Swedish South Asian Studies Network - Sasnet

🌟 Call for nominations: Best South Asia Thesis Award 2025/2026

Do you know an outstanding Bachelor’s or Master’s thesis on South Asia? Or have you recently written one yourself?

Since 2022, SASNET has awarded the Best South Asia Thesis Award to a Lund University student for an excellent thesis within the humanities or social sciences.

The thesis should:
• focus on South Asia (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan or Sri Lanka)
• have received a high grade (A, B or VG)
• be completed during the 2025–2026 academic year

Students, supervisors and examiners can nominate – and self-nominations are welcome.

🏆 The prize includes:
• 5,000 SEK
• A diploma
• The opportunity to present your work at a SASNET seminar

🗓 Application deadline: 30 September 2026
Read more how to apply here: https://www.sasnet.lu.se/thesisaward

Last year’s winner of the Best South Asia Thesis Award 👇

🎓 SASNET seminar: Lockdowns in Indian cities

How did COVID-19 lockdowns work in practice in densely populated low-income neighbourhoods?

At a recent SASNET seminar, Professor Glyn Williams, Lund University, presented new research on how lockdown measures were implemented and experienced in three Indian cities – Ahmedabad, Chennai and Thiruvananthapuram.

The study highlights how pandemic policies played out unevenly across cities and neighbourhoods, and how efforts to control movement often conflicted with the realities of everyday life in low-income urban areas. It also shows how communities adapted and responded, reshaping how restrictions worked on the ground.

👉 Read more on our website: https://www.sasnet.lu.se/article/lockdowns-indian-cities-uneven-impacts-low-income-neighbourhoods

🎓 Postdoctoral fellowship in South Asian Studies

📢 The Oriental Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences is currently inviting applications for a postdoctoral fellowship in interdisciplinary South Asian Studies, within the ERC-funded project “Anger/Wrath in Contemporary South Asia (ANGLE)”.

Read more and apply here:
www.sasnet.lu.se/article/postdoctoral-fellowship-south-asian-studies-czech-academy-sciences

Next week:
The Higher Research Seminar with Glyn Williams, Professor of Development Geography at Lund University.

🗓 20 May 2026
🕑 13:15–14:30
📍 Large conference room, Eden 367

Renegotiating Lockdown:
Collective life and the control of Covid‑19 in India’s low‑income urban neighbourhoods.

The seminar is co‑organised by SASNET and the Department of Political Science.
Welcome!

Can technology save press freedom?

SASNET co organised a public symposium in Malmö marking World Press Freedom Day 2026, focusing on press freedom, media power and digitalisation in South Asia.

Journalists and experts shared firsthand experiences of repression, self censorship and misinformation, while emphasising that technology alone cannot safeguard press freedom – it depends on people, trust, democratic values and a strong commitment to journalistic principles.

🔗 Read more on our website: https://www.sasnet.lu.se/article/can-technology-save-press-freedom-voices-south-asia-sasnet-symposium

SASNET online seminar | 19 May

Join us for a talk by Asha Singh on anti-caste thinking as political theory, exploring Naari Geet and oral traditions in South Asia.

📅 19 May, 10:00–11:30 (CET) | 💻 Zoom (by invitation)

👉 Participation is by invitation.
If you would like to attend, please email [email protected] to receive a Zoom link. Welcome!

Can Tech Save Press Freedom?

Do not miss this half day symposium marking UNESCO World Press Freedom Day 2026, where journalists and experts discuss declining press freedom, growing risks for journalists, and how politics, technology and digitalisation are reshaping media in South Asia.

🗓️ When: 5 May 2026, 08:30–12:00
📍 Where: Media Evolution, Malmö
🧑‍💼 Chair: Catarina Kinnvall, SASNET

🎙️ Speakers & panelists:
Johan Mikaelsson, journalist and editor of Sydasien
Erik Larsson, spokesperson and chair of Reporters Without Borders
Naila Saleem, South Asia correspondent at Sveriges Radio
Pranto Palash, South Asian journalist
Lubna Hawwa, Maldivian freelance writer

🆓 Free and open to the public. Registration required.
The event will be held in English.

🤝 Co organised by: SASNET, School of Journalism at Lund University, Magazine Sydasien and Media Evolution.

👉 Read more and register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/can-tech-save-press-freedom-tickets-1984876307467?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=listing&utm-source=cp&aff=ebdsshcopyurl

Workshop: Authoritarianism and Democratic Resurgence in South Asia

On 9–10 April, SASNET hosted an international workshop in Lund examining authoritarianism, democratic backsliding and possibilities for democratic resurgence in South Asia.

Scholars from Europe, South Asia and the US came together to discuss how democratic systems are challenged by autocratisation, majoritarian ideologies and populist politics, with a particular focus on India and comparative perspectives from Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

The workshop highlighted not only how democratic institutions were undermined, but also how resistance, civil society and public administration could contribute to democratic resilience and recovery.

Upcoming digital seminar 7 April:
Karthick Ram Manoharan will present his paper titled "Periyar’s Anti-Aryanism: A Genealogy, a Synopsis, and a Critique".

The seminar takes place on Zoom and is part of SASNET's online seminar series on anti-caste thinking as political theory.

Register and read more here:
https://www.sasnet.lu.se/calendar/sasnet-seminar-series-anti-caste-thinking-political-theory-karthick-ram-manoharan

Picture: Nirami.Colorization

SASNET Seminar with Karen Valentin, Aarhus University: Moral Economies of Schooling
5 March 2026 14:00 to 15:30
Karen Valentin from Aarhus University is coming to Lund to present her ongoing project: https://projects.au.dk/moral-economies-of-schooling.

The seminar is co-organized by SASNET and the School of Social Work.

Chair: Catarina Kinnvall.
Moral Economies of Schooling: Money, Morality and Household Financing of Education
Despite widespread ideals of free school education for all, private households fund an increasingly large share (39 %) of primary and secondary education globally. This is especially the case in low-income countries, including Nepal, where persistent underfunding of public education means that private investment continues to play an important role in access to and acquisition of formal education.

Moral Economies of Schooling, sign on a wall about donation. Photo.
Driven by an unwavering faith in formal education, Nepali families make huge financial sacrifices to send their children to school, often resulting in complex relationships involving loans, credit and debt. Decisions about what and whom to invest in are fraught with conflicting expectations of care, responsibility, duty and guilt, turning economic priorities into moral concerns.

The aim of this presentation is, firstly, to share how tensions between economic strategies and moral responsibilities in decisions and practices related to household funding of education render visible across social class; secondly to reflect on Nepal as a case for exploring such tensions in the wider South Asian context.