CENTRE FOR GENDER, CULTURE & SOCIAL PROCESSES – St. Stephen's College, Delhi

ST. STEPHEN’S CENTRE FOR GENDER, CULTURE & SOCIAL PROCESSES

About us :

The Centre for Gender, Culture and Social Processes was instituted in 2012 as an inter- and trans-disciplinary research and teaching Centre for faculty and students. Dr Karen Gabriel is the founder-director of the Centre. The Centre is dedicated to fostering advanced and transdisciplinary engagements- through multiple formats that include research in various fields of the Humanities and Social Sciences. It engages intensively with key terms emerging out of higher education in these fields, both independently and through intersections. The pedagogical agenda that arises from this, aims to offer students a strong theoretical, methodological and praxiological foundation in dealing with these key terms and the everyday and academic contexts of their applicability. In the related but distinct research agendas, the Centre aims to encourage the formulation of holistic academic and pedagogical perspectives on these fields of study, and to draw these perspective into theoretical and analytical relations with the fields of development, policy making, politics and the economy. The larger aim and orientation of the Centre is to engage with, contribute to and shape the discourse and debate around development- its politics, its economics and its policies while maintaining a significant emphasis on the role and play of gender in these. The Centre has in the past collaborated with SANGAT, KARTINI, OXFAM, ANHAD, CREA, KATHA , and the Babu Jagjivan Ram Foundation, among others.

The non-profit Centre is administratively maintained by St Stephen’s College but strives to be a financially self-sufficient entity.

Vision and Objectives:

Being an inter-disciplinary Centre the focus is to bring in best practices and resource persons from within the Field.
Provide three month Fellowships for Undergraduate Students to pursue research work and partake in the activities of the Centre.
Conduct long term and short term Certificate Courses on themes of Gender, Culture and Social Processes.
Collaborate with organisations, and governmental bodies on issues which provide a wider exploration on issues related to the Centre.
Focus on Mental Health Initiatives and organise workshops on the same.
Organise Seminars, Workshops and Lectures for Faculty Members and Students.
Introduce an Annual Lecture Series on the occasion of Women’s Day.

Activities since 2018

Key Concepts and Critical Thought Certificate Course, August 2018 for Undergraduate and Postgraduate Students.

– The aim was to study key concepts like Caste, Class, Ethnicity, Gender and Social Movements from an interdisciplinary perspective. Lectures were conducted to study modules on a curriculum shaped by the Centre and with calling in experts from the field to deliver special lectures.

Lectures :

March 2018

CHUP: Breaking the Silence about India’s Women, Juggernaut, 2018 with the author Deepa Narayan, who was previously Senior Adviser at the World Bank, shows why current approaches to women’s empowerment, entrepreneurship and leadership are unlikely to succeed because they do not break down women’s deep and early training to delete themselves regardless of their intellectual beliefs about gender equality. The book is organized around 7 habits that effectively train women not to succeed. It is these same habits that make women vulnerable to violence.

August 2018

Book Discussion with Soumyabrata Choudhary, Professor, School of Arts and Aesthetics, JNU on his book titled, Ambedkar and other Immortals, Navayana 2018.

Discussant : Harish Wankedhe , Assistant Professor, Centre for Political Studies, JNU.

Chair: Sharad Baviskar, Assistant Professor, Centre for French and Francophone Studies, JNU.

January 2019

#METOO Men Ending Violence against Women : Joe Samalin, Consultant on Men’s Engagement on issues of Gender Violence in College, Universities, Government Offices and Community Organsisations in the USA.