A three-day conference at Duke University this weekend will explore the common history of discrimination and exclusion shared by U.S. blacks and dalits and tribal groups in India.
"There is an extended history of comparison of the position of the most marginalized communities in India, the dalit [once known as 'untouchables'] and tribal populations, with the most marginalized community in the United States, black Americans," said William Darity, chair of Duke's African and African American Studies department and conference co-organizer.
The free, public conference, "Subaltern Peoples: Comparative Experience of African Americans, Dalits & Tribals," is the capstone event for the Global Inequality Research Initiative (GIRI) and will be held April 3-5 in 115 Friedl Building on East Campus. To register, which is required, call (919) 681-6018, or email giri@duke.edu.
A Duke conference this weekend will explore similiarities and difference in the civil rights efforts in America and India.
GIRI is a new research project within the African and African American Studies department at Duke that combines social science methods with a humanities-based understanding of identity to produce creative policy ideas.
"The objective of GIRI is to become a clearinghouse for the best available data and research on group-based inequality and for innovative policies to remedy the disparities," said Rhonda Sharpe, GIRI's research director. "Our research projects offer opportunities to collaborate with international and U.S. scholars as well as other colleges and universities to explore the complexities of global inequality."
"This will be the first major convening that will bring the skills of scholars in the social sciences and humanities together to systematically examine the parallels and differences anchored in cleavages of race and caste respectively," Darity said. "The policies pursued to address these group-based inequalities have been strikingly similar in the U.S. and India."
It begins Thursday evening with a 6:30 p.m. town hall forum on affirmative action. India instituted an affirmative policy of reservation, similar to the U.S. version of affirmative action, after its independence in 1947.
On Friday and Saturday, panels will present research on themes such as health, the arts, education policy, economic development and women.
Darity describes subaltern people as "those who are subjected to stigmatization, discrimination, and exclusion from their respective society's preferred positions." Dalits are historically discriminated against as outcasts. They can be found in South Asian countries including India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
The conference will feature scholars from the Indian Institute of Management, the Indian Institute of Dalit Studies, the National Council of Applied Economic Research, Jawaharlal Nehru University, IGNOU The Peoples University, the Delhi School of Economics and the National Law School of India. Scholars from several of U.S. institutes including the Roy Wilkins Center for Human Relations & Social Justice, the University of Minnesota and Bennett College, will also provide remarks.