PPLA Research Results Presented at International Conference

On the 27th April 2022, Dr Oliver Scanlan, Research Fellow at the Center for Sustainable Development at the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh, presented the findings of PPLA’s research component at a major international conference. The event, entitled “Fifth Annual South Asia Conference”, was organised by Dublin City University’s Ireland-India Institute, and comprised dozens of individual panels with hundreds of participants from around the world.

Speaking on behalf of co-authors, Dr Scanlan emphasised PPLA’s key findings concerning the adverse gendered and racialised impacts of land digitalisation and formalisation interventions. The panel, entitled “Dimensions of socio-economic inequalities” also included presentations from various Indian colleagues concerning inequality and various forms of exclusion in areas as diverse as inner-city Delhi and north Bengal. The Panel was chaired by Dr Vikash Vaibhav, from the Initiative for What Works to Advance Women and Girls in the Economy, based in New Delhi.

In the Q and A session, the linked issues of patrilocal residence and village exogamy were key themes. These were summed up by Dr Vaibhav in the common social idea across the northern subcontinent that “a woman cannot take the land with her” when she gets married. While these norms remain formidable obstacles to the equitable realisation of women’s rights to property, absentee land owners continue to be a prominent aspect of agrarian relations in South Asia, and so the problem should not be insurmountable. The question invites our focus to the issue of how to ensure secure control of land on the part of women who may not live nearby.