CONFERENCE ON PRODUCTION OF NATURE
15TH& 16TH DECEMBER, 2016
Day 1: Thursday, 15th December 2016
9:15-9:45 Registration
Participants to be seated by 9:45
9:45-10:00 Welcome Address: Dr. Shahid Amjad Chaudhry, Rector, Lahore School of Economics
10:00-10:15 Introduction to the Conference: Dr. Munir Ghazanfar, Lahore School of Economics
10:15-10:45 Keynote Address: Dr. Barbara Harris-White, Emeritus Professor, University of Oxford, University of London and SOAS
10:45-11:00 Tea Break
Session 1: Agriculture and Seeds 11.00-12.45
Chair: Dr. Ahsan Rana, Lahore University of Management Sciences
11:00-11:25 Depositing at the doomsday vault: India’s first deposit to the Svalbard global seed vault
Iris Yellum, Harvard University
11:25-11:50 Changing ‘assemblages’ of irrigation agriculture in the high mountains of Gilgit-Baltistan
Michael Spies, Freie Universität, Berlin
11:50-12:15 Seed politics: Food sovereignty, legal regimes, and farmers' rights in Pakistan
Amna Tanweer Yazdani, Agha Khan University and Nosheen Ali, Karti Dharti, Karachi
12.15-12.40 Organic, natural, local – hybrid practices, lively soils and conscious consumption of organic agriculture in Pakistan
Julia Poerting, Heidelberg University
12:45-13:45 Lunch Break
Session 2: Urbanization and Ecology 13.45-15.30
Chair: Dr. Hafeez Jamali, Habib University, Karachi
13:45-14:10 Can money compensate? Stories from a suburban frontier
Huda Javaid and Rabia Nadir, Lahore School of Economics
14:10-14:35 Ecological role and social significance of vultures: A study in Central Punjab Zenab Naseem and Sadia Imran, Lahore School of Economics
14:35-15:00 Climate change and the desert communities of Thar: An ethnography of development
Vikram Das Meghwar, Institute of Rural Management, Islamabad
15:00-15:25 ‘Compensating’ loss of forests or disguised forest offsets? A study of compensatory afforestation in India
Soumitra Ghosh, All India Forum of Forest Movements (AIFFM)
15:25-15:45 Tea Break
Session 3: ‘Nature’ in Literature 15.45-17.00
Chair: Dr. Saeed-ur-Rehman, Forman Christian College University, Lahore
15:45-16:10 Narratives of a fractal city: The mapping of urban identity in Anis Shivani’s Karachi Raj
Shireen Rahim, Lahore School of Economics
16.10-16:35 Nature as source of creative arts and social science for transformation of society
Rafiq Khan, Lahore School of Economics
16:35-17:00 Songs of production and exchange: Reading ‘Production of Nature’ in the poetry of Guru Nanak
Huma Safdar, Lahore Grammar School and Rabia Nadir, Lahore School of Economics
DAY 2: Friday, 16th December, 2016
Session 4: Waste and Modernity 9.30-10.45
Chair: Dr. Ahmad Azhar, Lahore School of Economics
9:30-10.05 Political ecology of solid waste privatization in Lahore
Usman Ashraf, International Institute of Social Studies, The Hague
10:05-10:30 Order and disorder in uncontrolled urban waste in India
Barbara Harriss-White, University of Oxford
10:30-10.45 Tea Break
Session 5: Narratives of Power and Disempowerment 10.45-12.30
Chair: Dr. Shafqat Hussain, Lahore University of Management Sciences
10.45-11:10 Desiring the data state in the Indus Basin
Majed Akhter, Indiana University
11:10-11:35 Are there biases in climate science? How does the dualism of society and nature produce strengths and weaknesses
Tariq Abdullah, Lahore School of Economics
11:35-12:00 Contemporary constructed environmental narrative in Pakistan
Rao Nadeem, Quaid-e-Azam University and Syed Mahmood Nasir, Global Change Impact Study Center and Ministry of Climate Change
12:00-12:25 English as medium of instruction in Punjab: The 2009 experiment
Soha Bashir and Fizza Batool Bukhari, Lahore School of Economics
12:30-14:00 Lunch Break/Prayer Break
Session 6: Hybrids and Cyborgs 14.00-15.15
Chair: Dr. Tariq Abdullah, Lahore School of Economics
14:00-14:25 Commodifying nature and marginalising ecosystems
Mayanglambam Ojit Kumar Singh, Ambedkar University, Delhi
14:25-14:50 Growing up immersed in a virtual world
Anika Khan, Centre of Biomedical Ethics and Culture, SIUT, Karachi
14:50-15:15 Creating a hybrid commodity: The political economy of regasified-liquefied natural gas distribution in Pakistan
Tabitha Spence, Lahore School of Economics
15:15-15:30 Tea Break
Session 7: Disaster and Exclusion 15.30-17.45
Chair: Dr. Ayesha Anees Malik, Quaid-e-Azam University
15:30-15.55 Production of disastrous geographies in the Brahmaputra Valley (Assam), India
Mitul Baruah, Ashoka University, India
15:55-16:20 The ‘Ecology-building technology’ correlation and the impact of timber siphoning on vernacular architecture in Chitral
Rabia Ezdi, National College of Arts, Lahore
16:20- 16.45 Disaster and ‘help’ in Balakot: A case of compressed social change
Munir Ghazanfar, Rabia Nadir, Fizza Batool Bukhari, Ayesha Ijaz Cheema, Lahore School of Economics
16:45 – 17.10 Alternate narratives; exploring the dialogue between nature and culture
Zahra Hussain, Durham University
17.10-17.30 Concluding remarks: Dr.Tariq Abdullah, Lahore School of Economics
17:30-17:45 Presentation of souvenirs: Dr. Shahid Amjad Chaudhry, Rector, Lahore School of Economics
DAY 3: Saturday, 17th December, 2016
9:30-13.30 Field Trip to the Walled City of Lahore
13.30 Lunch
Fizza Batool Bukhari
Teaching and Research Fellow