Autumn Term 2024

The West, the Taliban & the Future of Afghanistan

Wednesday | 4 December 2024 | ON-SITE

5.30pm

Room RB01, SOAS Main Building, Thornhaugh Street, London WC1H 0XG

A question worth asking is: is continuing international engagement with the Taliban morally justifiable? How they can be designed to support the emergence of alternative publics inside Afghanistan.

SPEAKER
Obaidullah Baheer (@ObaidullaBaheer) is Visiting Fellow at LSE South Asia Centre, Adjunct Lecturer at American University of Afghanistan, and currently Doctorand at The New School, New York. He has published widely on transitional justice, civic engagement, democracy, and engagement with the Taliban.

DISCUSSANTS (via Zoom): Quhramaana Kakar (@Quhramaana) is a peace activist & development practitioner, currently Visiting Fellow at the LSE Centre for Women, Peace & Security. She is Founder & Director of Women for Peace & Participation, an organisation connecting the local to the global and the inclusion of women in decision-making about peace & security, providing platforms for communities in conflict regions and diaspora communities in UK and Europe. Quhramaana also advises policy-makers and politicians in Europe & the US on advocating for the rights of women & vulnerable communities, and on international intervention in Afghanistan; Graeme Smith (@smithkabul) is Senior Consultant at International Crisis Group focusing on Afghanistan, having spent extended periods in Afghanistan since 2005, including being Country Director for Afghanistan between 2012-15. He is the author of The Dogs Are Eating Them Now: Our War in Afghanistan (2013), and won an Emmy Award for his 'Talking to the Taliban' video series in 2009.

CO-CHAIRS: Naufel Vilcassim is Director, LSE South Asia Centre (@SAsiaLSE), and Professor of Marketing in the LSE Department of Management; Dr Subir Sinha (@PoMoGandhi) is Director, SOAS South Asia Institute (@SOAS_SAI), and Reader in Development Studies, SOAS, University of London.

This event is in collaboration with SOAS South Asia Institute, and part of the UK-South Asia Network.

Banner image © Obaidullah Baheer, Airport Road, Kabul, June 2024.

Please click here to watch a recording of the event.

FACT & FICTION

PAKISTAN: Afghan Refugees, Identity-Making & State Policy

Wednesday | 27 November 2024 | ONLINE

3pm UK / 7.30pm Afghanistan / 8pm Pakistan

An online panel discussion on media narratives of Afghan refugees in Pakistan and the government's recent enforcement of forced repatriation, focused on the recently published Afghan Refugees, Pakistani Media and the State: The Missing Peace (2024).

SPEAKERS: Dr Sanaa Alimia (@SanaaAlimia) is Associate Professor of Political Science, Aga Khan University, London, and author of Refugee Cities: How Afghans Changed Urban Pakistan (2022); Dr Syed Irfan Ashraf (@syedirfanashraf) is Assistant Professor of Journalism & Mass Communications, University of Peshawar, and author of The Dark Side of Journalism: The Culture and Political Economy of Global Media in Pakistan and Afghanistan (2023); Dr Ayesha Jehangir (@zubaan_daraz) is Lecturer in Journalism & Communication, University of New South Wales, Sydney, currently Research Fellow at the Weizenbaum Institute, Berlin and author of Afghan Refugees, Pakistani Media and the State: The Missing Peace (2024); Dr Sonja Kretzschmar (@kretzschmar_s) is Professor of Innovation in Journalism, University of the Bundeswehr Munich, and co-editor of Innovation in Journalism: Theories, Methods, Potential? (in German, Innovationen im Journalismus: Theoren -- Methoden -- Potenziale?, 2024).

DISCUSSANT: Dr Omar al-Ghazzi (@omar_alghazzi) is Associate Professor of Media & Communications, LSE, specialising in the geopolitics of global communications, especially in relation to news media and popular culture.

CHAIR: Dr Nilanjan Sarkar is Deputy Director, LSE South Asia Centre (@SAsiaLSE).

This event is part of our 'Fact & Fiction' series.

Please click here to watch a recording of the event.

FACT & FICTION

SRI LANKA: Elections & Political Change

Wednesday | 30 October 2024 | ONLINE

3pm UK / 8.30pm Sri Lanka

A panel discussion focused on Catch-All Parties and Party-Voter Nexus in Sri Lanka (2022) on elections and change in Sri Lanka, including the recent Presidential elections that brought a non-'dynasty' political party to power, and the forthcoming parliamentary elections in mid-November.

SPEAKERS: Farzana Haniffa (@FaraFarout) is Professor of Sociology, University of Colombo, and Member, Human Rights Commission, Sri Lanka; Dr Pradeep Peiris (@pnpeiris) is Senior Lecturer in Political Science & Public Policy, University of Colombo, and author of Catch-All Parties and Party-Voter Nexus in Sri Lanka (2022); S. I. Keethaponcalan (@SKeethaponcalan) is Professor of Dispute Analysis & Conflict Resolution, Salisbury University, Maryland, USA, and author of Electoral Politics in Sri Lanka: Presidential Elections, Manipulation and Democracy (2022).

DISCUSSANT: Dr Alan Keenan (@akeenan23) is Senior Consultant for Sri Lanka, International Crisis Group, London, where he coordinates & contributes to research, advocacy & publications on Sri Lanka.

CO-CHAIRS: Naufel Vilcassim is Director, LSE South Asia Centre (@SAsiaLSE) & Professor of Marketing in the Department of Management, LSE; Dr Nilanjan Sarkar is Deputy Director, LSE South Asia Centre (@SAsiaLSE).

This event is part of our 'Fact & Fiction' series.

Please click here to watch a recording of the event.

AFGHANISTAN: Life with Taliban Laws

Wednesday | 23 October 2024 | ONLINE

3pm UK / 6.30pm Afghanistan

As the Taliban announces new sets of laws further curbing girls'/women's rights, what are things really like on the ground, how do we all engage with them, and what does the future look like now?

SPEAKERS: Kathy Gannon (@Kathygannon) was News Director of Associated Press for Pakistan & Afghanistan for more than 3 decades, was most recently Fellow at the Shorenstein Center, Harvard Kennedy School, and is author of I is for Infidel: From Holy War to Holy Terror -- 18 Years Inside Afghanistan (2006); Parasto Hakim (@Parasto_Hakim) is founder of SRAK Afghanistan (an educational charity working in Afghanistan), and an education rights activist fighting the Taliban ban on girls'/women's education currently living in Europe; Ali M. Latifi (@alibomaye) is a journalist based in Kabul, and currently Asia Editor at The New Humanitarian; Saad Mohseni (@saadmohseni) is Director of MOBYgroup which produces & broadcasts TOLO News in Afghanistan, and author (with Jenna Krajeski) of Radio Free Afghanistan: A Twenty Year Struggle for an Independent Voice in Kabul (2024); Mahbouba Seraj (@SerajMahbouba) was until recently Director, Afghan Women Skills Development Center (@AWSDC1) and Founder & President, Organisation for Research in Peace & Solidarity -- and lives in Kabul.

CHAIR: Dr Nilanjan Sarkar is Deputy Director, LSE South Asia Centre (@SAsiaLSE).

Image © Farid Ershad, Bamiyan, Afghanistan, 2022, Unsplash.

Please click here to watch a recording of the event.

FACT & FICTION

BANGLADESH: The Gender Paradox

Wednesday | 16 October 2024 | ONLINE

3pm UK / 8pm Bangladesh

An online panel discussion on the recently published Renegotiating Patriarchy: Gender, Agency and the Bangladesh Paradox (2024), focusing on the country's remarkable pro-poor & gender-equitable social progress despite poverty, poor governance, patriarchy and rising Islamic conservatism.

NOTE: This book is Open Access from LSE Press; please click here to download.

SPEAKERS: Dr Sajeda Amin (@sajedaamin) is an independent researcher with research interests in gender, work, poverty & family in the developing world; until recently, she was Senior Associate for the Poverty, Gender & Youth Program at the Population Council, New York; Dr Urvashi Butalia is an author, founder of Zubaan Books (India's premier feminist publishing house), Reader at the College of Vocational Studies, University of Delhi & Visiting Faculty at the Young India Program, Ashoka University, India; Naila Kabeer (@N_Kabeer) is Professor of Gender & Development at LSE, Faculty Associate at LSE International Inequalities Institute, and currently Richard von Weiszäcker Fellow at Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin, and author of Renegotiating Patriarchy: Gender, Agency and the Bangladesh Paradox (2024); Dr Ayesha Khan (@ayeshanorakhan) is Senior Research Fellow in Gender Equality & Social Inclusion at the Overseas Development Institute in London, and is author of Women's Movement in Pakistan: Activism, Islam & Democracy (2018).

DISCUSSANT: Hilary Standing is Professor & Emeritus Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, an expert on gender and equity of health systems and has studied and published extensively on Bangladesh.

CHAIR: Dr Nilanjan Sarkar is Deputy Director, LSE South Asia Centre (@SAsiaLSE).

This event is part of our 'Fact & Fiction' series, and is in collaboration with LSE Press.

Please click here to watch a recording of the event.

SOUTH ASIA: Paternalism & Public Healthcare

Wednesday | 9 October 2024 | ONLINE

3.30pm UK / 7.30pm Pakistan / 8pm India & Sri Lanka

An online panel discussion on prevalent forms of paternalism (especially vis-a-vis women patients) in medical practice/care in South Asia –- looking at its impact on doctor-patient communication, decision-making, exploitation (financial), cultural-patriarchal factors, and what may be a path forward towards a more patient-centred healthcare approach.

SPEAKERS: Dr Aisha Jalil (@DrAishaJalilH) was Charles Wallace Pakistan Trust Visiting Fellow at the LSE South Asia Centre in Jan-Apr 2024; a sociologist, her doctoral research & publications have focused on patient satisfaction in public clinics in Lahore. She is currently Deputy Director, International Strategies & Partnerships, National University of Sciences & Technology (NUST), Islamabad; Indika Karunathilake (@IndikaMaheshKa1) is Professor & Head, Department of Medical Education, University of Colombo, and has worked extensively (in English and Sinhala) on public health practices in contemporary Sri Lanka; Deen Dayal Reddy is Professor Emeritus of Biomedical Ethics, a retired professional with over 4 decades of experience in clinical research (biopharma) and research ethics; he is currently affiliated with the Ethics Committee at St. Joseph Medical Center, Bellingham, WA, USA.

DISCUSSANT: Dr Rishita Nandagiri (@rishie_) is Lecturer in Global Health & Global Medicine at King's College London, and LSE 100 Fellow; her interdisciplinary research on abortion practices in India is underpinned by feminist & reproductive justice approaches, interrogating how power and politics manifest and are wielded at individual, interpersonal, community, and macro levels.

CHAIR: Dr Nilanjan Sarkar is Deputy Director, LSE South Asia Centre (@SAsiaLSE).