Doctoral dissertation on Tibetan Buddhist community in north-western Nepal

Astrid Hovden from the Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages at the University of Oslo defends her doctoral dissertation entitled Between village and monastery: a historical ethnography of a Tibetan Buddhist community in north-western Nepal on 18 March 2016 at 10.15. The evaluation committee consists of Professor Peter Schwieger, University of Bonn, Associate Professor Ulrike Roesler, Oxford University and Professor Mark Teeuwen, University of Oslo. The venue is Helga Engs Hus, Sem Saelands vei 7, Oslo, Norway. The thesis analyses social organization, decision-making, recruitment, and monastic economy in a Himalayan community. While keeping the main focus on local agency, the thesis discusses how these domains have been negotiated in the context of broader socio-economic, religious, and political transformation processes. Hovden has also been involved in interdisciplinary research cooperation on local adaptation to climate change. This research cooperation has so far resulted in two publications. More information.

Roshni Pramanik, Division of Risk and Societal Safety, Lund University

Roshni Pramanik, PhD Candidate at the Division of Risk and Societal Safety, Faculty of Engineering (LTH), Lund University, defended her Licentiate thesis entitled ”Inter-Organizational Collaboration in  Crisis Response Management – Exploring Conditions for Improving Collaborative Behaviour Across Organizational Borders” on Thurday 26 November 2015, 10.15–12.00. The thesis has some focus on the Indian tsunami disaster management in 2004. Venue: LTH/E House, Room no. 1406, Ole Römers väg 3, Lund.
Roshni is also affiliated to the Centre for Risk Analysis and Management (LUCRAM), and Lund University’s Centre for Societal Resilience. Her dissertation project is a part of the Training Regions Research Project, and is partly funded partly by the Swedish National Defense Forces. She came to Lund University as a scholarship holder in ane Erasmus Mundus programme in September 2010. She came from Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in Mumbai, from where she has a Master’s degree in Disaster Management.
While carrying out field work in India, she has been involved proactively in immediate needs assessment during the devastating Kosi Floods in Bihar, India (2009), travelling to the most remote villages where no support could arrive. Roshni also worked extensively with the Union Ministry of Environment Education in India and their Centre for Environment Education (CEE). During this period she was working in several villages in the politically volatile districts of Baramulla and Kupwara in Kashmir and was stationed in Baramulla. Her research interests can be listed under the broad umbrella Crisis Cooperation, Multi Organizational Coordination in disasters and Social Psychology Experiments in Risk Perception & Decision Making. More information about her research.

Helene Ilkjaer, Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen

Helene Ilkjaer at the Department of Anthropology at Copenhagen University defended her doctoral dissertation entitled Bangalore Beginnings, An Ethnography of Return Migration among Highly Skilled Indians on Thursday 5 November 2015. Venue: Auditorium 1, Centre for Health and Society, The Faculty Library of Social Sciences, Gothersgade 140, Copenhagen. The assessment committee included Dr. Caroline Osella, from SOAS, University of London, UK; and Associate Professor Smitha Radhakrishnan from Wellesley College, Massachusetts, USA.
In her thesis, Helene investigates return migration among highly skilled Indian IT, science and technology professionals to the city of Bangalore. This movement has popularly been dubbed as “reverse brain drain” to “India’s Silicon Valley.” Taking its point of departure in the everyday lived experiences and practices of returnees outside their workplaces, the dissertation examines the post-return dualities of a new/old place and familiar/unfamiliar social spaces. While other researchers have pointed to returnees experiencing the newness – the changes and developments to their home country – as the unfamiliar parts when they come back, this dissertation points in the opposite direction. The thesis argues that it is, in fact, the spaces of the so-called ”new” India including, the gated communities modeled on American suburbia, the international-style malls and the modern technology parks that proved to be the most familiar settings and the easiest spaces for the returnees to relate to. Full information.

Jon Skarpeid, Institute of Phlosophy and Religious Studies, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTHU), Trondheim

Jon Skarpeid from the Institute of Phlosophy and Religious Studies at Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTHU) in Trondheim, defended his doctoral dissertation entitled ”Cosmology in Miniature? Narrativity in Hindustani Music in relation to Indian Religion” on 24 April 2015. The evaluation committee consisted of Professor Jens Erland Braarvig, Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages, University of Oslo; Førsteamanuensis Hans Hadders, Department of Nursing, Sør-Trøndelag Unversity College; and Dr. Nils Holger Petersen, Division of Church History, University of Copenhagen.
The thesis argues that the dominant narrative paradigm is expressed in both music and religion. The main example is how the narrative paradigm of Hinduism is reflected in Hindustani music. Skarpeid has analyzed a long series of musical samples and compared these to key aspects of Hindu philosophy. He finds support for asserting that music expresses Hindu cosmology in miniature. In addition to analyzing narrative structures in music and religion, the candidate has interviewed Hindustani musicians. These musicians argue in favor of a cyclic interpretation of the music. However, this suggests that the narrative paradigm is not static, but changing. It may seem like India is in a transition period where the audience applauds finality, while the musicians seek to express non-finality. The thesis concludes with a comparison of music and philosophy in India and Europe. In India, the cyclic time understanding has been the dominant paradigm, while in Europe the linear concept of time and the creation-apocalypse scheme have been most prevalent. India and Europe are both changing, and perhaps we are witnessing a development where common global forces are affecting both traditions.

Monica Five Aarset, Institute of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo

Monica Five Aarset from the Institute of Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo will defend her doctoral dissertation entitled ”Hearts and roofs. Family, belonging, and (un)settledness among descendants of immigrants in Norway” on Wednesday 15 April 2015, 12.15–15.00. The first opponent is Dr. Alison Shaw, Senior Research Fellow in Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford, UK; and the second opponent is Dr. Mikkel Rytter, Associate Professor at the Section for Anthropology and Ethnography at the Department of Culture and Society, Aarhus University, Denmark.
The thesis is concerned with exploring how understandings and practices of family and belonging unfold in an emerging middle-class segment of descendants of immigrants from India and Pakistan. This generation is now entering the labour market, marrying, and having children of their own. In this process, they have to negotiate and maneuver contradicting understandings and practices of family and everyday life in the intersections between the parental generation, Norwegian society, and transnational social fields. Taking descendants of immigrants as a vantage point the thesis examines questions of social transformation, gender, generation, and belonging. It is based on fieldwork among couples of Pakistani and Indian background with higher education, living in Oslo and neighbouring municipalities. The data material includes ‘local couples’ where both spouses were born in Norway or came to Norway as children, and ‘transnational couples’ where one spouse grew up in Norway and the other in Pakistan or India. Investigating in what ways these different family constellations shape or influence the understandings and practices of family is a central part of this study. Read more.
Venue: Auditorium 4, Eilert Sundts Hus, Blindern, Oslo. More information.

Suraj Shakya-Vaidya, Institute of Medicine, Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg

Suraj Shakya-Vaidya from the Institute of Medicine at Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg (and the Nordic School of Public Health, Gothenburg), defended his doctoral dissertation entitled ”Primary open angle glaucoma in Nepal: Exploring the Unknown” on Wednesday 10 December 2014. The faculty opponent was Professor Nawi Ng, Umeå university.
Suraj Shakya Vaidya has worked in Nepal as an academician and clinician for 19 years in the field of Ophthalmology and lately relocated to UK. She has special interest in glaucoma and was involved in several glaucoma researches in Nepal including two research projects on Pseudoexfoliation syndrome funded by Nepal Health Research Council.
Abstract: Dealing with blindness related to primary open angle glaucoma (POAG) has always been challenging due to late detection as POAG can remain asymptomatic until end stage. Most eye hospitals in Nepal conduct opportunistic screening programs for glaucoma, but no reports confirm whether screening programs achieve their goals in preventing blindness. More information including link to full-text thesis.

Manoj Ashokrao Kale, Department of Sustainable Development, Environmental Science and Engineering, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm

Manoj Ashokrao Kale from the Department of Sustainable Development, Environmental Science and Engineering at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm defended his doctoral dissertation entitled “Bird Species in Urban and Agricultural Landscapes, Bird diversity patterns along an urbanization gradient and crop damage caused by birds on the Deccan Plateau, India” on Friday 14 November 2014. Originally coming from the Department of Environmental Science at University of Pune, Mr. Kale came to KTH as an Erasmus Mundus scholarship holder, and has been supervised by Prof. Prosun Bhattacharya. The faculty opponent was Prof. Petter Kjellander, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU). Photo: Mr. Kale to the right being congratulated by Prof. Bhattacharya.
There has been an enormous deterioration in bird populations in the last 30 years in India and consequently many farmland birds are listed as endangered species. This is partly due to the fact that India holds 12th rank in the world and 1st  rank in Asia in pesticide production and farmers use pesticides on a large scale in order to protect and improve agricultural production. The large quantity of pesticide usage leaves high pesticide deposits in soil. Mr. Kale has done his research in the state of Maharashtra, and his results indicate that four bird species were found under high risk, thirteen species at medium risk and eight species at low risk due to pesticide applications in croplands. The extent of crop damage in fields of groundnut, pearl millet, peas, sorghum, and sunflower was assessed by doing actual field censuses. The sustainable solution for reducing crop damage is a need for the farmers and such techniques will help to avoid direct or indirect effects of use of lethal bird control techniques on bird species diversity. Read more in the full-text thesis.

Rashmi Josephine Rodrigues, Department of Public Health Sciences, Karolinska Institutet

Assistant Professor Rashmi Josephine Rodrigues from the St Johns Academy Of Medical Science in Bangalore, India, defended her doctoral dissertation entitled ”m-Health for antiretroviral treatment support: Evidence from India” at the Department of Public Health Sciences, Karolinska Institutet (KI), Stockholm on Tuesday 14 October 2014. The opponent was Professor Max Petzold, Dept. of Public Health and Community Medicine, Gothenburg University. Venue: Wretlindsalen, Tomtebodavägen 18 A, Stockholm/Solna. Rashmi has had Dr. Ayesha De Costa as her principal supervisor.
With antiretroviral therapy (ART), HIV infection is now managed like a chronic disease rather than as a fatal disease. Adherence to ART is essential for treatment success. However the high levels of adherence that are necessary and the multifactorial nature of adherence, make adherence to ART a challenge. The aim behind the thesis has been to test an mHealth intervention to improve adherence to antiretroviral therapy in HIV patients in South India. Complete case analysis in revealed that the proportion of participants with optimal adherence increased from 85% to 91% patients in the cohort during the intervention period, the effect persisted for six months after the intervention was discontinued (p=0.016). It means that despite the positive effect of the intervention on adherence in the cohort, the researchers were unable to detect an effect on time to viral failure and adherence to treatment in the trial. Read more…

Kenneth Bo Nielsen, Dept. of Social Anthropology & the Centre for Development and the Environment (SUM), University of Oslo

Kenneth Bo Nielsen from the Department of Social Anthropology, & the Centre for Development and the Environment (SUM) at University of Oslo, defends his doctoral dissertation entitled ”Saving the Farmland: The Making of Popular Anti-Land Acquisition Politics in Singur, West Bengal” on Tuesday 21 October 2014, 13.15–16.00. First opponent is Prof. Lucia Michelutti, University College London, UK; and seond opponent is Dr. Sirpa Tenhunen, University of Helsinki, Finland. Venue: Domus odontologica, main auditorium, A1.1001, Sognsvannsveien 10, Gaustad, Oslo. The trial lecture will be held on the day before, Monday 21 October, 11.15 – 12.00. More information about the dissertation.
The thesis deaks with the fact that India over the past decade has been home to thousands of land struggles that have centred crucially on the often forcible transfer of agricultural land from small and marginal farmers or indigenous groups to industrial conglomerates or special economic zones. Yet in spite of the proliferation of such struggles, and the key role they have played in public debates over ‘development’ in India, few of them have been studied ethnographically ‘from within’ as they happened. Kenneth Bo Nielsen’s dissertation seeks to fill this ethnographic gap through a study of one of the most talked-about land struggles in Indian in recent years, namely that against the setting up of a Tata Motors car factory on fertile agricultural land in Singur in the state of West Bengal. Drawing on recent theories growing out of the Subaltern Studies tradition, and the works of Partha Chatterjee in particular, Nielsen explores how Singur’s anti-land acquisition movement, spearheaded by the so-called ‘unwilling farmers’, have sought to forge alliances with key actors in civil society and in the organised domain of regional party politics to prevent their farmland from being acquired and, when that proved futile, to have the land acquisition undone. Read more about the thesis.

Umesh Raj Aryal, Department of Internal Medicine and Clinical Nutrition, Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg

Umesh Raj Aryal from the Department of Internal Medicine and Clinical Nutrition at Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg defended his doctoral dissertation entitled ”Predictors of Smoking Susceptibility among Adolescents: Findings from a Peri-Urban Nepalese Community” on Thursday 12 June 2014. The faculty opponent was Professor John DH Porter, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK. Venue: lecture hall Arvid Carlsson, Sahlgrenska Academy.
In his thesis, Umesh Raj Aryal aims to establish a health demographic surveillance site and examine psychosocial factors among non-smoking adolescents who demonstrated susceptibility to smoking initiation in Nepal. He has carried out research in Jhaukhel and Duwakot villages, a peri-urban area in the Bhaktapur district of Nepal. The content analysis showed that participants were unaware about short-term health consequences of smoking. Smoking initiation related to socio-environmental factors and participants expressed confidence that they would be able to resist peer pressure and refuse to smoke. The thesis reveals several psychosocial factors that influence smoking-susceptible adolescents. Thus, effective smoking prevention programs must incorporate psychosocial factors that prevent smoking initiation in adolescents. More information, including link to full-text thesis.

Malin Jordal, International Maternal and Child Health (IMCH), Department of Women’s and Children’s Health, Uppsala University

Malin Jordal from International Maternal and Child Health (IMCH), Department of Women’s and Children’s Health, Uppsala University, defended her doctoral dissertation on ”Living Up to the Ideal of Respectability: Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Implications for Unmarried Migrant Workers, Single Mothers, and Women in Prostitution in Sri Lanka” on Friday 23 May 2014. The faculty examiner was Senior Research Professor Jeanne Marecek, Department of Psychology, Stanford University, USA. Venue: Auditorium Minus, Akademigatan 3, Uppsala.
The thesis aims to gain a deeper understanding of relationships and sexuality of women at risk of social exclusion in Sri Lanka and the risk of violations of their sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) that they might face. Findings revealed that the migrant women workers negotiated norms of respectability in a society that highly stigmatizes Free Trade Zone women workers, while the men identified conflicting constructions of masculinity existing in the FTZ.
The women facing single motherhood navigated oppressive and stigmatizing social forces, and the women in prostitution constructed themselves as respectable in opposition to their societal disvalue and marginalization. In order to retain an image of sexual innocence, unmarried women are likely to refrain from demanding or demonstrating SRHR knowledge and accessing services. More information about Malin and her research, with a link to the full-text thesis.

Maryam Nastar, Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies (LUCSUS), Lund University

Maryam Nastar, Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies (LUCSUS), Lund University, defended her doctoral dissertation entitled ”Navigating Troubled Waters. An analysis of how urban water regimes in the global South reproduce inequality” on Friday 25 April 2014. Faculty opponent was Prof. Andrew Stirling from the Science and Technology Policy Research (SPRU) at University of Sussex, Brighton, UK. The thesis is based on fieldwork in Hyderabad, India, and Johannesburg, South Africa.
By employing a critical realist approach, she applies different theories in relation to inequality in exploring the mechanisms and conditions leading to the unequal provision of water. In doing so, a structuralist perspective is built on the transition framework, integrated with critical urban theory and tested in two settings, Johannesburg, and Hyderabad. In addition, a relational perspective, based on the concept of durable inequality, is used to scrutinize the relationship between state and citizen in contemporary South Africa and India. Combining these perspectives tells us that the emergence of urban water regimes and inequality in access to water are associated with a set of different mechanisms, such as world city formations, and the World Bank’s strategic governance move, in promoting corporate models for municipalities and water utilities. They are also attributed to specific geo-historical conditions, within and through which different forms of inequality have been constructed around bounded categories (e.g. race, caste, class) especially through the politics of privilege and the politics of resistance in these cities. In Johannesburg, the dominance of the ANC and its use of increasingly technocratic modes of government have hindered many forms of political participation. In Hyderabad, there is less meaningful interaction between the state and the citizens as compared with Johannesburg, in so far as the mode of intermediation is often through party-based patronage. More information, with link to full-text thesis.

Emmanuel Raju, Dept. of Fire Safety Engineering and Systems Safety, Lund University

Emmanuel Raju from the Dept. of Fire Safety Engineering and Systems Safety, Lund University, defended his doctoral dissertation entitled ”Exploring Disaster Recovery. Coordination: Stakeholder Interfaces, Goals and Interdependencies” on Tuesday 17th December 2013. Faculty opponent was Prof. David Alexander, University College London, UK. Venue: Lecture hall K:F, Kemicentrum, Getingevägen 60, Lund.
Abstract: Disaster risk management has seen the importance of coordination at various levels of planning and implementation, ranging from preparedness to disaster response, and in planning for long term recovery and sustainable development. This thesis aims to develop a deeper and analytical understanding of stakeholder coordination for disaster recovery. The thesis is built on case studies from the mega–disaster of the Indian Ocean tsunami that affected India in 2004 and one case-study from repeated flooding in the Western Cape in South Africa. The key question addressed in this thesis is related to the factors affecting coordination for sustainable disaster recovery. The thesis presents the factors affecting coordination drawn from empirical data and its analysis. Finally, this thesis is an attempt to set the stage for more research to address recovery coordination as a governance issue.

Tereza Kuldova, Department of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo

Tereza Kuldova from the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo, defended her doctoral dissertation entitled ”Designing Elites: Fashion and Prestige in Urban North India” on Friday 29 November 2013, at 12.15–15.00. Venue: Auditorium 3, Eilert Sundts hus, Blindern, Oslo. First opponent was Dr. Jean-Claude Galey, Directeur d’études ved Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS), Paris, France; and second opponent is Dr. Henrike Donner, Senior Lecturer in Social and Cultural Anthropology, Department of Social Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, UK.
The thesis, grounded in a yearlong fieldwork in New Delhi and Lucknow, investigates the intersection of the aesthetic, material and ideological production of the North Indian business elites and their prestige, often directly connected to accumulation of wealth and its theatrical display. Focusing on the emerging Indian fashion industry, the thesis zooms on the dominant opulent aesthetics of excessive royal chic and the material and immaterial production of this segment of the heritage luxury business. More information.

Carolina Holgersson Ivarsson at the Division of Social Anthropology, School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg

• Dr. Carolina Holgersson Ivarsson at the Division of Social Anthropology, School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg, defended her doctoral dissertation entitled ”The Give and Take of Disaster Aid: Social and Moral Transformation in the Wake of the Tsunami” on 11 October 2013. The thesis deals with the reconstruction work in Sri Lanka after the tsunami disaster in 2004, and issues of social fragmentation, human security, place attachment & collective memory. Faculty opponent was Prof. Roderck Stirrat from the University of Sussex, UK.
Abstract: The act of giving reflects the most basic principles of morality and has therefore constituted a classical anthropological field of inquiry. The importance of giving, receiving and reciprocating for the shaping and consolidation of social relations has long been recognized. This thesis uses these insights to explore the way in which the gift of disaster aid, which derives from outside the community, impacts upon local social and cosmological relations in a village. The main objective is to investigate how the Boxing Day 2004 tsunami and the immense wave of aid that followed it and subsequently receded, affected the local moral economy in a Sri Lankan village. Read more, including link to full-text thesis.

Arun Rana, Division of Water Resources Engineering, Lund University

Arun Rana from the Division of Water Resources Engineering, Lund University, defended his dissertation ”Climate Change Effects on Rainfall and Management of Urban Flooding” on the 27 September 2013. Faculty opponent was Prof. Karsten Arnbjerg-Nielsen, Department of Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Denmark. Professor Lars Bengtsson has been the main supervisor. Co-supervisors have been Prof. Ronny Berndtsson and Prof. Arun Kansal. 
The thesis presents how the effects of climate change and high-intensive rainfall on the urban drainage system and management of flooding in urban areas of were studied in Mumbai, India and Southern Sweden, including Skåne and Gothenburg. Various analytical systems were applied, and the analysis revealed a high degree of variability in rainfall over Mumbai. A significant decreasing trend for long-term southwest monsoon rainfall was found. Also, a decrease in average maximum daily rainfall was indicated. The southwest monsoon rainfall over Mumbai was found to be inversely related to the Indian Ocean dipole, the El Ninõ-Southern Oscillation, and the East Atlantic Pattern. In Southern Sweden, however, annual precipitation has increased significantly due to increasing winter precipitation. Link to more information. 

Ashis Biswas, Department of Land and Water Resources Engineering; School of Architecture and the Built Environment, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH)

Ashis Biswas from the Department of Land and Water Resources Engineering; School of Architecture and the Built Environment, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, defended his dissertation ”Arsenic geochemistry in the alluvial aquifers of West Bengal, India: Implications for targeting safe aquifers for sustainable drinking water supply” on the 23 September 2013. Faculty opponent was Prof. Dr. Laurent Charlet, CNRS, University of Grenoble, Grenoble, France.  Professor Prosun Bhattacharya has been his main supervisor.
The thesis describes the natural occurrences of high dissolved arsenic (As) in groundwater of Bengal Basin that has put millions of people under the threat of chronic As exposure through drinking water. Present study has examined the processes that regulate As mobilization and its distribution in shallow aquifers and the potentiality of finding safe aquifers within shallow depth (<50 m) for drinking water supply. This study concludes that the reductive dissolution of Fe oxyhydroxides followed by competitive sorption reactions with the aquifer sediment is the process conducive for As enrichment in groundwater of Bengal Basin.
Link to full dissertation.

Ujjwal Neogi, Unit of Infectious Diseases and Dermatology, Department of Medicine Huddinge, Karolinska Institutet

Ujjwal Neogi from the Unit of Infectious Diseases and Dermatology, Department of Medicine Huddinge, Karolinska Institutet, defended his doctoral dissertation entitled ”Translational Genomics of HIV-1 Subtype C in India: Molecular Phylogeny and Drug Resistance” on Tuesday 11 June 2013. Faculty opponent was Dr. Hervy Fleury, Laboratoire de Virologie, Université de Bordeaux, France. Venue: Lecture room 3/B63, Karolinska University Hospital, Huddinge.
Professor Anders Sönnerborg has been his main supervisor. The co-supervisors have been Dr. Irene Bontell at the same department; Dr. Ayesha De Costa, Department of Public Health Sciences, Karolinska Institutet; and Professor Udaykumar Ranga at the Molecular Biology and Genetics Unit, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR) in Jakkur, Bangalore, India.
The thesis describes the translational genomics of HIV-1subtype C in India from its origin to therapeutic response with the aim to improve our knowledge for better therapeutic and preventive strategies to combat HIV/AIDS. In a systemic approach, we identified the molecular phylogeny of HIV-1 subtypes circulating in India and the time to most recent common ancestors (tMRCA) of predominant HIV-1 subtype C strains. More information.

Kerstin Schier, Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages (IKOS), University of Oslo

Kerstin Schier, Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages (IKOS), University of Oslo, defended her doctoral dissertation entitled ”The Goddess’s Embrace: Multifaceted relations at the Ekãmranãtha temple festival, Kanchipuram” on Friday 7 June 2013. The thesis deals with the issue how ancient traditions in South India can survive in a society in rapid transition through the enactment of a wedding between gods. The research is based on textual studies and anthropological field work in Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu. The evaluation committee consists of Professor Torkel Brekke, University of Oslo, Professor Heidrun Brueckner, Würzburg University, and Professor Jörg Gengnagel, South Asia Institute, Heidelberg. Venue: Arne Næss’ auditorium, Georg Morgenstiernes hus, University of Oslo, Blindern.
The day before, on Wednesday 6 June, Kerstin Schier held her trial lecture at the same place. Its title was ”Wild and mild goddesses and their worship in India”. More information.

Shafqat Mumtaz Virk, Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE), Chalmers University of Technology

Shafqat Mumtaz Virk at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE), Chalmers University of Technology and University of Gothenburg, defended his doctoral thesis entitled ”Computational Linguistics Resources for Indo-Iranian Languages” on Monday 3 June 2013. The faculty opponent was Dr. Pushpak Bhattacharyya, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Mumbai.
Shafqat has a background from University of Engineering and Technology in Lahore, Pakistan. For his thesis work, he has been supervised by Professor Aarne Ranta, and Dr. K.V.S. Prasad, while working in the Grammatical Framework group at University of Gothenburg. The thesis deals with the question whether computers can process human languages. Virk elucidates the development of computational (”resource”) grammars for six Indo-Iranian languages: Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi, Persian, Sindhi, and Nepali.
He also provides computational evidence of the similarities/differences between Hindi and Urdu, and report a mechanical development of a Hindi resource grammar starting from an Urdu resource grammar. He uses a functor style implementation that makes it possible to share the commonalities between the two languages, finding that sharing is possible upto 94% at the syntax level, whereas at the lexical level Hindi and Urdu differed in 18% of the basic words, in 31% of tourist phrases, and in 92% of school mathematics terms. More information about the thesis.
Read the full-text PhD thesis.

Lars Tore Flåten, Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages (IKOS), University of Oslo

Lars Tore Flåten, Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages (IKOS), University of Oslo, defended his doctoral dissertation entitled ”History and Identity Politics: Educational Reforms and History Textbook during the Rule of the BJP” on Friday 25 January 2013. First opponent was Research Director Veronique Bénéï, Centre National Reserche Scientifique, Paris, France. Venue: Auditorium 3, Helga Engs Hus, Blindern, Oslo.
Abstract: When the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) assumed power in India in 1998, as the largest party of the National Democratic Alliance, it soon became evident that it prioritized educational reforms. The BJP is a cultural nationalist party, which seeks to define India according to its Hindu cultural legacy. It may also be construed in terms of identity politics, since the BJP attempts to make Hindu identity the primary frame of identification for India’s Hindus. In this study Flåten examines the main features of BJP’s reforms of the National Council of Educational Research and Training, with particular emphasis on the publication of four new history textbooks in 2002. He views these textbooks as integral to BJP’s identity political agenda, and examine in what ways they invoked Hindu identity. More information about Lars Tore Flåten and his research.

Monica Plechero from the Centre for Innovation, Research and Competence in the Learning Economy (CIRCLE)

Monica Plechero from the Centre for Innovation, Research and Competence in the Learning Economy (CIRCLE), and the Department of Human Geography, Lund Universitydefended her doctoral dissertation entitled ”The Changing Geography of Innovation – Chinese and Indian Regions and the Global Flows of Innovation” on 11 December 2012. The thesis deals with how Chinese and Indian firms are upgrading their innovation capabilities to go internationally, and how regional and global linkages are effecting firms’ capacity to compete in the global market. Faculty opponent was Associate Professor Andrea Morrison, Utrecht University, The Netherlands. Read the full-text thesis.
Her main research topic concerns global innovation networks and different forms of globalization of innovation in developing countries. She is particularly interested in studying firms located in emerging Regional Innovation Systems. Read an article entitled ”Indiska och kinesiska företag i innovationsfronten” at Lund University web site.

Hakim Usoof, Interactive Media and Learning (IML), Department of Applied Educational Science, Umeå University

Srilankan guest researcher Hakim Usoof, Interactive Media and Learning (IML), Department of Applied Educational Science, Umeå University, defended his doctoral dissertation entitled ”Designing for eAssessment of Higher Order Thinking – An Undergraduate IT Online Distance Education Course in Sri Lanka” on 7 September 2012. Faculty opponent was Professor Emeritus Patrick Dillon, University of Exeter, UK. Dr. Usoof is now back at his srilankan home institution: University of Colombo School of Computing, UCSC).
The thesis offers an insight into the process of designing and evaluation of a technology aided formative assessment model for an IT online distance education degree programme. The study focuses on a design process that is primarily driven by pedagogical underpinnings which influence the design and use of technology for the purpose of assessment for learning. The study is divided into two parts. The first addresses the issue of plagiarism in distance education and the second addresses the use of technology for learning and assessment with a focus on the development of higher order thinking in collaborative learning environments. More information.

Md Munjur E Moula, Department of Social Studies/Social Work, University of Helsinki

Md Munjur E Moula defended his doctoral dissertation entitled ”Street Children and Services: A Qualitative Study of Street Children in the Context of Service Delivery System in Bangladesh” at the Department of Social Studies/Social Work, University of Helsinki, Finland, on 20 June 2012. Dr. Moula is now working as a post-doc at the Department of Energy Technology, Aalto University in Espoo. The thesis examines how the existing service system for street children is structured in two cities of Bangladesh and from the perspectives of street children themselves and from service providers  perspective. Hence, the study analyses explanations for (1) how the children end up in the streets and their street-based livelihood system and surviving, and for (2) how it is written about the child perspective, child rights, service delivery for children and the elimination of street children from the streets by developing their livelihood conditions. Thus, these explanations were considered in this research combining and using ecology of human development, poverty, social exclusion and Giddens structuration theory. The structuration theory offers the dimensions of child policy and service delivery system. The study explores its arguments through the situation of street children (beneficiary and non-beneficiary) and support delivery system for them in two cities as Dhaka and Bogra in Bangladesh. More information.

Per-Olof Fjällsby, Department of History and Political Science, Karlstad University

Per-Olof Fjällsby, Department of History and Political Science, Karlstad University, defended his doctoral dissertation entitled ”Indien som utopi och verklighet. Om den teosofiska rörelsens bidrag till indisk utbildning och politik 1879-1930” (India as Utopia and Reality. On the Contributions by the Theosophical Society to Indian Education and Politics, 1879–1930) on Friday 1 June 2012. The faculty opponent was Dr. Henrik Chetan Aspengren, Department of History, Uppsala University. In the study P-O Fjällsby tries to explore the various ways in which the past was used by the Theosophist in order to construct a national identity in India. Three subjects are in focus; their national political ambitions, efforts in the field of a national education and in the women’s movement.
More information about the thesis.

Eskil Mattsson, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Gothenburg

Eskil Mattsson, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Gothenburg, defended his PhD thesis in Physical Geography entitled “Forest and land use mitigation and adaptation in Sri Lanka – aspects in the light of international climate change policies” on Friday 30 March 2012. The faculty opponent was Dr. Sandra Brown, Ecosystem Services Unit, Winrock International, Virginia, USA.
Eskil Mattsson’s research focuses primarily on the role of land-use change and forestry in a future climate regime with emphasis on reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, conservation, sustainable management of forests, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks (REDD+). The aim of the dissertation project has been to investigate monitoring aspects to deforestation and degradation in developing countries, with a focus on Sri Lanka. The findings presented in the thesis can contribute to a better understanding of potential options and approaches that Sri Lanka can use to realize its climate change mitigation and adaptation potential in the land use and forestry sector.
More information about Eskil Mattsson and his research.
Abstract and link to the full-text thesis.

Mattias von Brömssen, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH)

Mattias von Brömssen, Department of Land and Water Resources Engineering, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, defended his doctoral dissertation entitled ”Hydrogeological and geochemical assessment of aquifer systems with geogenic arsenic in Southeastern Bangladesh – Targeting low arsenic aquifers for safe drinking water supplies in Matlab” on Friday 20 January 2012. The faculty opponent was Professor David Polya, University of Manchester, United Kingdom.
The thesis covers a crucial period of the work on the arsenic problems in groundwater in Bangladesh. Especially it includes the discovery of the local drillers ́ strategy to find low iron groundwater by assessing the colour of the sediments. With the link between mobilisation of arsenic along with iron which was published by a KTH team in 1997 this gave an immediate hint on means of predicting arsenic low groundwater during well construction. The strategy was discovered by the author of the thesis when he was advising a M.Sc. thesis project. More information.
Read the full dissertation (as a pdf-file)

Tazeen Saeed Ali, Karolinska Institutet

Tazeen Saeed Ali, Division of Global Health (IHCAR) at the Dept. of Public Health Sciences, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, defended her doctoral dissertation entited ”Living with violence in the home: Exposure and experiences among married women, residing in urban Karachi, Pakistan” on Friday 16 December 2011. The thesis is based on a study conducted in urban Karachi, Pakistan to investigate prevalence, frequency, risk factors, and mental health effects of husbands’ violence against their wife. It also explores current gender roles in urban Karachi, Pakistan, how these are reproduced and maintained, and their influence on life circumstances for both men and women. Further, it explores the women’s perceptions of situations which create conflicts and potentially lead to different forms of violence and the immediate consequences of violence exposure. reveals serious gender inequalities and human rights violations against women within marriage, in her extended family and within Pakistani society. The unequal gender roles were perceived as static and enforced by structures imbedded in society. The opponent was Professor Berit Schei, University of Bergen, Norway. More information.

Sirajul Islam, Örebro University School of Business

Sirajul Islam, Örebro University School of Business, defended his doctoral dissertation entitled ”Creating opportunity by connecting the unconnected : mobile phone based agriculture market information service for farmers in Bangladesh” on Thursday 10 November 2011. The faculty opponent was Professor Rahul De from Indian Institute of Management (IIM) in Bangalore, India. The thesis is framed within the research area of Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D), which is concerned with how ICT can make a difference to the lives of the poor. This study focuses primarily on mobile phones and how they can be used as part of an Agriculture Market Information Service (AMIS) in order to provide crucial information to farmers in Bangladesh. More information about Sirajul Islam and his research.
More information about the thesis, incl. link to full-text thesis.

Kathryn Lum, European University Institute in Florence, Italy

Kathryn Lum, Research Assistant at the Dept. of Political and Social Sciences, European University Institute in Florence, Italy, defended her doctoral dissertation entitled ”How Caste Works: Forging New Identities in a Punjabi Ex-Untouchable Community in Catalonia, Spain” on Monday 10 October 2011. Kathryn has previously completed her MA at the Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University. Kathryn has previously completed her MA at the Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University.
The doctoral thesis is an ethnographic study of an ex-untouchable group from the Punjab region of India known as the Ravidassias. Its aim is twofold: on the one hand to elucidate the mechanisms of caste in social life and in particular, to analyse how ex-untouchables negotiate caste stigma, and on the other, to explore the caste, gender, and youth dimensions of the Ravidassia community in Catalonia, Spain. This study is comparative in nature, discussing caste, the management of caste stigma, and the Ravidassia sociocultural/religious movement in the Punjab, India and Catalonia, Spain. More information.

Maria Jonstrup, Department of Biotechnology, Lund University

Maria Jonstrup, Department of Biotechnology, Lund University, defended her doctoral dissertation entitled ”Treatment of textile wastewaters using combinations of biological and physico-chemical methods” on 29 September 2011. The faculty opponent was Professor Bert Allard, School of Science and Technology, Örebro University.
Her research was carried out within the department’s dye remediation research group (more information), under supervision from Prof. Bo Mattiasson, with funding from Sida and Mistra. In India research has been carried out in Tirupur (photo to the right) and in Kanpur. The project was carried out in collaboration with Indiska Magasinet AB, Sweden, and the target was to deliver a viable treatment method to the textile industry for cleaner production.
This project focused on degradation of textile dyes using white-rot fungi and combining anaerobic-aerobic bacterial processes. Part of the effort also lay on photocatalysis, though being a physico-chemical process it has many advantages. First a laboratory scale treatment process for synthetic wastewater should be developed. Once this is achieved the next step is to build a pilot plant at a textile factory in India. The final goal is to be able to reuse the treated wastewater within the factory.
More information with a link to the abstract.

Iselin Frydenlund, University of Oslo

Iselin Frydenlund, Dept. of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages (IKOS), University of Oslo, defended her doctoral dissertation entitled ”Canonical Ambiguity and Differential Practices: Buddhist Monks in Wartime Sri Lanka” on Wednesday 15 June 2011. This study analyses the relationship between Buddhism, war and nationalism, focusing on the Sri Lankan civil war (1983–2009). Based on a combination of historical analysis and field data, it explores the ambiguities and flexibility of Buddhism in relation to war. Theravada Buddhism provides space for competing discourses about the state and violence, but it does not have a systematic just-war tradition similar to those of Christianity or Islam. During Sri Lanka‘s civil war, Buddhist monks were in favour of a military solution to the conflict, and this dominant militarist position co-existed with a normative discourse on nonviolence. Thus, the Buddhist concept of nonviolence should not be confused with pacifism. A pacifist discourse does exist, but it represents a minority position. In her thesis, Iselin Frydenlund argues that understanding monastic views on war, nationalism and inter-ethnic relations requires taking specific local contexts into account. Her field data show that discourses of peace and inter-ethnic harmony were more predominant among monks in the war zones compared to the dominant nationalist discourses among monks at the political centre, but also that monks in the war areas were closely linked to nationalism and state activity. Thus, the rapidly shifting social realities of Sri Lanka make it impossible to reduce monks‘ views and practices to a single grand theory of Buddhism or nationalism.

The evaluation committee consisted of Professor John C. Holt, Bowdoin College, USA; Professor Jonathan Spencer, University of Edinburgh, UK; and Professor Anne Stensvold, University of Oslo. More information about the thesis.

Aakash Chawade, Gothenburg University

Aakash Chawade, Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Gothenburg University, defended his doctoral dissertation entited ”Unravelling the complexity of cold acclimation in plants” on Friday 10 June 2011. Mr. Chawade has been working with Prof. Olof Olsson on projects related to understanding processes involved in the cold acclimation mechanism in Arabidopsis thaliana, oats and rice. One of the projects have focused on Cold stress in Oryza sativa – rice – in Nepal. Rice is a staple for a large part of the human population and more so in the Asia. It can be grown on the plains as well as on the hills. In-spite of possessing the functional CBF genes in the genome, rice is a chilling tolerant but cold sensitive plant. Some of the rice cultivars are however better chilling tolerant than the rest. Aakash’s goal in this project has been to study and characterize rice genes that could improve the freezing tolerance of rice. Hence, he has studied four different rice genes by over-expressing them in Arabidopsis thaliana.

The faculty opponent was Professor Tapio Palva, Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki, Finland. Read the full-text thesis (as a pdf-file)

Katarina Plank, Lund University

Katarina Plank, Dept. of History and Anthropology of Religion (including Judaism and Indic Religions), Lund University defended her doctoral dissertation entitled ”Insikt och närvaro – akademiska kontemplationer kring buddhism, meditation och mindfulness” (Insight and Presence – Academic Contemplations on Buddhism, Meditation and Mindfulness) on Friday 3 June 2011. The faculty opponent was Professor Knut Jacobsen from the Department of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion (AHKR), University of Bergen. The thesis focuses on the international lay meditation movement of Vipassana teacher S N Goenka and in particular on lay meditation practices in Sweden. More information.

Johan Borg, Lund University

Dr. Johan Borg, Division of Social Medicine and Global Health, Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University (in Malmö), defended his doctoral dissertation entitled ”Assistive Technology, Human Rights and Poverty in Developing Countries. Perspectives based on a study in Bangladesh” on 17 February 2011. He was supervised by Per-Olof Östergren and Stig Larsson. The faculty opponent was Professor Malcolm MacLachlan, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.

Deprived of human rights, more than half of all people with disabilities in developing countries live in extreme poverty. Although considered a prerequisite for equalization of opportunities, about nine out of ten of those who need assistive technologies do not have access to them. Little is known about the socioeconomic benefits of using assistive technology in low-income countries that can inform policies and strategies. The aim of the thesis was therefore to expand the understanding of the relation of assistive technology use to human rights and poverty in these countries. This is approached theoretically and empirically. Poverty is studied in terms of deprivation of capabilities as defined by Amartya Sen.

More information about the thesis.

Overview dissertations 2010

Saima Hamid Division of Global health (IHCAR), Karolinska Institutet Medical University, Stockholm defended her doctoral dissertation entitled ”Becoming a Woman in Silence: Studies on preparedness for reproductive life of young women in Pakistan” at IHCAR on 8 December 2010. The study explores the preparedness of young women for married life (communicating with spouse, initiation of sexual activity and child bearing) and ability to negotiate in marriage with spouse on number of children to have and on contraceptive use. In a culture of silence around sexuality, young women’s socialisation into submissiveness lays the foundation for the lack of control over their future reproductive health (I and II). The parents realised, though, that bringing up daughters for marriage requires not only obedience, but also building confidence and knowledge during their childhood (III). Women who had decision making freedom in their parental home carried this ability with them into marriage in their new home and were better able to negotiate about their fertility (IV). Knowledge about reproductive life could prepare young women better for the future life and give them more control of their fertility. Innovative interventions targeting women need to challenge current societal norms of womanhood to promote the upbringing of confident and knowledgeable young women.

The faculty opponent was Associate Professor Pia Olsson, Department of Women’s and Children’s Health, International Maternal and Child Health (IMCH), Uppsala University. More information, including link to full-text thesis.
Marie-Thérèse Charpentier, Dept. of of Comparative Religion, Åbo Akademi University in Turku, Finland, defended her doctoral dissertation entitled ”Indian Female Gurus in Contemporary Hinduism. A Study of Central Aspects and Expressions of Their Religious Leadership” on Friday 26 November 2010. The faculty opponent was Prof. Mathieu Boisvert, Département de sciences des religions at Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), Canada. The thesis focuses on the fact that the rich and complex history of Hinduism primarily has been written by male scholars and has documented the point of view of male spiritual strivings. This fact, together with patriarchal opinions expressed in many authoritative sacred texts, has contributed to creating an image of Indian spirituality in which female religious experience is either absent or considerably marginalized. Venue: Auditorium Armfelt, Arken, Fabriksgatan 2, Turku (Åbo), Finland.
More information.
Jenny Wickford, Department of Clinical Neuroscience and Rehabilitation, Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology, Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, defended her doctoral dissertation entitled ”Physiotherapists in Afghanistan. Exploring, encouraging & experiencing professional development in the Afghan development context” on Monday 15 November 2010. The aim of the thesis is to analyze the matter of supporting professional development of physiotherapists in Afghanistan, and the issues involved in expatriate physiotherapists working with professional development cross-culturally in development contexts. The thesis is based on two field studies. The faculty opponent is Professor Dennis Beach, School of Education & Behavioural Sciences, University of Borås. Venue: Academicum Hörsal Arvid Carlsson, Medicinaregatan 3, Gothenburg.
Read the full-text thesis.
David Hansen, Dept. of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages (IKOS), University of Oslo, defended his doctoral dissertation entitled ”Radical Rhetoric – Moderate Behavior: Perceptions of Islam, Shari’a, and the Radical Dimension(s)” on Thursday 11 November 2010. The thesis is an empirical study of the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi, examining everyday life, beliefs, rhetoric, and rituals relating to Islam and Islamic practices, in order to interpret, analyze and present a picture of everyday perceptions of contemporary Islam and what is increasingly related to as ”the new face of Islam” or ”growing radical Islam in Pakistan”. The main approach has been to look at four main dimensions, or core-categories: – Contemporary Islam in Pakistan; – Sufism (piri-muridi, sufiyyat) in Pakistan; – Modernity (jadidiyyat) vis-a-vis the traditional Pakistan; and, – Politics of Otherness (ghairiyyat) in Pakistan. More information on David Hansen’s research.

The examination committee consisted of Dr. Stephen Cohen, Foreign Policy Studies Program, The Brookings Institution in Washington D.C., USA; Prof. Tor Halvdan Aase, University of Bergen; Prof. Pamela Gwynne Price, IAKH, University of Oslo; and Prof. Ute Hüsken, IKOS. More information on the dissertation (only in Norwegian)
Malin Gregersen, Department of History, Lund University defended her doctoral dissertation entitled ”Fostering Obligations. Representations of a Mission in South India in the First Half of the 20th Century” on Friday 8 October 2010. The thesis focuses on narratives from Swedish missionaries working in the small town of Tirupattur, Tamil Nadu, and their influence in the formation of early 20th century Swedish world views. Malin Gregersen problematizes the issue by pointing out that these narratives of everyday life in foreign countries were formulated out of a mission, not only to convert to christianity but to foster and mould people according to their different ideals. The faculty opponnent was Prof. Kajsa Ahlstrand, World Christianity and Interreligious Studies, Faculty of Theology, Uppsala University. Venue: Dept. of History, hall 3, Magle Stora Kyrkogata 12 A, Lund.
Full information, including link to full-text tesis.
Sohaib Khan, Institute of Public Health and Clinical Nutrition, University of Eastern Finland (Kuopio Campus), defended his doctoral dissertation entitled ”Poliomyelitis in socio-cultural context – study from province Punjab, Pakistan” on Friday 24 September 2010. It is a study of Poliomyelitis, an infectious disease, which is still endemic in four countries in the world: Pakistan, India, Afghanistan and Nigeria. Eradication activities focus mainly on the mass immunization of children under 5 years age with OPV (Oral Polio Vaccine). The present study explored the disease in context of social and cultural factors in province Punjab, Pakistan. The opponent in the public examination was Professor Sirpa Janhonen of the University of Oulu. More information.

Syed Farid-ul-Hasnain in the Research Group on Epidemiology and Health systems research focusing on equity and gender at the Division of Global health (IHCAR), Karolinska Institutet Medical University, Stockholm, defended his doctoral dissertation entitled ”Young Adults in Urban Pakistan; Barriers and Challenges for Improving Health Behaviors in the wake of the HIV/AIDS Epidemic” on Thursday 16 September 2010. The thesis is grounded in the fact that HIV/AIDS is spreading globally more specifically among the younger generation. The impact of HIV/AIDS on the youth cannot be underestimated. The studies were conducted in the city of Karachi, Pakistan, which is the largest city and the economic and commercial hub of Pakistan and comprises of people from all ethnic backgrounds.

The study reveals that females were twice as likely to dropout of school/college as males. The risk factors for school/college dropout for both males and females were migrant residential status, living in an extended family and low socio- economic status. Furthermore, females exhibited a higher level of awareness about STDs and HIV/AIDS than the males, irrespective of whether they had dropped out of school or not. Venue: Rockefeller Hall, Nobels Väg 11, Solna Campus, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm.
Read an abstract with a link to the full-text thesis.
Guro Aandahl, Centre for Development and the Environment (SUM), University of Oslo, Norway, defended her dissertation in Human Geography, entitled ”Technocratic dreams and troublesome beneficiaries. The Sardar Sarovar (Narmada) Project in Gujarat” on Friday 18 June 2010. The thesis focuses on the relationship between planning and implementation in the Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP). It is a study of two areas hitherto neglected in the Narmada research: 1) the perspectives of the planners and engineers, and 2) the actions and perceptions of the beneficiaries of the project. By contextualising the SSP within the history of thinking about, and doing, ‘development’, she offers a new perspective on the SSP. The opponents were Prof. Stuart Corbridge, Development Studies Institute, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE); and Dr. Radha D`Souza, School of law, University of Westminister, UK. More information.
Helle Jørgensen, Department of History and Area Studies, Aarhus University, Denmark, defended her doctoral dissertation, entitled ”Tranquebar – Whose History? Transnational Cultural Heritage in a Former Danish Trading Colony in South India” on Thursday 17 June 2010. The town of Tranquebar on the East Coast of South India was a Danish trading colony in the years 1620-1845. Tranquebar has been declared a heritage town by the government of Tamil Nadu due to the well-preserved townscape from the Indo-Danish colonial period, and the town has for decades been subject to both Danish and Indian attempts at preservation and promotion as a destination of heritage tourism. But whose – and which – heritage is being secured through this development? The dissertation comprises an anthropological study of the dynamic social process in which the townscape of Tranquebar has become subject to promotion as a materialisation of transnational history. The thesis focuses on the negotiations of historicity that come into play between the many stakeholders in the present development of Tranquebar, including the residents, heritage and tourism developers, public authorities, researchers, and tourists. More information about the research project.

The Assessment Committee consisted of Associate professor Lisanne Wilken, Aarhus University; Professor Mary Hancock, Department of Anthropology and History, University of California, USA; and Professor Sharon MacDonald, School of Sciences, University of Manchester, England.
Kristine Eck, Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University, defended her doctoral dissertation entitled ”Raising Rebels: Participation and Recruitment in Civil War” on Saturday 5 June 2010. The thsis is based on fieldwork in Nepal, and tries to explain why some individuals choose to participate in rebellion, and what recruitment tactics rebel groups use to affect this decision? These questions are central to the study of civil war because rebel groups must raise troops in order to challenge the government and to survive as an organization. Faculty opponent was Stathis Kalyvas, Arnold Wolfers Professor of Political Science and Director of the Program on Order, Conflict, and Violence at Yale University, USA. Venue for the dissertation: Gustavianum (Auditorium Minus), Akademigatan 3, Uppsala. More information, including abstract.
Satu Ranta-Tyrkkö, Department of Social Work Research, University of Tampere, Finland, defended her doctoral dissertation entitled ”At the Intersection of Theatre and Social Work in Orissa, India: Natya Chetana and Its Theatre” on Saturday 22 May 2010. The study is an ethnography on the theatre group Natya Chetana (Theatre for Awareness) working in the state of Orissa in Eastern India, and the group’s work as social work. At the same time, relying on its empirical standpoints, the study participates in the discussion on international, increasingly global social work. Although driven by social work interest, the study is strongly interdisciplinary: Besides social work, anthropological, theatre, postcolonial and South Asian studies also inform the subject matter of the work. More information, with link to full-text thesis.
Abdel Baten Miaji, Section of Islamology, Department of History of Religions; Centre for Theology and Religious Studies, Lund University, defended his doctoral dissertation entitled ”Rural Women in Bangladesh: The Legal Status of Women and the Relationship between NGOs and Religious Groups” on Friday 21 May 2010. The faculty opponent was Dr. Monica Erwér, School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg (but currently working as Team Leader for the Swedish non-governmental organisation The Swallows India Bangladesh section in Lund). The thesis focuses on how religious and traditional customs affect the socio-economic condition of women in Bangladesh. More information.
Jannie Lilja, Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University, defended her doctoral dissertation entitled ”Disaggregating Dissent: The Challenges of Intra-Party Consolidation in Civil War and Peace Negotiations”, on Wednesday 12 May 2010. It partly deals with Sri Lanka. Elisabeth Jean Wood, Professor of Political Science at Yale University, USA, will be the faculty opponent. The thesis discusses the fact that contemporary civil wars are often characterized not only by fighting between rebels and governments, but also by rebel violence against their own community members. In spite of repeated peace negotiations, many of these conflicts seem to go on endlessly. The dissertation approaches the question of rebel capacity by disaggregating the non-state side in civil war and in connection with peace talks. It offers a set of original case studies from three ethno-separatist conflicts: Sri Lanka, Indonesian Aceh, and Senegal.
More information, incl. link to full-text dissertation.
• During the period 2005-10, Dr. Fauziah Rabbani, Associate Professor at the Dept. of Community Health Sciences at Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan, carried out a sandwich PhD training at the Division of Global health (IHCAR), Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. On 24 March 2010, she defended her doctoral dissertation entitled ”Science and practice of balanced scorecard in a hospital in Pakistan: Feasibility, context, design and implementation”. At IHCAR, she has been a member of the multidisciplinary research group “Health Systems and Policy” (HSP), led by Prof. Göran Tomson. More information.

The external examiner was Dr. Zoe Radnor, Associate Professor, Warwick Business School, UK. The main aim of the thesis was to determine whether Balanced Scorecard hospital management application is feasible in the context of a low- income hospital setting, to identify organizational culture, as well as design the scorecard and describe the contextual barriers and strategic processes that hinder or facilitate its implementation. More information, with a link to the full-text thesis.
Ted Svensson, Dept. of Political Science, Lund University, defended his doctoral dissertation entitled ”Meanings of Partition: Production of Postcolonial India and Pakistan” on 23 March 2010 at the Dept. of Political Science, Warwick University in UK, where he carried out his PhD programme. The thesis constitutes an analysis of the partition of British India and the ensuing state formation and state consolidation in the region. Hed Svensson argues that a study of the so-called transfer of power – and of the inclusion of the notions of ‘Partition’ and ‘Independence’ as key elements of Indian and Pakistani nation building – ought to contain a recognition of the labour by the political elites to overwrite the abyssal and ambiguous character of becoming independent and postcolonial. The external opponent at the dissertation was Prof. Jenny Edkins from Aberystwyth University, UK. More information, with an abstract.
Mikkel Rytter, Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen, defended his doctoral dissertation entitled ”Family Upheaval. Generation, Mobility and Relatedness among Pakistani Migrants in Denmark” on 5 March 2010. This thesis deals with Pakistani migrant families who have been living more or less permanently in Denmark since the late 1960s or early 1970s. After four decades in Denmark, many families have achieved levels of material prosperity, economic security and social mobility that the first generation could only dream of before they left Pakistan; however, their success has come at a price. Based on multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork with Pakistani family networks in Denmark, Sweden and Pakistan from 2001-2008 this thesis focuses on the current ongoing intergenerational and transnational negotiations of what it implies to ‘be’ and ‘do’ family. The evaluation committee consisted of Prof. Pnina Werbner, Keele University, UK, Associate Professor Filippo Osella, University of Sussex, UK, and Associate Professor Helle Bundgaard, University of Copenhagen. More information.
Ferdinando Sardella, Department of Literature, History of Ideas, and Religion, University of Gothenburg, defended his doctoral dissertation entitled ”Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati. The Context and Significance of a Modern Hindu Personalist” on Saturday 6 February 2010. The faculty opponent was Julius Lipner, Professor in Hinduism och Comparative Religion at the Divinity Faculty, University of Cambridge, UK. The thesis is based on field work carried out in West Bengal, India, where he spent a total of one year during the period 2004–08. This study explores the life and work of Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati (1874-1937), a Vaishnava guru of the school of Chaitanya (1486-1534), who, at a time that Hindu non-dualism was most prominent, manag ed to establish a pan-Indian movement for the modern revival of traditional personalist bhakti that today encompasses both Indian and non-Indian populations throughout the world. More information.
Swedish researcher Henrik Chetan Aspengren has been awarded a PhD from the Dept. of Politics and International Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, UK. The viva took place on 12 January 2010. Examiners were Dr Vernon Hewitt, University of Bristol, and Prof. Sanjay Seth, Goldsmiths, University of London. In the thesis, entitled ”Social Imperialism – And how it was applied in the Bombay Presidency, 1895–1925”, Aspengren deals with the making of the ’the social’ as a space of government intervention, amid growing urban unrest and assertive nationalism in colonial, western India. It discusses the influence of social liberalism, and sociology, on the local British administration in the Bombay Presidency, and the implementation of actual projects of sanitation, housing and education. Read an abstract of the thesis.
Dr. Aspengren is now connected to the Dept. of History, Uppsala University.

Overview dissertations 2009

Matilda Palm, Physical geography, Department of Earth Sciences, Gothenburg University, defended her doctoral dissertation entitled ”Land Use in Climate Policy – Forest Based Options at Local Level with Cases from India” on Friday 27 November 2009. Faculty opponent was Associate Professor Emily Boyd from the School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, UK. The thesis tries to give an improved understanding of the local, regional and global implications of different initiatives on land use change. It was motivated by a perceived lack of local case studies exploring the contexts of climate policy. The thesis is based on fieldwork conducted mostly in the south Indian state of Karnataka, in collaboration with the Centre for Ecological Science and the Centre for Sustainable Technologies at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore. Venue for the dissertation: Stora Hörsalen, Geovetarcentrum, Guldhedsgatan 5A, Gothenburg. More information. 

Erik Engström, Department of Meteorology (MISU), Stockholm University, defended his his doctoral dissertation entitled ”Characterization of light absorbing particulate matter in air and precipitation over Southern Asia” on 27 November 2009. The faculty opponent was Prof. Paolo Laj from Université Blaise Pascal in Clermont-Ferrand, France. Engström has been part of the International ”Atmospheric Brown Cloud (ABC)” programme dealing with the problem of air pollution in the Indo-Asia Pacific Region, and its impact on climate and the environment (more information). The thesis is based on filter-based optical measurements of soot – light absorbing particulate matter at a wavelength of about 550 nm – in air and rainwater. The research work was performed between June 2005 to and May 2009, at Godavari in Nepal; Sinhagad in India; and Hanimaadhoo in the Maldives. A method for determination of water-insoluble light absorbing matter inrainwater was developed. Read the full abstract.

Ananda Edirisuriya, Department of Computer and Systems Sciences (DSV), Stockholm University and Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), defended his doctoral dissertation on ”Design Support for e-Commerce Information Systems using Goal, Business and Process Modelling”, on Tuesday 20 November 2009. Faculty opponent was Prof. Michael Petit, Computer Science Faculty, University of Namur, France. Mr. Edirisuriyahas s worked as a senior lecturer in the Dept. of Statistics and Computer Sciences, University of Sri Jayawardenepura, Sri Lanka, and has been involved in a split PhD program for Sri Lankan doctoral students organised by Stockholm University/KTH (more information). His main research interest is IT systems in business process management, and enterprise modelling.

Karolina Härnström, Division of Marine Botany, Department of Marine Ecology, Gothenburg University, defended her doctoral dissertation thesis entitled ”Bloom dynamics and population genetics of marine phytoplankton – Community, species and population aspects” on Friday 25 September 2009. The faculty opponent was Dr. Tatiana Rynearson, University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography, Coastal Institute, Narragansett, Rhode Island, USA. The general aim of this thesis was to study marine phytoplankton dynamics at community, species and population level. Karolina has focused on the interaction between water mass and sediment, both in temperate waters and in a tropical area (Mangalore, India) investigating the importance of resting stages and small-scale hydrographical changes for the phytoplankton community structure as well as population genetics and microevolutional processes of population dynamics. The results from coastal south-west India show that benthic resting stages contribute to blooms by resuspension, germination, and proliferation as planktonic cells in the water column, and thus, the cells can influence the phytoplankton community in the water column. There can be an alternation of the species composition if a plankton community is seeded by resting stages or by planktonic cells, and geographically the strategies of seeding can differ within the same species.Venue for the dissertation: Lecture hall, Dept. of Marine Ecology, Carl Skottsbergs gata 22 B, Gothenburg. More information.

Dinesan Vadakkiniyil, Dept. of Social Anthropology, University of Bergen, defended his PhD thesis entitled ”Teyyam: The Poiesis of Rite and God in Malabar, South India” on Friday 25 September 2009. First opponent was Prof. Jean-Claude Galey, Director of Studies, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, France; and the second opponent Prof. Don Handelman, Dept. of Sociology and Anthropology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mt. Scopus, Israel. More information.

Tamanna Ferdous, Division of Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism, Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Uppsala University, defended her doctoral dissertation thesis entitled ”Determinants of Functional Impact of Nutritional Status Among Older Persons in Rural Bangladesh” on Tuesday 22 September 2009. It deals with the fact that malnutrition is a major problem in Bangladesh. One third of the population in Bangladesh is malnourished, but figures for older persons specifically are scant. The thesis describes the nutritional status of individuals aged 60+ years, living in a rural community in Bangladesh, with particular focus on the impact of demographic, health and social factors on nutritional status. The faculty opponent was Prof. Birgitta Sidenvall, Department of Nursing, School of Health Sciences, Jönköping University. More information.

Ayesha de Costa, Division of Global health (IHCAR), Karolinska Institutet Medical University, Stockholm defended her doctoral dissertation entitled ”Barriers of mistrust : Public and private health care providers in Madhya Pradesh, India” on 17 September 2008. The thesis highlights the heterogeneity and dominance of the private health sector, and the distribution of different provider groups in rural and urban areas/districts. Rather than an absolute shortage of manpower, maldistribution seems a problem here. Access to women providers is low, important in a setting where women would prefer seeing women providers. The possibility that scheduled castes might have lower access to health care providers than the rest of the population is presented, a finding with important political implications. The barriers to trust between the public and private health sectors in the setting are complex. Addressing these as a step to making real collaboration possible, calls for deeper more structural changes in the working of the health system, including a redressal of the regressive fee-for-service payment mechanism. The government must consider some form of health insurance for more vulnerable groups of people. More information, with link to full-text thesis.

Frida Hastrup, Dept. of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen, defended her PhD thesis entitled ‘Weathering the World – Recovery in the Wake of the Tsunami in a Tamil Fishing Village’ on Friday 26 June 2009. The research project has been part of the Tranquebar Initiative of the National Museum of Denmark (more information). In December 2004, the tsunami in the Indian Ocean caused severe damages to Tranquebar in Tamil Nadu, India, killing around 800 people, destroying houses, boats and agricultural land, and leaving high demands for relief aid in the area. The aim of Frida Hastrup’s project has been to analyse the social and cultural effects of the tsunami and the attendant process of reconstruction. The project focuses on the ways in which the social life in Tranquebar (family structures, power relations, education etc.) has been affected, and investigates how changing notions of risk and safety become implicit factors in the process of reconstruction. More information.

Jawad Ali, Dept. of International Environment and Development Studies (Noragric) at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences in Ås, defended his doctoral dissertation project titled ”Deforestation in the Himalayas: Mainstream views, institutional failure and ‘alternative systems’. A case study from Northern Pakistan”, on Wednesday 10 June 2009. The evaluation committee was headed by Dr Are Knudsen, Research Director, Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI), Bergen. Jawad Ali has studied the ongoing deforestation in northern Pakistan, and has found that local fuelwood collection is not the main cause. Instead, the estimated deforestation of about 30% during the last three decades is primarily due to commercial harvesting and mismanagement by the government. A large amount of dead fallen wood and green trees was sold by the government or was taken out by a “timber mafia” that emerged during the main period of commercial harvesting in the 1970s and 80s.

Tanvir Ahmed, Dept. of Microbiology and Immunology, Institute of Biomedicine at Sahlgrenska Academy, Göteborg University, defended his doctoral dissertation titled ”Vaccination against cholera and ETEC diarrhea and interventions to improve vaccine immune responses” on 10 June 2009. Vibrio cholerae O1 and enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) together account for the majority of bacterial causes of acute dehydrating diarrhea in children in Bangladesh. Vaccines should be considered as an important public health tool for prevention of these diarrheal diseases. The results of Dr. Ahmed’s studies give important background information regarding the possibility of inducing effective immune responses to oral inactivated enteric vaccines in young children in developing countries. More information.

Anisur Rahman, International Maternal and Child Health (IMCH), Department of Women’s and Children’s Health, Uppsala University defended his doctoral dissertation project titled ”Prenatal Arsenic Exposure and Consequences for Pregnancy Outcome and Infant Health: Epidemiological Studies in Bangladesh” on Tuesday 19 May 2009. Anisur Rahman has worked on arsenic exposure in pregnancy and effects on foetus and child. He has also been affiliated to the Division of Metals & Health, Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm. The aim of this thesis has been to analyse possible effects of prenatal arsenic exposure on foetal and infant health. The setting is Bangladesh, where two cohorts were studied, both part of a health and demographic surveillance system in Matlab. The faculty opponent was Prof. Gunnar Nordberg, Dept of Public Health and Clinical Medicine, Umeå University.More information.

Magdalena Bjerneld, International Maternal and Child Health (IMCH), Department of Women’s and Children’s Health, Uppsala University defended her doctoral dissertation titled ”Images, Motives, and Challenges for Western Health Workers in Humanitarian Aid” on Wednesday 17 May 2009. The faculty opponent was Prof. Lars Dahlgren, Division of Epidemiology and Public Health Science, Umeå University. The thesis presents how humanitarian aid workers were attracted, motivated, recruited, and prepared for fieldwork, and how they reported their work experience directly from the field and when they returned home. Data were derived from interviews with experienced aid workers, focus group discussions with presumptive aid workers, analysis of letters from aid workers in the field on MSFs homepages in Europe, and from interviews with recruitment officers at some of the main humanitarian organisations. More information.

AKM Masud Rana, Division of Geriatric Epidemiology; Department of Neurobiology, Caring Sciences and Society (NVS); Karolinska Institutet Medical University, Stockholm defended his doctoral dissertation entitled ”The Impact of Low Cost and Health Promotion. Intervention in Improving Health and Health-related Quality of Life of Elderly persons in Rural Bangladesh” on 24 April 2009. Dr. Masud Rana works for Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) in Dhaka since 1993, but has pursued his doctoral dissertation project at KI. The thesis suggests that the provision of community-based health promotion intervention among older people could help to both reduce the burden of arthritis-related illness and its related healthcare expenditure, and improve their health-related quality of life. More information, incl. link to full-text thesis.

Mats Lannerstad, Dept. of Water and Environmental Studies, Tema Institute, Linköping University, defended his doctoral dissertation entitled ”Water Realities and Development Trajectories – Global and Local Agricultural Production Dynamics” on Monday 20 April 2009. Faculty opponent was Professor Paul Appasamy from Karunya University in Coimbatore, India. The thesis focuses on the water and agricultural production complexity in a global, regional and local perspective during different phases of development. It addresses the river basin closing process in light of consumptive water use changes, land use alterations, past and future food production in waterscarce developing countries in general, and a south Indian case study basin in particular, the Bhavani basin in Tamil Nadu. Dr. Lannerstad is now working at Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI).

More information, including abstract.

Fazlul Karim, Division of Global health (IHCAR), Karolinska Institutet Medical University, Stockholm defended his doctoral dissertation entitled ”Gender matters: Understanding of access barriers to community-based tuberculosis care in Bangladesh” at IHCAR on 17 April 2009. The thesis concludes that sex differences exist at different clinical steps for TB control. Women compared with men, encountered longer delays at various clinical stages for TB treatment. The adverse effects of stigma both reflected and worsened gender inequalities. Gender disparities were evident in the patterns of distress, perceived causes, and help seeking behaviours, affecting more women, whilst TB-related financial distress affected more men. The estimated true period prevalence of smear-positive PTB was high in the community, and almost all socio-economic groups were at risk of TB. More information, with link to full-text thesis.

Anna Laine, Division of Social Anthropology, School of Global Studies, Göteborg University defended her doctoral thesis on the Kolam Ritual: Visual Representation of Female Agency in Tamil Nadu, India titled ”In Conversation with the Kolam Practice. Auspiciousness and Artistic Experiences among Women in Tamilnadu, South India” on Saturday 28 March 2009. The study investigates the kolam both as a performative process, and as a material result, and the ethnographic material is treated from anthropological perspectives on art and gender. Faculty opponent was Dr Amanda Ravetz from the Manchester Institute for Research and Innovation in Art and Design (MIRIAD) at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. More information, with a link to the full-text thesis.

Mattias Larsen, Dept. of Peace and Development Research, School of Global Studies, Göteborg University defended his doctoral dissertation on ”Vulnerable Daughters in Times of Change: Emerging Contexts of Discrimination in Himachal Pradesh, India” on Friday 13 March 2009. The dissertation deals with the widespread problem in India of using sex selective abortions to discriminate against daughters. Girls are aborted on a massive scale simply because they are girls. A point of departure is the fact that the problem has become prevalent at a time of considerable social and economic change. Faculty opponent is Prof. Ravinder Kaur from the Dept. of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Delhi. More information, with a link to the full-text thesis.

Geir Heierstad, Dept. of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages (IKOS), University of Oslo, defended his doctoral dissertation titled ”Images of Kumartuli Kumars – The Image-Makers of Kolkata” on Friday 6 February 2009. First opponent was Professor Christina Garsten, Dept. of Social Anthropology, Stockholm University. The day before, on Thursday 5 February, he held a trial lecture at the same place. The lecture was titled ”Caste and religion in Kumartuli”. Geir Heierstad, who is a social anthropologist, has spent long periods in Kolkata and West Bengal. Already in 2003, he presented a thesis for a Masters degree in Social Anthropology (”Hovedfagsoppgave”) titled ”Nandikar – Staging Globalisation in Kolkata and Abroad”, focusing on Kolkata and based on extensive fieldwork in the Indian metropolis. Read the full thesis on the theatre group Nandan.

More information on his 2009 PhD thesis.

Interview with Dr. Geir Heierstad in the Norwegian online research magazine, forskning.no, 3 January 2011 (only in Norwegian).

Ingrid Dash, Dept. of Education, Lund University defended her doctoral dissertation on Friday 30 January 2009. The thesis is titled ”Flexibility in knowing school mathematics in the contexts of a Swedish and an Indian school class”. The faculty opponent was Prof. Inger Wistedt, Dept. of Education, Stockholm University. The main objective of the thesis has been to obtain insights into flexible modes of knowing in school mathematics in two school class contexts, and how these relate to modes of being a learner in these contexts, with specific focus on learners’ flexible ways of discerning parts and delimiting wholes, and how they understand part- and whole-relationships while doing mathematics. Empirical material was collected from one school class in Southern Sweden and another in the Indian state of Orissa. More information.

Overview dissertations 2008

PhD candidate Sachitra Kumari, Division of Peace and Development Research (PADRIGU), School of Global Studies, Göteborg University, defended her Licentiate thesis titled ”A Study of War-Affected Children in Sri Lanka” on Thursday 18 December 2008. The thesis aims to build up an analytical model for studying rehabilitation programmes for children in Sri Lanka, with a view to future research. Ms. Kumari is also lecturer at the Dept. of Sociology, University of Peradeniya in Sri Lanka. More information.

Md. Aziz Hasan, Dept. of Land and Water Resources Engineering, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm defended his doctoral dissertation titled ”Arsenic in alluvial aquifers in the Meghna basin, South-Eastern Bangladesh: Hydrogeological and geochemical characterisation” on Wednesday 5 November 2008. Mr. Hasan is also connected to the Department of Geology, University of Dhaka. The study reveals that the local and regional scale variations in groundwater composition, levels of As concentrations and the redox conditions are governed by the geological attributes of the aquifers. Groundwater in the grey to dark grey argillaceous sediments where organic matter and micas are abundant contain high concentration of dissolved As. High concentrations of As and salinity are the major constraints for groundwater development in the Holocene alluvial aquifers of the Meghna basin. Abstraction of groundwater from the Holocene deeper low-As aquifers for drinking purposes should thus be be properly guided to minimise the risk of cross-contamination and installation of high-capacity irrigation wells in the deeper aquifers must be avoided for sustainable drinking water supplies. Read the full dissertation (as a pdf-file)

Vishal Singh Parihar, Dept. of Restaurant and Culinary Arts, Academy of Health Science, Örebro University, Campus Grythyttan defended his doctoral dissertation titled ”Human listeriosis: Sources and Routes” on Monday 29 September 2008. The defence took place at Gastronomiska teatern in Grythyttan. Dr. Parihar, who has a background as a veterinary in India, has studied the bacterium Listeria monocytogenes that can cause the disease listeriosis in both humans and animals. The research has been carried out both in Sweden and in India. The incidence of Listeria species in seafood from markets in Goa has been the focus for one case study. One hundred and fifteen raw/fresh seafoods bought at the fish markets were sampled and tested for presence of Listeria spp. L. monocytogenes was detected in 10 samples. L. monocytogenes in raw seafood may pose a health risk in kitchen if contaminating ready-to-eat food. Faculty opponent was Prof. Carl Påhlsson, School of Sustainable Development of Society and Technology, Mälardalen University, Eskilstuna. Read the full abstract.

An article about the dissertation was published in Nerikes Allehanda on 8 October 2008. Read the article titled ”Indisk veterinär disputerar i Grythyttan på giftig bakterie”.

Eystein Dahl, Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages (IKOS), University of Oslo, defended his doctoral dissertation titled ”Time, tense and aspect in early Vedic grammar. A time-relational approach to the morphosyntax-semantics interface” on 5 September 2008. The opponents were Prof. Georges-Jean Pinault, Sorbonne University, Paris, France and Prof. Paul Kiparsky, Stanford University, USA. More information.

Antarin Chakrabarty, Dept. of Urban Design and Planning, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway defended his doctoral dissertation titled ”Communicative Planning and Democratic Decentralisation in India – Case of Kolkata City” on Friday 22 August 2008. The thesis entails a constructive critique of communicative planning theory from a historical materialist perspective. The experience of Kolkata shows that a more communicative and democratic planning structure can evolve out of a process that originated with completely opposite strategies of extra-parliamentary politics and open class-confrontation. The opponents were Prof. Tore Sager, Dept. of Civil and Transport Engineering, NTNU; Prof. Arild Engelsen Ruud, Dept. of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages, University of Oslo; and Dr. Maria Nyström, Design for Sustainable Development, Chalmers University of Technology, Göteborg.

Stine Jessen Haakonsson, Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS) & Dept. of Geography, University of Copenhagen, defended her doctoral dissertation titled ”Governance and Upgrading in the Global Value Chain for Pharmaceuticals – with Case Studies on Uganda and India” on Friday 13 June 2008. The thesis deals with the WTO TRIPs agreement, medicines and structural change in the international pharmaceutical industry. Venue: Auditorium, Dept. of Geography, Øster Voldgade 10, Copenhagen. More information.

Farzeen Tanwir, Dept. of Periodontology, Institute of Odontology, Karolinska Institutet Medical University, Stockholm, will defend his doctoral thesis titled ”Absence of toothache syndrome. Oral health and Treatment needs among urban Pakistanis” on Thursday 12 June 2008. The general aim of the thesis was to survey oral health and oral treatment needs among an adult population from a deprived area in Karachi, acquiring baseline data for future treatment strategies and research. The results show that among urban adult Pakistanis, oral health is not perceived as a major concern and has low priority. No association was found between poor oral health and educational levels or socio-economic status. In this population with poor oral hygiene, diabetics have more missing teeth and a higher prevalence of peridontitis. Faculty opponent will be Associate Professor Lars Gahnberg, County Council of Göteborg. More information.

Jenny Grönwall, Department of Water and Environmental Studies, Tema Institute, Linköping University, defended her doctoral dissertation titled ”Access to water Rights, obligations and the Bangalore situation” on Wednesday 4 June 2008. The thesis deals with the city of Bangalore, undergoing rapid urbanisation and administrative transition. Its growth puts pressure on the available water sources – being mainly the disputed inter-State River Cauvery and the hard-rock aquifers – with ensuing problems of access. The dissertation shows that we cannot talk in terms of water and rights until we are aware of how complex rights apply simultaneously, and how they correspond to obligations. Faculty opponent was Professor S. Janakarajan from Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS)in Chennai, India. More information.

Henrik Liljegren, Dept. of Linguistics, Stockholm University, defended his doctoral dissertation titled ”Towards a grammatical description of Palula, an Indo-Aryan language of the Hindu Kush” on Monday 2 June 2008. The dissertation is intended to provide a grammatical description of the Indo- Aryan language Palula, spoken by approximately 10,000 people in Chitral District in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province. No study with the scope and detail of the current work has been presented in the past for this little-known language, and it is one of only a few in-depth studies available for languages in the immediate surrounding of the Hindu Kush region. Faculty opponent was Professor Peter E. Hook, University of Virginia, United States. More information.

Dhammika Herath, Division of Peace and Development Research (PADRIGU), School of Global Studies, Göteborg University, defended his doctoral dissertation titled ”Rural Development through Social Capital? An inquest into the linkages between social capital and development in war-torn villages in Sri Lanka” on Friday 30 May 2008, 10.15–12.00. It concerns the potential causal relationship between social capital and rural development in war-torn villages in the north of Sri Lanka. The social capital thesis centers on the notion that social relationships matter to development-related outcomes and reconstruction of war-torn societies. Faculty opponent was Dr Jonathan Goodhand, Dept. of Development Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, UK. Read the abstract of the thesis.

Tone K. Sissener from the Institute for Social Anthropology, University of Bergen, defended her doctoral dissertation titled ”A State of Corruption? An Anthropology of the South Asian State” on Friday 25 April 2008. First opponent was Dr. Anne Waldrop, University of Oslo. The thesis deals with bureaucratic corruption in Bangladesh, with particular focus on the education sector. Ms. Sissener has two years of fieldwork experience from Bangladesh, and has also carried out consultancy projects and election observation in the country. The day before the defense, Tone K. Sissener gave a trial lecture on ”Corruption in South Asia: Comparative anthropological perspectives”. Venue: Auditorium, Ulrike Pihls Hus, Professor Keysersgate 1, Bergen, Norway. More information.

Rasmus Wendt, Department of Society and Globalisation, Roskilde University (RUC), Denmark, defended his doctoral dissertation titled ”TRIPs in India – An analysis of the impact of global governance on political processes in India and the wider institutional settings for the pharmaceutical industry” on Friday 28 March 2008. His point of departure has been how WTO’s TRIPs agreement has impacted upon access to medicine, which was the core-issue during the South Africa court case on the medicine act in 2001. The assessment committee members were Laurids Lauridsen, RUC, Jørgen Dige Pedersen, University of Aarhus, and Prof. Wolfgang Hein, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies.

Farzana Munshi, Dept. of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, University of Gothenburg, defended her doctoral dissertation entitled ”Essays on Globalization and Occupational Wages” on 12 March 2008. The discussant was Associate Professor Karolina Ekholm, Department of Economics, Stockholm University. The thesis evaluates empirically how globalization has affected occupational wages in both developing and developed countries. Three aspects of globalization – openness to trade, openness to capital and offshore-outsourcing – are examined in four self-contained essays. The first two essays evaluate the effects of increased trade liberalization on the wage gaps between skilled and unskilled workers in the Bangladesh manufacturing sector. The third and the fourth essays analyze the effects of globalization on occupational wages in both developing and developed countries. More information, with link to full-text thesis. 

Matilda Nicklasson, Dept. of Microbiology and Immunology, Institute of Biomedicine at Sahlgrenska Academy, Göteborg University, defended her doctoral dissertation titled ”Studies on the expression and regulation of enterotoxins and colonization factors in enterotoxigenic escherichia coli (ETEC)” on Thursday 31 January 2008. The results are based on studies of ETEC bacterias from patients at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research (ICDDR,B) in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) is one of the most common causes of acute watery diarrhoea in developing countries, particularly among local children less than five years and is also the most common cause of diarrhoea in travellers to ETEC enemic areas. The infection is transmitted by ingestion of contaminated food and water and the disease is established in the small intestine Colonization factors (CFs) on the bacterial surface mediate adhesion to the intestinal epithelium and diarrhoea is manifested by the actions of a heat-stable (ST) and / or a heat-labile (LT) enterotoxin. Two of the most common CFs in strains isolated world-wide are coli surface antigens 5 (CS5) and 6 (CS6). In this thesis the expression and regulation of these important virulence factors as well as the genetic variability among ETE strains have been studied. More information.

Daniel Alcala Bergquist, Dept. of Social and Economic Geography, Uppsala University, defended his doctoral dissertation titled ”Colonized Coasts. Aquaculture and Energy flows in the World System: Cases from Sri Lanka and the Philippines” on Friday 15 February 2008. The study reveals that semi-intensive shrimp monoculture in Sri Lanka generates few benefits for poor local people, and depends much on external inputs such as fry, feed and fuels, which implies negative environmental effects at local as well as global levels. Extensive polyculture in the Philippines involves more local people, and implies lower dependence on external inputs. Still, since benefits accrue mostly to elites, and mangroves are negatively affected, neither case is viable for sustainable poverty alleviation. The work has been carried out in collaboration between the department and the Cemus Research Forum (Cefo) at Uppsala University. Faculty opponent was Prof. Örjan Sjöberg, Dept. of Economics, Stockholm University. More information with a link to the full-text thesis.

Overview dissertations 2007

Kristina Myrvold, Division of Indic Religions, Department of History and Anthropology of Religion, Lund University, defended her doctoral dissertation ”Inside the Guru’s Gate. The Ritual Uses of Texts among the Sikhs in Varanasi” on Thursday 20 December 2007. The thesis deals with Sikh rituals in Varanasi, where Kristina has conducted fieldwork for several years. Her study focuses on religious attitudes towards the Sikh scripture and the ritual use of texts. Faculty opponent was Assistant Professor Michael Nijhawan, Dept. of Anthropology, South Asia Institute (SAI), University of Heidelberg, Germany. More information, with an abstract.

The day after the dissertation, Kristina was interviewed by the Lund University’s Student Union magazine Lundagård. The article was titled ”Att halka rätt”. Read the article (as a pdf-file, in Swedish only)

Grethe Fochsen, Department of Public Health Sciences, Division of International health (IHCAR) at Karolinska Institutet Medical University, Stockholm, defends her doctoral dissertation titled ”Encounters with power: health care seeking and medical encounters in tuberculosis care: experiences from Ujjain District, India”, on Friday 14 December 2007. In the thesis, Grethe Fochsen examines health care seeking and medical encounters in the context of TB care in a rural district in Madhya Pradesh. More specifically, the study focuses on how relations of power between health care providers and patients are created, altered and maintained during medical encounters in a diversified health system. More information.

Jennie Håkansson from the Dept. of Physics, Chemistry and Biology, Linköping University, defended her doctoral dissertation on ”Behavioural aspects of conservation breeding: Red junglefowl (Gallus gallus) as a case study” on Friday 23 November 2007. The thesis deals with endangered species of animals that currently are involved in conservation breeding programs worldwide. Conservation breeding deals with propagation of captive populations, often with the ultimate aim of releasing animals into the wild. However, an alarmingly high proportion of reintroductions have not been successful in establishing viable populations, possibly due to behavioural problems caused by genetic adaptation to captivity. During the project, behavioural studies have been carried out in zoos in Sweden, Denmark and India as well as in the field in the Himalayas of Northern India, where red junglefowls live wild in the jungle. More information with a link to the full-text thesis.

Wimal Pathmasiri from the Dept. of Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Uppsala University, defended his doctoral dissertation titled ”Structural and Biophysical Studies of Nucleic Acids” on Tuesday 6 November 2007. Faculty opponent was Dr. Lena Mäler, Lena, Dept. of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Stockholm University. More information, with a link to a full-text version of the thesis.

Pia Karlsson and Amir Mansory from the Institute of International Education (IIE) at Stockholm University defended their joint doctoral dissertation titled ”An Afghan Dilemma: Education, Gender and Globalisation in an Islamic Context”, on Friday 2 November 2007. The thesis deals with the socialisation process of rural village girl students in Islamic education and ‘Modern’ education from a holistic and ecological development perspective. Faculty opponent was Prof. David Stephens from the School of Education, University of Brighton, UK. Venue: Wallenbergsalen, Juristernas Hus, Frescativägen 18, Stockholm. Read the abstract of the thesis.

Muhammad Kamrul Islam from the Division of Social Epidemiology and Health Economics, Lund University (in Malmö), defended his doctoral dissertation on ”Essays on Social Capital, Health and Socioeconomic Inequalities in Health. A Health Economic Study”, on Thursday 1 November 2007. Venue: Lilla Aulan, Medical Research Center (MFC), entrance 59, Universitetssjukhuset UMAS in Malmö. Faculty opponent was Professor Terkel Christiansen, Odense, Denmark.

Ulrika Möller, Department of Political Science, Göteborg University, defended her doctoral dissertation titled ”The Prospects of Security Cooperation: A Matter of Relative Gains or Recognition? India and Nuclear Weapons Control” on Friday 21 September 2007. Faculty opponent was Prof. Ian Clark from University of Wales in Aberystwyth.The thesis adresses the problem of state defection from multilateral cooperation, with empirical focus on India’s decision to repudiate the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in 1996. Theoretically, the thesis develops an explanation to state defection which contradicts the commonly held view, launched by structural realism, of international politics as a self help system. More information about the dissertation (only in Swedish)

S. M. Abdul Quddus, Dept. of Administration and Organization Theory, University of Bergen, defended his doctoral dissertation titled ”The Unfeasibility of Professionalization of Primary-School Teachers in Bangladesh. An Analysis of the actors and factors, 1971-2001”, on Friday 22 June 2007. Venue: Auditorium, Ulrike Pihls hus, Professor Keysers gate 1, Bergen. Faculty opponent is Professor Geoffrey Wood, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Bath, England. More information.

Katrin Uba from the Dept. of Government, Uppsala University, defended her thesis titled ”Do Protests Make a Difference? The Impact of Anti-Privatisation Mobilisation in India and Peru” on Friday 1 June 2007. It focuses on the impact of various forms of political protests in different contexts. The empirical material is related to campaigns against privatization in Latin America (Peru) and South Asia (India). The aim is to test and develope further the theory on social movement impact on policy change. Faculty Opponent was Professor Anirudh Krishna, Duke University, USA. More information.

Md. Jakariya from the Dept. of Land and Water Resources Engineering, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, defended his doctoral dissertation titled ”Arsenic in Tubewell Water of Bangladesh, and Approaches for Sustainable Mitigation” on Thursday 24 May 2007. The thesis is based on empirical studies in some districts of Bangladesh, where arsenic is very common in tubewell water, a serious health problem in the country. Md. Jakariya, who is connected to the BRAC Arsenic Mitigation Project organised by Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC), has tested a field test kit, which is cheap and easy to use in the villages. It has been found to give adequate information about arsenic content in the water.

Several mitigation methods have bee tried out, including sand filters and chemical filters against arsenic. Another way is the collection of rainwater or using filtrated floodwater. However, the most feasible method is actually to bore deeper wells, that is, deeper than the prevalent 20-30 meter level. Local masons who are engaged in well boring are skilled in predicting arsenic by seeing the colour of sediments. So they can be enthrusted with this task. Jakariya has also imvolved local people including women in the planning of new and deeper wells, which can serve the local communties. He uses what he calls a Participatory Geographical Information System, in which the villagers can see the prevalence of arsenic wells and where the situation for drawing water is safe. They are also asked to contribute 20 % of the cost for digging new and deeper wells.

The faculty opponent was Prof. Jan Hoinkis, University of Applied Sciences in Karlsruhe, Germany.. Read the full dissertation (as a pdf-file)

Ole Jensen, Department of Society and Globalisation, Roskilde University (RUC), Denmark, defended his doctoral dissertation titled ”Beyond mountains: The impact of Pakistani territorialisation on Balti livelihoods and migration practices” on Friday 27 April 2007. During his research work, Ole Jensen has collaborated with Dr. Jan Magnusson at Lund University. In August 2003 they were given a SASNET planning grant to develop a research project about the Baltistan Movement (more information). The object of study has been national and political identities in a region consisting of not only Baltistan, but also of Kargil and Ladakh in India. Venue: Small auditorium in building 01 at RUC. Details about the dissertation.

Tamanna Ferdous from the Division of Geriatric Epidemiology; Department of Neurobiology, Caring Sciences and Society (NVS); Karolinska Institutet Medical University, Stockholm defended a Licentiate thesis titled ”Prevalence of Malnutrition and Determinants of Nutritional Status Among Elderly People: A Population-Based Study in Rural Bangladesh” on Wednesday 31 January 2007, 09.00. This study reports a high prevalence of malnutrition among elderly people in rural Bangladesh. In order to reduce the proportion of the undernourished worldwide, it is important to address this subset of the population. This research also shows that malnutrition is associated with both disease and non-disease related factors. Venue: Aging Research Center, Gävlegatan 16, 8th floor, Stockholm. More information.

Serge Axenov, Iranian Languages, Section for Asian and African Languages and Cultures, Department of Linguistics and Philology, Uppsala University, defended his doctoral dissertation about ”The Balochi Language of Turkmenistan: A corpus-based grammatical description” on Friday 19 January 2007. Faculty opponent was Dr. Elena Bashir, University of Michigan, Chicago, USA. More information with abstract.

Anna-Pya Sjödin, Section of South Asian Languages and Cultures, Department of Linguistics and Philology, Uppsala University, defended her doctoral dissertation in Indology titled “The Happening of Tradition. Vallabha on Anumana in Nyayalilavati” on Saturday 13 January 2007. It consists of a translation and analysis of a medieval Indian text based on certain theoretical considerations on cross-cultural translation and the understanding of tradition. Faculty opponent was Professor Purushottama Bilimoria, School of International and Political Studies, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australien. More information, with access to full thesis.

Overview dissertations 2006

Rodrigo Tavares, Division of Peace and Development Research (PADRIGU), School of Global Studies, Göteborg University, defended his doctoral dissertation titled ”Understanding Regional Peace and Security: A Framework for Analysis” on 15 December 2006. The thesis has an emphasis on South Asia and Europe. Faculty opponent was Elzbieta Stadtmuller from the Institute of International Studies, University of Wroclaw, Poland. More information about the thesis.

Dr. Shafiqul Sarker from ICDDR,B (Centre for Health and Population Research) in Dhaka, Bangladesh, defended his doctoral dissertation at Karolinska Institutet Medical University, Stockholm, on 12 December 2006. The thesis was titled ”Passive immunotherapy and probiotic agents in enteric infections in children” and dealt with diarrhoeal disease, one of the leading causes of global childhood morbidity and mortality throughout the World. Rotavirus and pathogenic Escherichia coli are the most common causes of acute diarrheal illness in children. The thesis presented results how the rotavirus diarrhoea in children can be effectively treated. Dr. Sarker had been involved in a sandwich PhD programme with the Division of of Clinical Immunology, Dept. of Laboratory Medicine at Karolinska Institute since 2001, where he was supervised by Prof. Lennart Hammarström. Read the abstact of the thesis.

Ingegerd Landström, Department of Social and Economic Geography, Uppsala University defended her doctoral dissertation titled ”Towards Collaborative Coastal Management in Sri Lanka?: A study of Special Area Management planning in Sri Lanka’s coastal region”, on 8 December 2006. The thesis deals with the efforts on the part of the Sri Lankan government to bring about collaboration involving state, civic, and private players regarding the use of land and natural resources in the coastal areas of Sri Lanka, which were hit by the tsunami in 2004. Faculty opponent was Prof. Erik Westholm, Högskolan Dalarna, Campus Falun.

Andreas Nordin from the Dept. of Social Anthropology, Göteborg University defended his doctoral dissertation titled ”Pilgrimsfärder i Himalaya – interaktion med gudomliga aktörer” (Pilgrimages in the Himalaya – Interaction with Divine Actors) on Saturday 2 December 2006. It focuses upon fundamental regularities in pilgrimages, in the form of ritual interaction with culturally postulated divine actors in the Tibetan and Nepalese Himalayas. Faculty opponent was Prof. Illka Pyysiäinen, Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, University of Helsinki, Finland. More information about the thesis (with abstract, only in Swedish).

Jan Heegård Petersen from the Dept. of Nordic Studies and Linguistics, University of Copenhagen, defended his PhD thesis “Local case-marking in Kalasha” on Thursday 2 November 2006. The research deals with Kalasha, an Indo-Aryan (“Dardic”) language with about 4,000 speakers in the Hindu Kush mountains in Northwest Pakistan, and is based on fieldwork in the region. Petersen has previously published studies of the phonetics and grammar of the language. The thesis is a study of the case endings and postpositions in Kalasha. Read the full dissertation (as a pdf-file)

Erik Johansson from the Division of Housing Development and Management, Department of Architecture and Built Environment, Lund Institute of Technology, Lund University, defended his doctoral dissertation titled ”Design and Outdoor thermal Comfort in Warm Climates. Studies in Fez and Colombo” on Friday 15 September 2006. Faculty opponent was Prof. Koen Steemers, Director of the Martin Centre for Architectural and Urban Studies, University of Cambridge, UK. The main objective of the research project has been to deepen the knowledge on how urban climate and thermal comfort vary within the studied cities in relation to urban design. In Sri Lanka Johansson worked in cooperation with the University of Moratuwa. Venue: Lilla Hörsalen, Ingvar Kamprad Design Centre, Sölvegatan 26, Lund. More information on the project.

Marie Larsson, Dept. of Social Anthropology, Stockholm University, defended her doctoral dissertation titled ”When Women Unite!. The Making of the Anti-Liquor Movement in Andhra Pradesh, India” on Friday 9 June 2006. It deals with the anti-arrack campaign started in the early 1990s among poor village women in Andhra Pradesh in Southern India, primarily among Scheduled Castes (formerly Untouchables) and Muslims. Faculty opponent was Prof. Shalini Randeria, Ethnologisches Seminar, Universität Zurich, Switzerland. Read the abstract.

Mats Bergenhorn from the Division for Islamology, Centre for Theology and Religious Studies, Lund University, defended his doctoral dissertation titled ”Öppna universum! Slutna traditioner i Salman Rushdies Satansverserna” (Open the Universe. Secluded Traditions in Salman Rushdie’s ’Satanic Verses’), on Wednesday 7 June 2006. The thesis contains discussions about Hindutva, migration and ethnicity, especially in the United Kingdom. Faculty Opponent was Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Dept. of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo. Read the abstract.

Rupesh Kumar from the Division of Industrial Design, Department of Human Work Sciences, Luleå University of Technology, defended his doctoral dissertation titled “Ergonomic evaluation and design of tools in cleaning occupation” on Wednesday 7 June 2006. The thesis deals with how to integrate ergonomics principles in design and development of cleaning tools and cleaning process. Faculty opponent was Dr. Lena Sperling, Lund University. Read the abstract.

Catarina Nyberg from the Dept. of Education, Stockholm University, defended her doctoral dissertation on 7 June 2006, with a thesis titled ”Flerkulturella identifikationer i ett svensk-uganda-indiskt sammanhang” (multicultural identities in a Swedish–Ugandan–Indian context). It is a study of three generations of Hindu and Muslim people of Indian origin coming to Sweden after they were expelled from Uganda in 1972. Dr. Nyberg is now working at Centre for Research in International Migration and Ethnic Relations, CEIFO, an inter-disciplinary research unit at Stockholm University. Its principal aim is to coordinate and develop research in the field of international migration and ethnic relations. Read the abstract of the thesis.

Harold Wilhite, Research Fellow at the Centre for Development and the Environment (SUM), University of Oslo, Norway, defended his doctoral thesis, titled ”Why is consumption changing in Kerala? An ethnographic approach”, on Friday 2 June 2006. The thesis deals with cross-cultural perspectives from India and Norway on consumption, socio-cultural change and sustainability. It tries to develop a policy-relevant theory of consumption which takes due account of the socio-cultural dynamics of change. Indian findings are compared with Norwegian consumption practices in order to highlight important socio-cultural determinants of consumption such as comfort, identity, time use and notions of the “good life”. More information.

Johan Burman, Marine Geology; Department of Earth Sciences, Göteborg University, defended his doctoral dissertation on ”Stable Oxygen and Carbon Isotopes in Recent and Subfossil Littorinidae Shells – a high resolution method for paleoenvironmental reconstructions” on Friday 2 June 2006. Faculty opponent was Associate Professor Dan Hammarlund, Dept. of Geology, Lund University. The research deals with stable isotopes using gastropods as a tool to deduce present and past (paleo)-monsoon variability, and the the thesis consists of five papers and manuscripts. One of the papers deal with material from the Indian Ocean. Read an abstract of the thesis (as a pdf-file).

Alf Gunvald Nilsen, Dept. of Sociology, University of Bergen, defended his doctoral dissertation titled ”The Valley and the Nation – the River and the Rage: A Study of Dispossession and Resistance in the Narmada Valley, India”, on Friday 12 May 2006. Faculty opponents were Prof. David Harvey, City University of New York, USA, and Prof. John Harriss, London School of Econonomics and Political Science, UK. More information.

Björn Alm, Dept. of Social Anthropology, Stockholm University, defended his doctoral dissertation titled ”The un/selfish leader. Changing notions in a Tamil Nadu village” on Wednesday 5 May 2006. The thesis explores notions of selfishness, as they were perceived by people in the village of Ekkaraiyur, Tamil Nadu, India, at a time they associated with thorough changes in their lives. It focuses on the censure of the alleged corruption of their leaders, and is based on fieldwork carried out in Ekkaraiyur between 1988 and 1990. Faculty opponent was Dr. Jens Lerche, School of Oriental and African Studies, London University, UK. Venue: Auditorium 4, House B, Stockholm University, Frescati. Read the abstract (with a link to the full-text dissertation).

Elke Rogersdotter, Dept. of Archaeology and Sami Studies, Umeå University, defended her licentiate thesis ”The Forgotten: an Approach on Harappan Toy Artefacts” on 14 March 2006. Faculty opponent was Ass. Prof. Per Cornell, Dept. of Archaeology, Göteborg University. The work is based on a study of toy identified artefacts from the urban, Classical Harappan settlement at Bagasra in Gujarat, India. More information and abstract of the thesis.

Raj Somadeva, Section for African and Comparative Archaeology at the Dept. of Archaeology and Ancient History, Uppsala University defended his doctoral thesis on ”Urban Origins in Southern Sri Lanka” on Wednesday 25 January 2006. The study focuses upon the development of urbanisation in southern Sri Lanka during the proto, early and late historical periods c. 900 BC onwards, and confirms the Dipavamsa and Mahavamsa historical chronicles compiled c.400-500 A.D in showing that the southern semi-arid zones of Sri Lanka have maintained a distinct socio-political character throughout Sri Lankan history. Faculty opponent was Dr Sunil Gupta, Director for the Indian Ocean Research Centre in New Delhi, India. More information with abstract.

Overview dissertations 2005

Jan Nilsson, Division of Geriatric Epidemiology; Dept. of Neurobiology, Caring Sciences and Society; Karolinska Institutet Medical University, Stockholm, defended his doctoral dissertation ”Understanding health-related quality of life in old age: A cross-sectional study of elderly people in rural Bangladesh”, on Friday 16 December 2005. It was made within the framework of the PHILL project (Primary Health-Care in Later Life: improving services in Bangladesh and Vietnam), that the Division of Geriatric Epidemiology is involved in. Dr. Nilsson currently works as Regional Health Coordinator för IFRC, dealing with Japan, China, Mongolia, North and South Korea. He is based in Beijing, China. More information about the thesis .

Åsa Hole from the Dept. of Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology, Uppsala University, defended her doctoral dissertation on ”Neither Here – Nor There. An Anthropological Study of Gujarati Hindu Women in the Diaspora” on Thursday 15 December 2005. Hole focuses mainly on the aspects of identity that are found in gender discourse (women’s roles) and the diaspora discourse among Gujarati Hindu women in Coventry, Britain, and Mariestad, Sweden. Faculty opponent was Dr. Frank Korom from Boston University, USA. More information with abstract.

Jonas Lindberg from the Dept. of Human and Economic Geography, School of Business, Economics and Law at Göteborg University, defended his doctoral dissertation project titled ”Education for all in times of global transformations: Aspirations and opportunities of poor families in marginal areas of Sri Lanka” on Friday 9 December 2005. Faculty opponent was Prof. Holger Daun, Institute of International Education (IIE), Stockholm University. Go for the full thesis (as a pdf-file).

Darley Jose Kjosavik from Noragric, Department of International Environment and Development Studies, at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (UMB) in Ås defended her PhD thesis titled ”In the Intersection of Class and Indigeneity: The political Economy of Indigenous People’s Development in Kerala, India”, on Saturday 3 December 2005. Kjosavik originally comes from Kerala, and her resarch focuses on property rights dynamics and the effects of decentralised and neoliberal development for indigenous communities in highland Kerala. Besides the thesis she has also written a couple of publications together with Dr. N. Shanmugaratnam at the same department, papers that will be published during 2006. Read abstract of Kjosavik’s thesis (as a pdf-file).

Syed Masud Ahmed from the Division of Geriatric Epidemiology; Department of Neurobiology, Caring Sciences and Society (NVS); Karolinska Institutet Medical University, Stockholm defended his doctoral dissertation titled ”Exploring health-seeking behaviour of disadvantaged populations in rural Bangladesh” on Friday 4 November 2005. Opponent was Prof. Finn Diderichsen, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Dr. Ahmed is a Public Health physician with professional expertise in designing and conducting clinical and public health research including social science research. His articles have been widely published in peer reviewed national and international Journals. He is working at BRAC Research and Evaluation Division in Dhaka, Bangladesh. More information about the thesis, with a link to the full-text document.

Åse Piltz from the Dept. of History and Anthropology of Religion, Centre for Theology and Religious Studies, Lund University, defended her doctoral dissertation on ”Seger åt Tibet! Den tibetanska diasporan och den religiösa nationen” (Victory to Tibet! The Tibetan Diaspora and the Religious Nation), on Saturday 22 October 2005. The thesis focuses on images of Tibet, among Westerners as well as among Tibetans. Based on approximately one year of fieldwork in the former British Hill station, it also deals with the politics of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) and some of its political and social implications for the exiled Tibetan youth living in Dharamsala, India. Faculty opponent was Dr. Axel Kristian Strøm, Dept. of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo, Norway. More information with abstract.

Mahinda Don Kommalage from the Unit of Comparative Medicine, Department of Neuroscience, Uppsala University, defended his doctoral dissertation on ”Spinal acetylcholine release – Mechanisms and receptor involvement” on 14 October 2005. Faculty opponent was Professor Ernst Brodin, Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Karolinska Institutet Medical University, Stockholm. There are two aspect in relevance in the dissertation project. One has been trying to investigate Organophosphate, which is a common agro-poisoning in Sri Lanka, and its involvement in poisoning effect on animals. The other apect of importance has been pain transmission in the spinal cord.

Stellan Vinthagen, Dept. of Peace and Development Research (PADRIGU), Göteborg University, defended his doctoral dissertation on ”Nonviolent Action – A Social Practice of Resistance and Construction”, on Saturday 8 October 2005. The thesis explores how peace with peaceful means is possible to conceptualize. Earlier theories about nonviolence (mainly Mahatma Gandhi and Sharp) are discussed in the perspective of late modern sociology in an attempt to develop a social and practical description system. Faculty opponent is Associate Professor Jan Öberg, Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, Lund. Read the abstract.

Roger Schweizer, Department of Business Administration, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University defended his doctoral dissertation, titled ”An Arranged Marriage under Institutional Duality – The Local Integration Process between Two Globally Merging MNCs’ Subidiaries” on Monday 19 September 2005. Discussant was Professor Rikard Larsson, Dept. of Business Administration, Lund University. Read the abstract.

Seema Arora Jonsson, Department of Rural Development and Agroecology; Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Uppsala, defended her doctoral dissertation on ”Unsettling the Order: Gendered subjects and Grassroots activism in two forest communities” on Wednesday 15 June, 2005. The research project studies how women in two different communities (in India and Sweden) have chosen to articulate their needs concerning their respective livelihoods. Faculty opponent was Prof. Patricia Maguire, Gallup Graduate Studies Centre, University of Western New Mexico, USA. More information on her dissertation project.

Ulla Thoresen, Indic Religions Division, Centre for Theology and Religious Studies (CTR), Lund University, defended her Licentiate thesis on ”The Tulku institution: Traditionalism and Modernity among Tibetans living in exile in India” on Friday 10 June 2005. Faculty Opponent was Dr. Axel Kristian Strøm, Dept. of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo, Norway. Read the thesis as a full text document (pdf-file).

Sagarika Ekanayake, Department of Applied Nutrition and Food Chemistry, Lund Institute of Technology (LTH), Lund University, defended her doctoral dissertation on ”Potential of Canavalia gladiata as a food ingredient – nutritional and functional aspects”, on Wednesday 1 June 2005. The thesis deals with the tender fruits of sword beans (Canavalia gladiata), eaten as a green vegetable in Sri Lanka, and how methods could be developed to increase the utilization of sword beans for human consumption. Faculty opponent is Professor Ulf Svanberg, Division of Food Science, Chalmers University of Technology, Göteborg. More information with abstract.

Urban Hammar from the Division of Comparative Religion; Dept. of Ethnology, Comparative Religion and Gender Studies, Stockholm University, defended his doctoral dissertation ”Studies in the Kalacakra Tantra: A History of the Kalacakra in Tibet and a Study of the Concept of Adibuddha, the Fourth Body of the Buddha and the Supreme Unchanging”, on Friday 27 May 2005. Faculty opponent was John Newman, New College of Florida, USA. The thesis treats the tantric Buddhist system of teachings of Kalacakra, today a well-known teaching and initiation given since 1970 by the present Dalai Lama at mass ceremonies around the world. The Kalacakra was first introduced by Bhadrabodhi and Gyi-jo in the eleventh century, another example of successful cooperation between an Indian pandit and a Tibetan translator. More information, including abstract.

Minhaj Mahmud from the Dept. of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University, defended his doctoral dissertation titled ”Measuring Trust and the Value of Statistical Lives: Evidence from Bangladesh” on 1 April 2005. The thesis deals with the concept of trust, decreased significantly as the stake size was increased in a trust game conducted in rural Bangladesh. Read the abstract.

Katak Malla from the Department of Law at Stockholm University defended his doctoral dissertation on ”The Legal Regime of International Watercourses: Progress and Paradigms Regarding Uses and Environmental Protection”, on Friday 25 February 2005. Faculty opponent was Phoebe Okowa, Senior Lecturer at Dr. Queen Mary University, London, UK. The thesis deals with the Himalayan Drainage Basin (which includes Tibet, Bhutan, Nepal, India and Bangladesh) and focuses on environmental conflicts, social movements and water issues. More information.

Paolo Favero, Dept. of Social Anthropology, Stockholm University, defended his doctoral dissertation on ”India dreams: Cultural identity among young middle-class men in New Delhi” on Friday 25 February 2005. The thesis focuses on the dynamics of social mobility and cultural change among young middle-class men in contemporary urban India, and is is part of a major research project at the department on ”Modernities in transition: A Study of Youth Cultures in Iran, Brazil and India”. Faculty opponent was Marcus Banks, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford, UK. More information on the thesis, with abstract.

Cora Alexa Døving, Department of Culture Studies, University of Oslo, will defend her doctoral dissertation on ”Pakistani-Norwegian Funeral Rites – A Study of Migration”, on Friday 11 February 2005. The project deals with the creation and re-establishment of burial practices amongst Pakistanis in Oslo. It focuses partly on the entrepreneurs, mainly as leaders of different welfare organisations, who have established a large contact network both in the Pakistaniani milieu, and also with different Norwegian institutions who are involved with various aspects of death. First opponent is Associate Professor Barbro Blehr, Dept. of Ethnology, Stockholm University. More information (in Norwegian only).

Overview dissertations 2004

Göran Viktor Ståhle, Division of Psychology of Religion, Dept. of Theology, Uppsala University, defended his doctoral dissertation called ”The Religious Self in Practice at a Hindu Goddess-Temple: A Cultural Psychological Approach for the Psychology of Religion”, on Friday 17 December 2004. The thesis is a study of a Durga temple in Varanasi, India. Faculty opponent was Professor Nils G Holm, Dept. of Religious Studies, Åbo Akademi, Finland. . More information with abstract.

Aina Winswold, Dept. of Sociology, Lund University (photo to the left), defended her doctoral dissertation on ”When Working Children mobilize. A study of three Unions in Karnataka, India”, on Thursday 16 December 2004. Faculty opponent was Associate Professor Per Bolin Hort, Södertörn University College, Huddinge. More information about the thesis.

Elizabeth Mathai, Division of International Health (IHCAR), Department of Public Health Sciences, Karolinska Institutet Medical University, Stockholm, defended her doctoral thesis about ”Genital and urinary tract infections in pregnancy in southern India. Diagnosis, management and impact om perinatal outcome” 15 December 2004. Read the abstract.

Ann Aldén, Missiology with Ecumenical Theology, Ecclesial Studies; Centre for Theology and Religious Studies, Lund University, defended her doctoral dissertation on ”Religion in Dialogue with Late Modern Society: A Constructive Contribution to a Christian Spirituality Informed by Buddhist-Christian Encounters”, on Saturday 11 December 2004. Her study is focused on Thich Nath Han in Vietnam, and Aloysius Pieris in Sri Lanka, two persons involved in a dialogue between Buddhism and Christianity. Faculty opponent was Professor Paul Knitter, Xavier University, Cincinatti, USA. More information.

Ravinder Kaur, Department of Society and Globalisation, Roskilde University Centre (RUC), Denmark, defended her doctoral dissertation on ”Narratives of Resettlement. Past, Present and Politics among 1947 Punjabi Migrants in Delhi”, on Friday 10 December 2004. At the occasion Ravinder Kaur gave a lecture on ‘Order in chaos. The Indian State and its role in Partition’. The Assessment Committee members were Steen Bergendorff, Roskilde University; Professor Paul Brass, University of Washington; and Professor Gyan Pandey, Johns Hopkins University, USA.

Camilla Orjuela, Department of Peace and Development Research, Göteborg University, defended her doctoral dissertation on ”Civil Society in Civil War: Peace Work and Identity Politics in Sri Lanka” on Friday 3 December 2004. Faculty oppoment was Dr. Kumar Rupesinghe, Chairman of the Foundation for Co-Existence (FCE), based in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Read the abstract.

Kristine Höglund, Dept. of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University, defended her doctoral dissertation on ”Violence in the Midst of Peace Negotiations: Cases from Guatemala, Northern Ireland, South Africa and Sri Lanka” partly related to the conflict in Sri Lanka, on Friday 3 December 2004. Faculty opponent was Professor Roy Licklider, Rutgers University, USA. The focus of her research has been the role of violence in peace processes, and under what circumstances incidents of violence tend to disrupt peace negotiations. Read the abstract (as a pdf-file).

Ann-Kristin Jonasson, Centre for Middle Eastern Studies, Göteborg University, defended her doctoral dissertation on ”At the Command of God? On the Political Linkage of Islamist Parties”, on Friday 26 November 2004. It is a comparative study of Islamist parties in three countries (Turkey, Jordan and Pakistan), focusing on their political linkages and the way these parties relate to the people of their respective country. Faculty opponent is Prof. Lars G Svåsand, University of Bergen. More information with abstract.

Mojibur R. Doftori, Department of Social Policy, University of Helsinki, Finland, defended his doctoral dissertation on 12 November 2004. The title of the published dissertation is ”Education and Child Labour in Developing Countries: A Study on the Role of Non-Governmental Organisations in Bangladesh and Nepal”. Faculty opponent was Tuomas Takala, Professor of Comparative Education, University of Tampere. More information with link to full paper (as a pdf-file)

Mirja Juntunen, Section for Indology, Dept. of Oriental Languages, Stockholm University, defended her doctoral dissertation on ”The Town Plan of Jaipur: Its Sources and Narrations”, on Friday 10 September 2004. Faculty opponent was Prof. Nalini Balbir, Université de Paris-III (UFR Orient), France. More information with abstract.

Jan af Geijerstam, Department of History of Science and Technology, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, defended his doctoral dissertation on ”Landscapes of Technology Transfer. Swedish Ironmakers in India 1860–1864”, on Friday 4 June 2004. Faculty opponent was Prof Ian Inkster, Centre for Asia Pacific Studies, Faculty of Humanities, The Nottingham Trent University, UK. The thesis deals with the transfer of iron making technology from Europe to India in the 1860s, and is published as a beautiful book in the series called Jernkontorets bergshistoriska skriftserie, published by the Swedish Iron Masters’ Federation. More information on af Geijerstam’s research. Read abstract of dissertation (as a pdf-file).

Gunilla Blomqvist, Dept. of Peace and Development Studies (PADRIGU), Göteborg University, defended her doctoral dissertation on ”Gender Discourses at Work: Export Industry Workers and Construction Workers in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India”, on Thursday 3 June 2004. The thesis analyses how gender and gender hierarchies are discursively shaped, reproduced and reinterpreted among two groups of low income workers; export industry and construction industry workers. Faculty opponent was Professor Naila Kabeer, Institute of Development Studies, Sussex, England. Venue: PADRIGU, Room 105 (ground floor), Brogatan 4, Göteborg. Read the abstract to the dissertation

Overview dissertations 2003

Ingun Bruskeland Amundsen from the Oslo School of Architecture, AHO, Norway, defended her doctoral dissertation on ”Sacred Architecture and the Dzongs of Bhutan. Tradition and Transition in the Architectural History of the Himalayas” on 12 December 2003. Faculty opponents were Dr Anne Chayet, Institut d’Études Tibétaines, Instituts d’Extrême-Orient, Paris, France; and Prof. Attilio Petruccioli, Polythecnic of Bari, School of architecture, Como, Italy. More information on her research in an article from The Journal of Bhutan Studies in 2001.

Amirtalinkam Cellaiya (Amirthalingam Selliah), Dept of Theology; History of Religions, Uppsala University, defended his doctoral dissertation on ”Murukak katavul valipatu. A Study of the Worship of God Murukan in Malaiyakam on Ilam and in Tamilakam”, on Monday 8 December 2003. The dissertation focuses on the act of worship of Murukak katavul, as it is continuously practiced and developed as Tamil heritage in Sri Lanka. Faculty opponent was Professor S Pathmanathan from Peradeniya University, Sri Lanka. More information on the dissertation.

Simron Jit Singh, Division of Human Ecology, Department of European Ethnology, Lund University, defended his dissertation ”In the Sea of Influence: A World System Perspective of the Nicobar Islands” on Saturday 6 December 2003. Simron Jit Singh (photo to the left) originally coming from Indian Punjab has been connected to Lund University as a graduate student, but is otherwise working as a researcher and lecturer at Abteilung Soziale Ökologie, Institut für Interdisziplinäre Forschung und Fortbildung, University of Wien, Austria. Faculty opponent was Professor Joan Martinez-Alier, University of Barcelona, Spain, one of the World’s leading specialists within the field of Ecological Economy. More information.

Eva-Maria Hardtmann, Department of Social Anthropology, Stockholm University defended her doctoral dissertation on ”‘Our Fury is Burning’ – Local Practice and Global Connections in the Dalit Movement”, on Friday 7 November 2003. The thesis focuses on the cultural discourses as well as the organizational aspects within the contemporary Dalit movement in India. Faculty opponent was Martin Fuchs, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany. More information.

Wimal Pathmasiri from the Division of Pharmacognosy, Dept. of Medicinal Chemistry, Uppsala University, defended his Licentiate thesis on ”COX 2 Inhibitors of Natural origin: Dereplication, Isolation, and Structure Eludicidation”, on 3 November 2003. Pathmasiri, coming from Sri Lanka, has been doing research on Srilankan medicinal plants and herbal preparations. Read abstract of the thesis.

Monica Erwér, Dept of Peace and Development Research (PADRIGU), Göteborg University defended her dissertation on ”Transforming Politics; Gender, Power and Agency in Kerala, South India”, on Thursday 30 October 2003. Faculty opponent was Prof. Gita Sen from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, India. The thesis focuses on the development and the emerging gender politics in terms of negotiations between the state and collective actors such as the feminist network and the left women’s movement in South India, possibilities and constraints of empowerment. Read the abstract.

Martin Gansten, Dept of History of Religions, with emphasis on Indic Religions; Centre for Theology and Religious Studies, Lund University, defended his doctoral dissertation on ”Patterns of Destiny: Hindu Nadi Astrology”, dealing with astrological divination in South India, on Tuesday 30 September 2003. Faculty opponent was Prof. Robert Zydenbos, Institut für Indologie und Iranistik, Department für Asienstudien, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany. Read the abstract.

Christer Norström, Dept of Social Anthropology, Stockholm University, defended his doctoral dissertation on “They Call for Us. Strategies for securing autonomy among the Paliyans, hunter-gatherers of the Palni Hills, South India”, on Friday 19 September 2003. Faculty opponent was Professor Alan Barnard, School of Social and Political Studies (Social Anthropology), University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. Read the abstract (as a pdf-file).

Rathnasiri Premathilake from the Postgraduate Institute of Archaeology, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, defended his doctoral thesis on ”Late Quaternary Palaeoecological Event Stratigraphy in the Horton Plains, Central Sri Lanka with contributions to the Recent Pollen Flora” at Stockholm University, on Wednesday 4 June 2003. Premathilaki has been involved in a sandwich programme with the Dept. for Quaternary Geology, Stockholm University; and with the Dept for Archaeology and Ancient History at Uppsala University. Faculty opponent was Prof. Francoise Gasse, Université Aix-Marseille III, France. More information.

 Kristina Lejonhud at the Dept of Human Geography, Karlstad University, defended her dissertation on ”Indian Villages in Transformation – A longitudinal study of three villages in Uttar Pradesh” on Friday 13 June 2003. The thesis dealing with the changing nature of Lifeworld and Farming System in Village India, based on a study of Chamaon Gram Sabha, Varanasi, has been written under the supervision of Prof. Gerhard Gustafsson, and Prof. Rana P B Singh, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India. The latter in 1977 published a book on the village community of Chamaon Gram Sabha, which has been taken as starting point by Kristina for her research, and the place for her field studies 1994–2001. More information.

Ekkehard Lorenz at the Indology section, Dept of Oriental Languages, Stockholm University, defended his BA level thesis in Classical Indology on ”Mahidasa Aitreya in the work of Madhva”, Tuesday 10 June 2003. The opponent was Associate Professor Erik af Edholm, Dept of Comparative Religion, Stockholm University.

Måns R. Broo, Dept. of Comparative Religion, Åbo Akademi, Finland defended his doctoral dissertation ”As Good as God: The Guru in Gaudiya Vaisnavism” on Friday 6 June 2003. The thesis deals with the guru institution of Gaudiya Vaishnavism, analyzing it in terms of the interplay of canon and charisma. Faculty opponent was Professor Knut Jacobsen, University of Bergen. More information on the thesis (in Swedish only).

Magdalena Inkinen from the Dept of Government, Uppsala University (photo to the right), defended her doctoral dissertation on ”Mobilising the Lower Castes: The Rise of the Bahujan Samaj Party in India”, on Thursday 22 May, 2003. Fakulty opponent was Prof Anirudh Krishna, Duke University, U.S. More information on the thesis.

Sanjeeva Witharana from the Division of Applied Thermodynamics and Refrigeration, Department of Energy Technology; at Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan, Stockholm, defended his Licentiate thesis on ”Boiling of refrigerants on enhanced surfaces and boiling of nanofluids” in May 2003. Witharana has dedicated his thesis to his motherland Sri Lanka. More information, with link to the full thesis.

Marie Thynell from PADRIGU, Dept of Peace and Development Research, Göteborg University, defended her dissertation on ”The Unmanageable Modernity. An Explorative Study of Motorized Mobility in Development” on 5 April 2003. The thesis is an explorative study of a neglected area in International Political Economy and Development Studies. The study includes a comparison of the historical evolvement of motorization in the Third World capitals of Brasília and Teheran; as well as a comparison of the handling of current urban transport problems in Rome and New Delhi, India. Read the abstract.

Malin Arvidson from the Dept of Sociology, Lund University, defended her dissertation on ”Demanding Values. Participation, Empowerment, and NGOs in Bangladesh”, on Friday 14 March 2003. Faculty opponent was Dr. David Lewis, London School of Economics, Centre for Civil Society. Read abstract.

Dan Banik at the Dept of Political Science, University of Oslo, defended his doctoral thesis on ”Democracy, drought and starvation in India: Testing (Amartya) Sen in theory and practice”, based on experiences from Kalahandi, Orissa, India, on Sunday 9 March 2003. Faculty opponents were Prof James C. Scott, Sterling Professor of Political Science and Anthropology, Yale University, U.S.; and Prof Barbara Harriss-White, University Professor of Development Studies, Queen Elizabeth House, Oxford University, U.K. Read abstract of the dissertation.

Cathrine Brun from the Dept of Geography, University of Trondheim, Norway, defended her doctoral thesis on ”Finding a place. Local integration and protracted displacement in Sri Lanka”, Friday 31 January 2003. The day before she held her trial lecture on ”Forced migrants, refugees or IDPs? Consequences of labelling on identity formation and entitlements in Sri Lanka”. More information on the dissertation.

Overview dissertations 2002

Per Ståhlberg from the Dept of Social Anthropology, Stockholm University, defended his dissertation on ”Lucknow Daily: How a Hindi Newspaper Constructs Society” on Friday 20 December 2002. Faculty opponent was Dr Thomas Blom Hansen, University of Edinburgh, Scotland. More information.

Ram Gupta, Dept of Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies, University of Oslo, Norway (and webmaster of Nofsa-Net), in November 2002 presented his hovedfag thesis (M.Phil. degree), on ”A shift in Dharma – changes in conceptualisations of faith among second-generation Hindus in Oslo”. More information, with a possibility to download the complete thesis.

Elisabeth Eide from the Institute for Media and Communication, Oslo University, defended her dissertation on ”’Down there’ and ’up here’. ’Europe’s Others’ in Norwegian feature stories”, on Saturday 23 November 2002. Faculty opponents were Karen Ross, Coventry University, U.K., and Torsten Thurén, Stockholm University. Read abstract of dissertation.

Ellen Kristvik from the Dept of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo, defended her doctoral thesis on ”Nepali Sex Workers: Narratives of Violence and Agency” on Friday 8 November, 2002. Faculty opponents are Dr. Sophie Day, Goldsmiths University, London, and Dr. Tone Bleie, Christian Michelsens institutt, Bergen. Venue: Ragnar Frisch‚ auditorium (Ullevål kino). More information.

Mohammed Nurul Alam, at the Dept of Business Administration, Lund University (photo to the left), defended his doctoral thesis on ”Financing Small and Cottage Industries in Bangladesh by Islamic Banks: An Institutional Network Approach”, on Thursday 24 October 2002, at the School of Economics & Management. Faculty opponent was Professor Amjad Hadjikhani, Dept of Business Administration, Uppsala University. Read the abstract.

Anna Godhe, Marine Botany, Department of Marine Ecology, Göteborg University, defended her doctoral dissertation on ”Benthic and pelagic dinoflagellate stages: environmental settings, cyst viability, and molecular identification” on Saturday 18 October 2002. The thesis deals with marine microalgae that produce toxins which can accumulate in shell- fish and fish and hence pose a threat to human health, on the south-western coast of India. Faculty opponent was Marianne Ellegaard, Associate Professor, Dept. of Botany, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Read the abstract (as a pdf-file).

Olavi Hemmilä from the Dept of Comparative Literature, Högskolan Dalarna, defended his PhD thesis on ”A Yogi Comes to Town: Indian religious thinking as reflected in Swedish fiction with special focus on the works of Dan Andersson”, on 14 september, 2002, at the Dept of General and Comparative Literature, Stockholm University (where the dissertation has been made).

Ingrid Nyborg from Noragric, Centre for International Environment and Development Studies, Agricultural University of Norway, defended her doctoral thesis ”Yours Today, Mine Tomorrow? A Study of Women and Men’s Negotiations over Resources in Baltistan, Pakistan”, on 28 August, 2002, at Noragric in Ås. More details with abstract.

Anne Waldrop, at the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo, defended her doctoral thesis on ”A Room with One’s Own. Educated Elite People in New Delhi and Relations of Class” on Friday 21 June, 2002. Faculty opponents were Prof. Patricia Jeffery, University of Edinburgh, and Prof. Bruce Kapferer, University of Bergen. The thesis concerns the educated elite in New Delhi, with particular reference to the way they sustain their privileged class position.

Clemens Cavallin, at the Dept of Religious Studies, Göteborg University, defended his dissertation on ”The Efficacy of Sacrifice. Correspondences in the Rigvedic Brahmanas” on Friday 31 May 2002. Faculty opponent was Erik Reenberg Sand, Copenhagen University. Read the abstract (as a pdf-file). The thesis is based on an examination of linguistic characteristics, especially the nominal sentence, and some features of the system of correspondences are analysed. Mr Cavallin was originally trained at the former Dept. of Comparative Philology with Sanskrit.

Mikaela Ståhl Högberg, at the Dept of Animal Nutrition and Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Uppsala, defended her Licenciat thesis on ”Improved Feeding Systems Leading to Higher Milk Yield for Indian Dairy Buffaloes”, on Friday 31 May, 2002, at SLU, Ultuna. More information.

Masud Hossain from the Institute of Development Studies, University of Helsinki, Finland, defended his doctoral dissertation on ”Regional Conflict Transformation: A Reinterpretation of South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (SAARC)”, on 25 May, 2002.

Kimmo Ketola, Department of Comparative Religion, University of Helsinki, defended his doctoral dissertation titled ”An Indian Guru and His Western Disciples Representation and Communication of Charisma in the Hare Krishna Movement” on 11 May 2002. The thesis focuses on the charisma of Swami Prabhupada (1896-1977), leader of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), a branch of Vaishnavism that has spread very rapidly throughout the Western world. The aim of the study was to describe and analyse the nature of the charismatic representations held by the disciples in such a way that insight into the processes of their acquisition and transmission can be gained. Read the full thesis (as a pdf-file)

Jürgen Offermanns, Dept of History of Religions, with emphasis on Indic Religions; Centre for Theology and Religious Studies, Lund University, defended his doctoral dissertation on ”Der lange Weg des Zen-Buddhismus nach Deutschland: vom 16. Jahrhundert bis Rudolf Otto”, on 10 May 2002 dealing with the European reception of Buddhism. Read abstract.

Tek Nath Dhakal, Dept. of Management Studies, Tampere University, Finland, defended his doctoral dissertation on ”The Role of Non-Governmental Organisations in the Improvement of Livelihood in Nepal”, on 3 May 2002. Read abstract with link to the full-text dissertation. Dr. Dhakal is now back in Nepal, at the Dept. of Public Administration, Tribhuvan University.

Kristin Hansen at the Dept of Social Anthropology, Oslo University, defended her doctoral thesis on ”Thoughts, Feelings and the Significance of Social Ties as Invoked by a Family of Vaishnava Mendicant Renouncers in Bengal”, on 3 May, 2002. Faculty opponents were Prof. Ann Grodzins Gold, from Syracuse University, New York; and Prof. Harald Thambs-Lyche, Université de Picardie Jules Verne, Amiens, France. More information.

Therése Hindman Persson, at the Dept for Economics, Lund University, defended her doctoral thesis on ”Economic Analyses of Drinking Water and Sanitation in Developing Countries”, primarily based on research in Bangladesh, on 13 April 2002. Faculty opponent was Dr. Andrew McKay, University of Nottingham, UK. More information.

Overview dissertations 2001

Eldrid Mageli at the Institute of History, Oslo University, defended her doctoral thesis on ”NGO Activism in Calcutta 1973–1997. Exploring Unnayan”, on 3 November, 2001. Faculty opponent: Prof David Gilmartin, North Carolina State University, USA. More information.

Benoit Guieysse, Dept. of Biotechnology, Centre for Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Lund University, defended his doctoral thesis on ”Innovative Bioreactors for the Degradation of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons”, on 1 November, 2001. Read the abstract.

Anna Lindberg at the Dept of History, Lund University, defended her doctoral thesis on October 13, 2001. The title of the thesis is: ”Experience and Identity: A Historical Account of Class, Caste and Gender among the Cashew Workers of Kerala, 1930–2000”. Abstract.

Viveka Persson at the International Nutrition Research Group, Department of Women’s and Children’s Health, Uppsala University, defended her PhD thesis: ”Vitamin A intake, status and improvement using the dietary approach, Studies of vulnerable groups in three Asian countries” on Monday 8 October, 2001. Abstract.

Axel Kristian Strøm at the Dept of Social Anthropology, Oslo University, defended his doctoral thesis on ”Continuity, Adaptation and Innovation: Tibetan Monastic Colleges in India”, on October 3, 2001. Faculty opponent: Charles Ramble, The Faculty of Oriental Studies, Oxford University. More information.

Sidsel Hansson, at the Dept of History of Religions, Lund University, defended her doctoral thesis on September 28, 2001. The title of the thesis is ”Not Just Any Water. Hindusim, Ecology and the Ganges Water Controversy”. Abstract.

Finn Madsen, at the Institute for History of religion, Copenhagen University, Denmark, defended his doctoral thesis on September, 13, 2001. The title of the thesis is ”Social development in the Hare Krishna movement”. Abstract.

Hans Hadders at the Dept of Social Anthropology, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, got his so called ”Hovedfagsoppgave” on ”The Gift of the Eye. Mortuary ritual performed by the Jadopatias in the Santal Villages of Bengal and Bihar, India”, published in the Spring 2001. Brief summary.

Zarina Nahar Kabir at the Division of Geriatric Epidemiology, Department of NEUROTEC (Clinical Neuroscience, Occupational Therapy and Elderly Care Research), at Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, defended her doctoral thesis “The Emerging Elderly Population in Bangladesh: Aspects of their Health and Social Situation”, on May 17, 2001. Abstract.

Åsa Tiljander Dahlström at the Dept of Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology, Uppsala University defended her doctoral thesis ”No Peace of Mind – The Tibetan Diaspora in India”, on June 6, 2001. Abstract of the dissertation.

Ranjula Bali Swain, Dept. of Economics, Uppsala University, defended her doctoral thesis titled ”Demand, Segmentation and Rationing in the Rural Credit Markets of Puri, India”, at the department on 4 April 2001. Faculty opponent was Dr Sonia Bhalotra, Senior Economist at Cambridge University, UK. Read the abstract.

Overview dissertations 1996 – 2000

Henrik Berglund at Dept of Political Science, Stockholm University, defended his doctoral thesis on ”Hindu Nationalism and Democracy: A Study of the Political Theory and Practice of the Bharatiya Janata Party”, on 12 December, 2000. Abstract of the dissertation.

Julie Wilk, Dept. of Water and Environmental Studies, Linköping University, defended her doctoral dissertation on ”Do forests have an impact on water availability? Assessing the effects of heterogeneous land use on streamflow in two monsoonal river basins”, on 8 December 2000. More information with abstract.

Ingrid Widlund, Dept of Government, Uppsala University, defended her thesis on ”Paths to Power and Patterns of Influence. The Dravidian Parties in South Indian Politics”, on 7 October, 2000. Abstract of the dissertation.

Madelene Ostwald, Dept of Earth Sciences/Physical Geography, Göteborg University, defended her doctoral dissertation on ”Local protection of tropical dry natural forest, Orissa, India”, on 26 May, 2000. Abstract of the dissertation.

Mahfuzar Rahman, Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Department of Health and Environment, Faculty of Health Sciences, Linköping University, defended his doctoral dissertation on ”Nonmalignant Health Effects of Arsenic Exposure”, on 14 December 1999. Faculty opponent was Dr. Per Gustavsson, Karolinska Institutet Medical University. More information with abstract of dissertation.

Håkan Tropp, Dept. of Water and Environmental Studies, Linköping University, defended his doctoral dissertation on ”Patronage, Politics and Pollution. Precarious NGO-State Relationships: Urban Environmental Issues in South India”, on 15 January 1999. More information with abstract.

Pernille Gooch, Division of Human Ecology, Department of European Ethnology, Lund University defended her doctoral dissertation ”At the Tail of the Buffalo: Van Gujjar Pastoralists between the Forest and World Arena” at the Department of Sociology, Lund University, on 4 November 1998. Faculty opponent was Professor Tim Ingold, Dept. of Social Anthropology, Manchester University, Manchester, England. More information with abstract

Åke Edén , Dept. of Economic History, Göteborg University, defended his doctoral dissertation ”Hävstången. Agrarkooperativa utvecklingsförsök i Östbengalen/Bangladesh 1860-1984”, on 27 February 1998. Four years earlier Dr. Edén published his Licentiate thesis on a similar subject, titled ”East India Company’s Indienpolitik före 1773”.

Sten Widmalm, Dept. of Government, Uppsala University, defended his thesis on ”Democracy and violent separatism in India: Kashmir in a comparative perspective”, on 2 June, 1997. Abstract of the dissertation.

Gunnel Cederlöf, Dept. of History, Uppsala University, defended her doctoral dissertation on ”Bonds lost: Subordination, conflict and mobilisation in rural south India c. 1900-1970”, on 2 May, 1997 Abstract of the dissertation.

Bengt G Karlsson, Dept. of Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology, Uppsala University, defended his doctoral dissertation on ”Contested Belonging: An Indigenous People’s Struggle for Forest and Identity in Sub-Himalayan Bengal” at the Dept. of Social Anthropology, Lund University, in 1997. Read the book.

Aase Mygind Madsen, Associate Professor at the Department of Social Work, VIA University College in Aarhus, Denmark. In 1996, she defended her doctoral dissertation entitled ”Untouchables: Stuck at the Bottom or Moving Upward? A Study of Changing Conditions for the Scheduled Castes in five Villages in Karnataka, South India. Vol. 1 and 2” at the Centre for Development Research in Copenhagen. In 2010, she made a follow-up study of the thesis, as a publication in a working papers series from VIA University College/Dept. of Social Work. Read the paper, entitled ”Dalits in South India – stuck at the bottom or moving upward? Findings from the PhD thesis ‘Untouchables – stuck at the bottom or moving upward’”