SWEDISH SOUTH ASIAN STUDIES NETWORK

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Center for Gender Studies, Karlstad University

Postal address: Karlstad University, SE-651 88 Karlstad, Sweden
Visiting address: Universitetsgatan 2
Web page: http://www.sam.kau.se/genusvetenskap/

Contact person: Cristina Grenholm, Professor of Religious Studies and Gender Studies, phone: +46 (0)54 700 21 86

The Center for Gender Studies (CFG) is a multidisciplinary research centre at Karlstad University, where scholars from several disciplines meet and cooperate interdisciplinary, as well as side by side within their mother disciplines. Religious Studies, Cultural Geography, Sociology, Economics and Literature are some of the disciplines more active in the present group. CFG has existed since 1 January 2006.

South Asia related activities at the Center

The Center for Gender Studies at Karlstad University wants to develop the post-colonial and third world aspects of gender theory, gender equality work, women’s rights, and conflict solution. Since Karlstad University already has a long well-established collaboration with the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) in Varanasi, India (more information about the collaboration), it has been natural for CFG to cultivate contacts there.
Professor Anjoo Sharan Upadhyaya is Head of the Dept. of Political Science, and Dean for the Faculty of Social Sciences at BHU. Her research fields cover ”Communal and Ethnic conflicts in South Asia and their cross border ramifications” and ”Gender and Conflict Transformation”. For several years she has been one of the key persons within Karlstad University’s India Program, serving as a supervisor for many students. She has another Swedish connection with the Dept. of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University. She received an Advance International Diploma in Conflict Resolition fom this department in 1990, and has later come back and carried out some advanced research. In 2001 Dr. Upadhyaya worked as the Director (Research) of INCORE, United Nations University Initiative on Conflict Resolution and Ethnicity, at the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland.

In August 2006 Prof. Cristina Grenholm was given SEK 20 000 as a SASNET grant to cover a guest lecture programme to bring Prof. Upadhyaya to Sweden (more information about the SASNET grants 2006). In the Fall 2006 she therefore visited both Karlstad University and the Centre for Gender Studies at Stockholm University. Prof. Upadhyaya lectured at both postgraduate and undergraduate levels, on topics such as ”Women and Development: A Critical Agenda”; ”Role of Women in Political Participation in India”; ”Development, Multiculturalism and Indigenous Peoples”; and ”Conflict Resolution and issues of Gender – South Asian and other International examples”.