The Department of Political Science, Easwari School of Liberal Arts (ESLA), hosted an intellectually engaging academic session with Prof. Swati Parashar of the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, on August 27, 2026. The programme brought together 60 research scholars and 40 faculty members, creating a vibrant forum for critical dialogue on research ethics, knowledge production, coloniality, and structural violence.

The first session, designed as a Methodology Workshop for PhD Scholars, moved beyond conventional understandings of methodology as merely a set of research techniques. Prof. Parashar foregrounded ethical and intellectual relationships underpinning field research, particularly in conflict-affected contexts. The discussion highlighted the frequently under-recognised contributions of local research assistants who provide linguistic expertise, contextual interpretation, access, networks, and intellectual support. Scholars critically engaged with questions of research ethics, authorship, recognition, responsibility, intellectual labour, and North-South asymmetries in knowledge production.

The second session featured the distinguished lecture, “Rethinking the Coloniality and Violence of Famines in the Global South.” Challenging conventional representations of famine as simply a crisis of food scarcity, Prof. Parashar situated mass hunger within histories and continuities of colonial power, displacement, erasure, inequality, and political violence. The lecture invited participants to examine how certain forms of suffering and death become normalised, obscured, or politically invisible.