The Finnish India Researcher Unite!

Yesterday Dr. Mari Korpela from University of Tampere and I lead the India Workshop at Finnish Anthropology Conference 2011. Delightfully many India researchers as well as students were there and many interesting presentations (in Finnish) were held. In the future we hope to strengthen our network and build a webiste as well as a discussion group. If there is interest on the matter, we will consider exapanding our group and organizing a workshop on South Asia related research next year.


Below is a short summary about the people who held presentations in the workshop. All abstracts of the conference can be read here. 

• Dr. Mikko Malkavaara from Diaconia University of Applied Sciences presented his research on Dalits and Christianity.
• Dr. Siru Aura from International Solidarity Foundation talked about her research on marital breakdown and the position of divorced or widowed women in India.
• Doctoral student Sirpa Rovaniemi from University of Helsinki Development Studies examined the cooperation between foreign and Indian development organizations in the state of Uttarakhand.
• Dr. Satu Ranta-Tyrkkö talked about combining social work, theater studies, post-colonial studies and anthropology in her research on a theater group in Orissa.

• Dr. Mari Korpela from Department of Social Research at University of Tampere presented her doctoral study on Western women in Varanasi as well as her post-doctoral project on transnational children in Goa.
• Prof. Petri Hottola from Department of Geography at University of Oulu presented his on "The Metaspatialities of Intercultural Encounters in India".
• Prof. Ajeet N. Mathur from Indian Institute of Management (Ahmedabad) and Prof. Sari Mattila from Nirma University (Ahmedabad) elaborated on the communication challenges in the relations between Indian and Finnish organizations.
• Finally, I talked about my doctoral disseration on Tamil-European relations in South India as well as presented my current project on the cultural meaning of mobile communication in India.

Photos: Ellen Reitman, Paul Hamilton, themanwithsalthair on Flickr.