南アジア・インド洋世界研究会

Speaker:
Dr. Pratyoush Onta
Martin Chautari, Kathmandu, Nepal

Discussants: TBA

Moderator:
Tatsuro Fujikura
Department of South Asia and Indian Ocean Studies, Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies, Kyoto University

Date and time: 30th September 2015, 14:00-17:00

Place: Room AA447, 4th Floor, Research Bldg No.2, Yoshida Main Campus

Access: Main Campus Map (Building No. 34 on the map)

Contact: Tatsuro Fujikrua email: fujikuraATasafas.kyoto-u.ac.jp

Abstract:
Academic non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are already one of the most important institutional sites of knowledge production in the countries of the global South. This article defines academic NGOs as those NGOs which produce not only documentation but also academically engaging articles, reports, edited volumes, bibliographies, journals and monographs. It argues that their growth in the recent decades has taken place amidst the mammoth growth in the number of NGOs in general for structural and personal reasons. Examples from Nepal are provided to illustrate, both at the level of procedures and at the level of outcomes, the kinds of contributions academic NGOs have made to the knowledge enterprise. I also suggest that the links between editorial control over what academic NGOs produce and the funding they receive are more complex than is usually assumed, and that the issue of their accountability needs to be rendered in a multiple-constituency model similar to that at work in conventional universities.