Online Lightning Talks
Objects in Migration: An Ethnographic Study of the Tibetan Community in India
Online Lightning Talk Devina Dimri
The 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso’s flight from Tibet in 1959, after the Tibetan Uprising at Lhasa had over 80,000 Tibetans enter India seeking refuge. The Tibetan diaspora in India which has since risen to 94,203, presently holds over 35 settlements all around the nation. In these settlements, inhabitants maintaining a very strong sense of identity. The identity continues to be conserved by the community at large by upholding and sustaining the refugee status; the language; cultural practices (food practices, clothing preferences, craft production etc.); domestic, communal and monastic ritual practices; intra-community relationships and most importantly the inherent imagination of the lost homeland of Tibet and the mysticism, beauty and eventual oppression associated with it. The paper, attempts to undertake an analysis of this larger abstract Identity through the investigation of Tibetan materiality which has remodeled itself according to the Indian social and geographical set up. The project aims to cognize this complex and multi layered identity by undertaking an analysis of both the materials which are idiosyncratic to this community as well as their larger role in impacting and forming the identity. The materials, which this project has looked into include objects of religious, communal, or ritualistic nature, domestic products of daily usage and materials of commercial nature. The paper, while focusing on materiality and a contemporary community, has undertaken an archaeological ethnography, which included interviews, participant observation, as well as archival work, done in both Delhi (Majnu ka Tila aka Samyeling Buddhist Colony) and Dharamshala (McLeod Ganj).
Accommodation of Religious Differences in the Workplace and the Risks of “Veiled” Discriminations : An Analysis of the Judicial Discourse in the European Landscape
Online Lightning Talk Adelaide Madera
The sector of labor law is increasingly becoming a battleground between demands of religious accommodation of the employees, the legitimacy of the limits to religious freedom, depending on the organizational needs of an enterprise, and the risk of forms of religious discrimination. The definition of the boundaries to the right of "being themselves" in the workplace has to be explored: some Islamic practices (headscarves, prohibition for women of shaking hands) often cause conflicts with employers, a sort of "identity radicalization" on both sides, and risks of marginalization of Islamic women. New tensions emerge between the claims of the employees to manifest their convictions and the opposite "employer's ... right to cultivate the corporate image of its choosing", giving rise to the need to implement good practices aimed at safeguarding competing rights in the workplace. The paper is aimed at providing a survey of the contribution offered by the judicial discourse (supranational courts, domestic courts) in view of a deeper understanding of the potentials, the limits and the conflict areas of the complex relationship between social inclusion/integration of minorities, religious identity, substantial equality, and neutrality policies in a multicultural and democratic landscape which is experiencing increasing socio-political developments. The present paper investigates these new challenges in European countries, where religious pluralism is at stake, and new strategies of management of religious diversity, verifying whether, and to what extent, the “voie citoyenne” (informal negotiations and dialogue between all the stakeholders) could be a better solution than the judicial trajectory.
Alternative Sense of Belonging Among ‘Non-White’ Minorities in Australia: Intergroup Relations in a Northern Suburb of Adelaide
Online Lightning Talk Ritsuko Kurita
This paper examines a growing sense of belonging amongst Indigenous people, African and Vietnamese peoples of refugee background in one of Adelaide’s northern suburbs, focusing on intergroup relations in everyday practice. In Australia, where the criteria for citizenship has long been premised on ‘Britishness’ and ‘whiteness’, ‘blackness’ or ‘non-whiteness’ continues to prevent some members of minority groups from acquiring a full sense of belonging as Australian citizens. However, this study demonstrates that a cross-group sense of ‘being non-white’ shared by these groups has sparked a tentative and vague sense of belonging rooted in shared experiences of colonialism, racism and derogation, as well as pride and strength in challenging adversity. Horizontal citizenship, or ‘citizenship from below’, has the potential to traverse differences between collective identities under multiculturalism and offer an alternative to existing forms of vertical citizenship state-imposed upon minorities whose national membership is frequently questioned.
