The five-day workshop will engage with the question of region and its intersections with time, space, and identities. Our conceptualization of the region recognizes the spatiality inherent in its understanding, but also moves beyond it through critical engagement that acknowledges the essentially fluid and contested nature of the idea of region, given that regional formations are a product of complex interactions between identities, material spaces and histories. Region, in this sense, is more than a physical space; it is a social and material construct shaped by and which in turn continues to shape power dynamics, inequalities, colonial legacies, contestations over identity and post-colonial state formations. Region, thus understood, provides us with a valuable methodology to ground our research, whether we are investigating identities, spaces or social and historical processes, thus sharpening our understanding of societal structures and their transformation.

We encourage researchers in Social Sciences and Humanities to think of region in their research, to work with it as an analytical framework whatever their thematic focus may be. This workshop will therefore keep the focus on region as an analytical framework as we discuss the nuts and bolts of doing research : from framing of research questions, reviewing literature to explaining ethical concerns.

We invite Ph.D. scholars in social sciences and humanities whose work addresses themes which focus on, but are not limited strictly to:

• identities (caste, tribe, gender, community, race, religion, sexuality, citizenship);
• spaces (borders/ borderlands, margins, digital universe, urban transformations, rural dynamics, conflict zones, spaces of labour/ production);
• social/ historical processes (state-making, marginalisation, migration, development, ecological crises).

In India, PhD students who are in their second or third year of the course are eager to explore different methodologies, bring intersectionality into their research and look for publishing opportunities. However, compared to private and central universities, students from state funded public universities/ regional universities often get only scant opportunities to enhance their research capacities.

This workshop will therefore give preference to scholars coming from such universities and colleges. It will give them the opportunity to learn and exchange ideas, interact and create networks with other academicians and will build their research capacities not only for their PhD but also in future to publish their research.

• Learn to identify and prioritise research questions, data resources and accessing different platforms and channels for data;
• Understand critical methodological frameworks for grounded and reflexive research Learn to adopt methodological pluralism in their research;
• Form networks in academia, researchers from the same field and senior academicians from different South Asian countries;
• Get equipped with the skills of presenting, writing and publishing the research.