEISP is organising a seminar by Nima Lamu Yolmo

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NEISP is organising a seminar by Nima Lamu Yolmo
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MONTHLY SEMINAR SERIES

 

NORTH EAST INDIA STUDIES PROGRAMME

SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

JAWAHARLAL NEHRU UNIVERSITY

 

For those who wait: Money, Time and Infrastructures in Manipur, North-East India

 

Nima Lamu Yolmo

University of California-Irvine, USA & Visiting Scholar, NEISP

 

Since the 1990s, efforts towards financial literacy and financial inclusion have increasingly veered towards cashless digitized payment systems. In more recent times, NGOs, telecommunications providers, banks and philanthropic organizations have advocated digital technologies based on their potential to eliminate trips to distant banks and long queues (IMF Financial Access Survey 2016). The lack/inadequacy of infrastructures, within such a framework, tend to be regarded as primarily as hurdles to be overcome in transitioning to a more efficient transactional system. In this paper, I seek to problematize this framework by drawing from my field-work experience in Manipur where ATMs frequently break down, and banks are regularly beset with “link-failure.” As long hours of wait around these infrastructures have become commonplace, general conversations on the use and changes brought about money infrastructures tend to meld seamlessly into commentary on rising prices, frequent shutdowns, corruption, state apathy, exclusion from “development”, and “taxation” by insurgent groups. I argue that focusing on the everyday realities in Manipur --with its stark security and infrastructural concerns, as well as earlier histories of thriving trade and commerce (Cederlof 2014) -- enables us to better assess the assumed ameliorative potentials and portable efficacy of digitized financial inclusion efforts. Furthermore, attending to the generative influence and pragmatics of money infrastructures in places like Manipur has the potential to crucially inform and expand our horizons of what money can mean or do.

 

DATE:   January 19, Friday, 2018

TIME:   3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.

VENUE: Room no.324, 3rd Floor, SSS-I, JNU

ALL ARE INVITED

A warm welcome to the modified and updated website of the Centre for East Asian Studies. The East Asian region has been at the forefront of several path-breaking changes since 1970s beginning with the redefining the development architecture with its State-led development model besides emerging as a major region in the global politics and a key hub of the sophisticated technologies. The Centre is one of the thirteen Centres of the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi that provides a holistic understanding of the region.

Initially, established as a Centre for Chinese and Japanese Studies, it subsequently grew to include Korean Studies as well. At present there are eight faculty members in the Centre. Several distinguished faculty who have now retired include the late Prof. Gargi Dutt, Prof. P.A.N. Murthy, Prof. G.P. Deshpande, Dr. Nranarayan Das, Prof. R.R. Krishnan and Prof. K.V. Kesavan. Besides, Dr. Madhu Bhalla served at the Centre in Chinese Studies Programme during 1994-2006. In addition, Ms. Kamlesh Jain and Dr. M. M. Kunju served the Centre as the Documentation Officers in Chinese and Japanese Studies respectively.

The academic curriculum covers both modern and contemporary facets of East Asia as each scholar specializes in an area of his/her interest in the region. The integrated course involves two semesters of classes at the M. Phil programme and a dissertation for the M. Phil and a thesis for Ph. D programme respectively. The central objective is to impart an interdisciplinary knowledge and understanding of history, foreign policy, government and politics, society and culture and political economy of the respective areas. Students can explore new and emerging themes such as East Asian regionalism, the evolving East Asian Community, the rise of China, resurgence of Japan and the prospects for reunification of the Korean peninsula. Additionally, the Centre lays great emphasis on the building of language skills. The background of scholars includes mostly from the social science disciplines; History, Political Science, Economics, Sociology, International Relations and language.

Several students of the centre have been recipients of prestigious research fellowships awarded by Japan Foundation, Mombusho (Ministry of Education, Government of Japan), Saburo Okita Memorial Fellowship, Nippon Foundation, Korea Foundation, Nehru Memorial Fellowship, and Fellowship from the Chinese and Taiwanese Governments. Besides, students from Japan receive fellowship from the Indian Council of Cultural Relations.