KARACHI: The 2nd annual international conference — ‘Development: Discourses and Critiques’ — organised by the School of Economics and Social Sciences (SESS) in collaboration with the Centre for Business and Economic Research (CBER) began at the main campus of the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) on Friday.

The three-day event would conclude on Sunday (tomorrow).

This year’s theme invites works from a wide range of disciplines to critique, question and reconsider the experiences of transnational, national and sub-national actors with the development process.

What does ‘development’ mean for different actors, and how has this narrative shifted over time? How does development define and redefine power relations, what implications does this have for numerous groups? How have colonial experiences shaped futures and how does one deconstruct the idea rooted in these experiences?

To encourage innovation and diversity within modes of thinking, the conference hosted presenters and participants from diverse backgrounds, including Skardu, Sukkur, Gilgit, Quetta, and Islamabad, and multiple professors from universities of the United States.

The conference aims to centre critical perspectives that help gain a subtle understanding of social change and development.

Dr Mushfiq Mobarak, a professor at Yale University, spoke on ‘seasonal poverty and seasonal migration’. He recognised the forms of poverty that emerged during seasonal changes and highlighted its implications, specifically in the form of seasonal hunger.

The first panel discussion of Day 1 was titled ‘Institutions, Governance and Inequalities’. The session highlighted various statistics on the economic and social inequalities in Pakistan, and also included the indigenous communities within the policy-making process and judicial independence in Pakistan.

In the session titled ‘Agrarian Crisis and South Asian Political Economy’, Dr Barbara Harriss-White, Emeritus Professor of Development Studies and a fellow of Wolfson College, University of Oxford, shared her close insights and research on the South Asian political economy, particularly on food, energy, and aspects of deprivation.

Published in Dawn, March 26th, 2022