The British Association for South Asian Studies (BASAS) Annual Conference was held at Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge from 6 to 8 April 2016. Multi-disciplinary in nature, the conference was attended by historians, anthropologists and IR scholars thereby covering a wide range of topics from a number of different perspectives.
I presented a paper titled 'Civil-military relations in Pakistan and the port of Gwadar', based on one of the empirical chapters of my PhD thesis on Pakistan-China relations. My paper was in a panel on land and labour politics in contemporary South Asia, drawing together presentations on construction workers in Delhi and Beijing, the Indian NREGA programme, the politics of land conversion, construction and contract labour in Lahore, Pakistan.
I am grateful to the Institute of Asia and Pacific Studies (IAPS) for its generous financial support to participate in this event. BASAS 2016 was indeed a good opportunity to build up a multi-disciplinary research network with other scholars working on South Asia, as well as to receive valuable feedback and comments on my paper from an audience of specialists.
Filippo Boni, PhD Candidate
School of Politics and international Relations, The University of Nottingham
Posted on Monday 16th May 2016