Prof Sanjay Barbora | Tata Institute of Social Sciences

Prof Sanjay Barbora

Professor,
Guwahati Campus, School of Social Sciences and Humanities

Qualification

M.A., M.Phil. (Delhi),Ph.D. (North-Eastern Hill University)

Contact

sanjay.barbora[at]tiss[dot]edu

Prof. Barbora is affiliated to the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies. He also teaches core papers at the Centre for Sociology and Social Anthropology. He has been involved in designing the MA courses at both the centres. He is also involved in the Himalayan Universities Consortium (HUC) that involves designing social science research curricula and exchange programmes for universities located in the Himalayan region of Bangladesh, Myanmar, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Prof. Barbora completed his PhD from the North Eastern Hill University. His PhD dissertation, Land, Class and Ethnicity: Permutations of Environmental Conflicts in Two Districts of Assam, was part of an internal collaboration carried out with financial and academic support from the Department of Ethnology, University of Zurich and the National Centre for Competence, University of Berne. He also received the SEPHIS (South-South Exchange Programme for Research on the History of Development) grant for travel and research in 2004 for the same. Prior to this, he completed MPhil from the Department of Sociology at the Delhi School of Economics.

Human Rights, Agrarian Studies, Conservation, Media Studies, and Borderlands.

Books

2022. Homeland Insecurities: Autonomy, Conflict, and Migration in Assam. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
2002. (with Walter Fernandes). Modernisation and Women's Status in Northeast India: A Comparative Study of Six Tribes. Guwahati: North Eastern Social Research Centre.

Peer-reviewed Monographs

2018. Peasant, Students, Insurgents and Popular Movements in Contemporary Assam. Kolkata: Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group.

Books (Edited)

2009. (With Walter Fernandes). Land, People and Politics: Contest over Tribal Land in Northeast India. Guwahati and Copenhagen: North Eastern Social Research Centre and International Working Group on Indigenous Affairs.
2002. (With Walter Fernandes). Changing Women’s Status in India: Focus on the Northeast. Guwahati: North Eastern Social Research Centre.

Book Chapters (Peer-reviewed)

2017. "Violence, Agrarian Change and the Politics of Autonomy in Assam." In Geographies of Difference: Identity, Society and Landscapes in Northeast India, edited by B. Karlsson, M. Vandenhelsken and M. Barkataki-Ruscheweyh, 128-49. London: Routledge.
2016. “Unearthing a Terrible Beauty: Violence and the Politics of Choices in Assam.” In Violence Studies, edited by Kalpana Kannabiran, 276–94. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
2016. (with Saba Sharma). "Survivors of Ethnic Conflict." In India Exclusion Report, edited by Harsh Mander, 206-228. New Delhi: Yoda Press.
2016. "Weary of Wars: Memory, Violence and Women in the Making of Contemporary Assam." In Fault Lines of History: The India Papers II, edited by Uma Chakravarti. New Delhi: Zubaan Publishers.
2015. "Seven Sisters." In Key Concepts in Modern Indian Studies, edited by Gita Dharampal-Frick, Monica Kirloskar-Steinbach, Rachel Dwyer and Jahnavi Phalkey. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
2014. “Road to Resentment: Impunity and its impact on notions of community in Assam.” In Landscapes of Fear: Understanding Impunity in India, edited by Patrick Hoenig and Navsharan Singh, 110-27. New Delhi: Zubaan
2010. "Media and Minorities in the United Kingdom." In Counter-Gaze: Media, Migrants, Minorities, edited by Subir Bhaumik, 66-75. London and Kolkata: Frontpage.
2009. “Autonomy in India’s Northeast: The Frontiers of Centralised Politics.” In Solving Ethnic Conflicts Through Self-governance, edited by Thomas Benedikter, 80-85. Bolzano/Bolzen: Eurasia-Net.
2009. “Natural Resources Contested in Autonomous Councils: Assessing the Causes of Ethnic Conflict in North-East India.” In Decentralisation Meets Local Complexity:Local Struggles, State Decentralisation and Access to Natural Resources in South Asia and Latin America, edited by Urs Geiser and Stephan Rist, 191-210. Bern: National Centre of Competence in Research (North-South).
2008. (With Walter Fernandes) “Development, Displacement and the Right to Life.” In Blisters on their feet: Tales of Internally Displaced Persons in India’s North-East, edited by Samir Kumar Das, 314-336. New Delhi: Sage Publications.
2005. “Autonomy in the Northeast: The Frontiers of Centralised Politics.” In The Politics of Autonomy: Indian Experiences, edited by Ranabir Samaddar. New Delhi: Sage Publications.
2005. “Peace Process in Assam: Some Considerations.” In The Guwahati Declaration and the Road to Peace in Assam, edited by Imdad Hussain. New Delhi: Akansha Publications.

Journal Articles (Peer-reviewed)

2022. (with Sarat Phukan). Mines, plantations, and militarisation: Environmental conflicts in Tinsukia, Assam. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space.
2021. Counting Citizens in Assam: Contests and Claims. South Atlantic Quarterly 120(1): 220-231.
2021. (with Dolly Kikon). The rehabilitation zone: Living with lemons and elephants in Assam. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space 4(3): 1121-1138.
2020. Citizenship troubles: erasing differences, cementing inequalities. Seminar 729: 32-38.
2019. National Register of Citizens: Politics and Problems in Assam. Explorations: e-journal of the Indian Sociological Society 3(2): 3-28.
2019. The Crisis of Citizenship in Assam. The India Forum. Available at: https://www.theindiaforum.in/article/crisis-citizenship-assam
2017. Riding the Rhino: Conservation, Conflicts and Militarisation of Kaziranga National Park. Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography 49(5): 1145-1163.
2017. Remaking Dibrugarh in Contemporary Assam. The Newsletter 77(Summer): 40.
2017. Remember Easter of 1916? When the Irish Declared a Republic. Economic & Political Weekly 51(25): 25-28.
2016. (With Erik de Maaker and Dolly Kikon). Shifting Ground? State and market in the uplands of Northeast India. The Newsletter 73 (Spring): 6-7.
2015. Uneasy Homecomings: Political Entanglements in Contemporary Assam. South Asia: journal of South Asian Studies 38(2): 290-309.
2012. After counter-insurgency: policing dissent in Assam. Seminar 640: 63-67.
2011. Life After Empires: Comparing Trajectories of Workers in Plantations (Assam) and Kolkhozes (Kyrgyzstan). Refugee Watch: A South Asian Journal on Forced Migration 38: 32-46.
2011. Assam’s New Voice of Dissent. Economic & Political Weekly 46(28): 19-22.
2008. (With Susan Thieme, Karin A. Siegmann, Vineeta Menon and Ganesh Gurung). Migration matters in South Asia: Commonalities and critiques. Economic & Political Weekly 43(24): 57-65.
2008. Autonomous Councils And/Or Ethnic Homelands: An Ethnographic Account of the Genesis of Political Violence in Assam (Northeast India) Against the Normative Frame of the Indian Constitution. International Journal on Minority and Group Rights 15(2-3): 313-334.
2006. Rethinking India’s Counter-insurgency Campaign in North-East. Economic & Political Weekly 41(35): 3805-3812.
2004. Labouring Conflicts in Karbi Anglong. Labour File 2(3): 21-24.
2002. Ethnic politics and land use: Genesis of conflicts in India’s North-East. Economic & Political Weekly 37(13): 1285-1292.
2000. Planter Raj to Police Raj. Revolutionary Democracy 5(2).
1999. Struggles in the Tea Plantations of Assam: Then and Now. Revolutionary Democracy 5 (1).

Book Review

2020. In the Name of the Nation: India and its Northeast by Sanjib Baruah. The India Forum. 7 August.
2020. The Unruly River: A Biography of the Brahmaputra by Arupjyoti Saikia. Biblio: A Review of Books 25(1-3).
2019. State, Violence, and Legitimacy in India by Santana Khanikar. Studies in Indian Politics 7(1): 95-97.
2015. Cultural Contours of Northeast India by Birendranath Dutta. Contributions to Indian Sociology 49 (2): 255-257.
2014. Knowing India: Colonial and Modern Constructions of the Past edited by Cynthia Talbot. Economic & Political Weekly 39(37).
2011. Unruly Hills: Nature and Nation in India’s Northeast by Bengt G. Karlsson. Himal South Asia 24(8): 79-80.
2007. Where the sun rises when shadows fall: The North-East by Geeti Sen. Contributions to Indian Sociology 41(1): 133-35.

2017-18. (with Bengt G. Karlsson). The Travel of Seeds, Clones and Science between India and Kenya. Funded by Seed Fund (Sweden).
2015-17. (with Erik de Maaker). Markets, Ethics, and Agency: Changing Land Utilisation and Social Transformation in the uplands of Northeast India. Funded by Indian Council of Social Science Research [ICSSR] and Dutch Research Council [NWO].
2015-17. Mapping of Children affected by violence in Assam. Funded by United Nations Children's Fund [UNICEF].
2015-16. (with Debdulal Saha and Rajdeep Singha). Multidimensional Poverty and Vulnerability Assessment Survey in selected five districts of Meghalaya state, India. Funded by International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development [ICIMOD].

At TISS Guwahati, I have taught the following papers -

Programme	Papers Taught
Integrated MPhil-PhD	Philosophical Foundation of Social Sciences Social Theory and Research “Development Dilemmas”: A Sociological Inquiry into Developmental Discourse in our Contemporary World
MA (Sociology and Social Anthropology)	Culture and Society Theories of Society I Theories of Society II Sociology of Development
MA (Peace and Conflict Studies)	Approaches to Peace Practices of Reconciliation Media and Peace-building Indigenous Peoples' Movements Forced Migration
MA (Labour Studies and Social Protection)	Trade Union Movements
MA (Ecology, Environment and Sustainable Development)	Environmental Conflicts and Movements
BA (Social Studies)	Introduction to Sociology Theories of Social Anthropology and Sociology