Date: 27 September (Tue) 3:00-5:30PM
Venue: Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University Inamori Memorial Building Small meeting room II

Dr. Nasir Uddin（Professor of Anthropology, University of Chittagong, Bangladesh）,
“Understanding state from the margins: A Case of the Chittagong Hill Tracts”

Abstract：
The paper focuses on the dialectical relations between the “state” and the “margins,” where the former itself (re)produces the latter. While dominant historical works tend to depict the state as a bureaucratically centralized political institution, this paper attempts to grasp the state in its local societal dynamics beneath the institutional framework as anthropology has recently been critically engaged with the study of the state from the margins. This project considers the state not as a single-governing entity from the center, but as a multi-layered configuration in the margins along at least four dimensions; (a) zones of limited statehood depicted as “peripheries,” (b) “local state” by which center governs locales, (c) “public discourse” that represents dominant notions of “stateness,” and (4) ambivalent position of political elites who represent the state in the margins. The research contextualizes its arguments through the discourse of peace and conflict in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT); a southeastern part of Bangladesh.

Contact: Secretariat (Fujita, Shimojyo, Horie)