Citizens as cultivars: democratic values in paddy fields and universities

公民如作物:稻田与大学中的民主价值观

LSE: Public lectures and events

教育

2025-03-05

1 小时 7 分钟
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Contributor(s): Professor Mukulika Banerjee, Professor David Wengrow | A cultivar is a plant that people have selected for desired traits and which retains those when propagated. This inaugural lecture by Mukulika Banerjee draws on long-term fieldwork among paddy farmers in Bengal to explore the ways in which cultivation - of crops, neighbourly relations, and selves - can help democracy and truthful politics to flourish. It also considers how the university, through its own cultivation of knowledge and debate, is another vital site for nurturing active citizens and a better future.
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  • Welcome to the LSE Events podcast by the London School of Economics and Political Science.

  • Get ready to hear from some of the most influential international figures in the social sciences.

  • Good evening everyone.

  • Can you hear me okay?

  • No.

  • Oh you can now.

  • Good evening everyone and welcome to this evening's lecture.

  • My name's Catherine Allerton and I'm head of the Department of Anthropology here at the LSE.

  • Tonight is a very special occasion.

  • It's an inaugural lecture marking our colleague Mukhalika Banerjee's promotion to Professor of Anthropology at the school.

  • These inaugural lectures are a time to celebrate the successes of our community.

  • Professor Banerjee is an anthropologist of South Asia and her published work concerns a broad range of issues in the region from a non-violent social movement in Pakistan to an account of the saree as a government that has survived widespread social change to work on the everyday lives of Muslims in India.

  • However, since her appointment as a reader in our department in 2009,

  • Professor Banerjee has become best known as an anthropologist of democracy,

  • pioneering an original intellectual approach to the everyday life of democracy in India and to the study of elections and political engagement more broadly.

  • This research programme has led to two major books, Why India Votes and her 2021 monograph Cultivating Democracy.

  • Professor Banerjee is also the founding series editor of Rutledge's Exploring the Political in South Asia and she's also just started a podcast called The India Briefing that aims to be the single credible source for understanding India.

  • I also have some hot off the press news and I'm delighted to announce

  • that Professor Banerjee has just heard she's been awarded a highly competitive British Academy Leaver Hume Senior Research Fellowship for New Research on Taxation.

  • So we have much to celebrate and without further delay let me hand over to Professor Banerjee for her lecture,