PRODUCTION OF NATURE

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