| [CLARA] | |
| CLARA Annual Report 2000 |
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The Changing Labour Relations in Asia programme (CLARA) aims to build a comparative understanding of labour relations in different parts of Asia which are undergoing diverse historical processes and experiences in terms of their national economies, their links with international markets and the nature of state intervention. This understanding will be based on the promotion of inter-Asian cooperation and the cooperation between Asian and non-Asian institutions. This programme is currently supported by the International Institute of Asian Studies (IIAS), and the International Institute of Social History (IISH), Amsterdam The annual one-day seminar was held on the 14th September and involved a broader network of scholars. If in the past this occasion was a means through which Dutch scholars were brought together this year the seminar was held in collaboration with the IIAS Branch Office in Amsterdam which allowed the bringing together of European scholars. Four scholars presented a paper: Prof. Utsa Patnaik from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi (on Peasant Movements and Labour in India); Dr. Kristofel Lieten from Univ. of Amsterdam (on Bonded Labour in Pakistan); Ms. Anja Rudnick from the University of Amsterdam (on Bangladeshi migrant women in Malaysia);Dr. Isabelle Vagneron from the University of Auvergne in Clermont - France (on Homeworkers in the garment industry in Thailand) and Dr. Nicola Piper from the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, Copenhagen - Denmark (Japanese Policies on Southeast Asian Female Migrants). After the two CLARA visiting fellows Dr. Shigeru Sato (Univ. of Newcastle, Australia ) and Dr. Adapa Satyanarayana (Univ of Hyderabad, India) whose term as visiting fellows were terminated, we went through a second round of selections for the new fellows, and two were selected namely Dr. Erwiza Erman from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences and Ms. Rohini Hensman who works for the Union Research Group and Trade Union Solidarity based in Bombay. Dr Erwiza Erman will work on her PhD Thesis (Univ. of Amsterdam) on mineworkers in Ombilin, West Sumatra and prepare it for publication; and Ms Rohini Hensman will look at the impact of globalization on workers in Bombay. Two more working papers have come out this year: no. 9 by Edsel E. Sajor (Univ. of Amsterdam) Are They Incompatible? Modern Farming and Non-Market Labour in the Northern Philippine Uplands and no. 10 by Babette P. Resurreccion (AIT, Thailand) From Erosion Control to Food Crisis Management: Changing Gender Divisions of Labor in a Philippine Upland Village. These two then bring the number of CLARA working papers to a total of ten. Two workshops scheduled for this year were cancelled due to various reasons, and these are : 'Domestic Service and Labour Mobility' which was to be held in Trivandrum, India and 'Household Strategies and Labour Movements' which was to be held in Taiwan. The first workshop has been rescheduled to early February (5-7) and will be held in Amsterdam, at the International Institute of Social History; and the latter workshop will still be held in Taiwan but postponed until autumn of 2001. Apart from these usual round of scholarly activities, in the year 2000 the Changing Labour Relations in Asia Programme has entered a phase of network consolidation and planning for future collaborations with European and Asian-Pacific counterparts. CLARA in collaboration with NIAS, Copenhagen has received a grant from the European Science Foundation to organize a workshop on labour migration in East and Southeast Asia. This network is now strengthened with the participation of the Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies of the Lund University, Sweden. This workshop will be the first of a series of activities which will be held in collaboration with other institutions in Europe and the Asia-Pacific on labour migration. Efforts are currently being made to seek funding for an integrated research programme which can support such an international collaboration. Additionally, CLARA is working together with the Pakistan Institute for Labour Education and Research (PILER) in Karachi, Pakistan to organize a training workshop on Oral History (9-11 March 2001); also with the School of Environment, University of Brighton to organize a panel at the Euroseas Conference to be held in London, (6-8 September 2001); with the Indonesian Institute of Sciences and CAPSTRANS , University of Wollongong, Australia, to organize a workshop on Indonesian Labour History (early December 2001). It is through these collaborations that the study of labour in Asia and other parts of the world can achieve its broadest and richest dimensions, acknowledging the interconnectedness of labour regimes and cultures and concomitantly, of scholarly endeavour. CLARA
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