KITA Discourse Series 7/2022: How an Emerging Economic Justice Movement in a Country on the Brink of Economic Collapse May Look Like

HOW AN EMERGING ECONOMIC JUSTICE MOVEMENT IN A COUNTRY ON THE BRINK OF ECONOMIC COLLAPSE MAY LOOK LIKE

By

PROF. DR. SANDYA HEWAMANNE

Professor Of Anthropology & The Director Of The Center For Global South Studies

University Of Essex, United Kingdom

This talk focuses on a national village subcontractors’ association led by former global factory workers of Sri Lanka that was initiated via a research impact activity. Since its inception in 2019, the association has faced a global pandemic and related national economic crisis–thus forcing the organization to evolve in unexpected ways. Focusing on the association’s journey and how advocacy and measured intervention can lead to transformational politics, the talk highlights the need for rethinking conventional definitions and trajectories of grassroots economic justice. Sri Lanka’s current national economic crisis necessitates a fresh look at the role of this budding economic justice movement and what it means for feminist approaches to political economy.

TENTATIVE PROGRAMME

Date: 15 November 2022 (Tuesday)
Time: 10 a.m. – 12 p.m. (GMT +8)
Venue: KITA Meeting Room
Platform: Zoom & KITA Facebook page (links below)

10.00 a.m.: Introduction by Moderator Dr. Rachel Chan Suet Kay, KITA Research Fellow
10.05 a.m.: Welcoming remarks by Prof. Dr. Kartini Aboo Talib @ Khalid, KITA Deputy Director
10.10 a.m.: Seminar by Prof. Dr. Sandya Hewamanne
11.10 a.m.: Q & A session

PRESENTER’S PROFILE

Sandya Hewamanne is a professor of Anthropology and the director of the Center for Global South Studies at the University of Essex, United Kingdom. She is the author of Stitching Identities in a Free Trade Zone: Gender and Politics in Sri Lanka, University of Pennsylvania Press (2008); Sri Lanka’s Global Factory Workers: (Un)Disciplined Desires and Sexual Struggles in a Post-Colonial Society, Routledge (2016); Re-stitching Identities in Rural Sri Lanka: Gender, Neoliberalism and the Politics of Contentment, University of Pennsylvania Press (2020) and the co-editor of The Political Economy of Post-COVID Life and Work in the Global South: Pandemic and Precarity (Springer 2022). She is the Founder, Director of IMPACT-Global Work, a non-profit which connects academics and activists to initiate beneficial policies for workers in the Global South.

E-mail: skhewa[at]essex.ac.uk

Join via Zoom        Join via Facebook

Loading...

Taking too long?

Reload document

| Open in new tab

Download [239.73 KB]