Workshop: ‘Researching Marginalities’

Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU)
3rd to 7th October 2023

Marginality is a widely used concept in social sciences and humanities and it has garnered importance with the increasing research on inequalities, disadvantage and exclusion. The proposed workshop will provide an opportunity for researchers from Humanities and Social Sciences- who are exploring different dimensions of marginality drawing from diverse resources: field and textual, historical and contemporary, quantitative and qualitative and so on and those
who are looking to bring out complexities and changing dynamics of marginalities in the present world- to upgrade their research skills. They can draw from disciplinary and interdisciplinary scholarship and methodologies. The research questions of selected scholars are revolving around the following aspects:

• Different axes of marginalities, class, caste, gender, sexuality, disability, ethnicity, language, nationality, geo-spatiality and so on;
• Different forces and institutions through which marginalities are produced such as state and law, labour and economy, family and community, culture and so on;
• Different practices and conditions, socio- cultural, political economic through which marginalities unfold across different places and time, and Different ways in which marginalities are conveyed through literature, films and other
  media;
• How marginalities are opposed and resisted, individually and collectively.

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.