Description
In Dialogue with a Public Intellectual: An Interview with Dr Ranabir Samaddar
By Dr Sibaji Pratim Basu
Professor Ranabir Samaddar (RS), currently the Distinguished Chair in Migration and Forced Migration Studies at Calcutta Research Group, India, belongs to the critical school of thinking and is considered as one of the foremost theorists in the field of forced migration studies. He has worked extensively on issues of forced migration, the theory and practices of dialogue, nationalism and post-colonial statehood in South Asia, and new regimes of technological restructuring and labour control. His much-acclaimed book, The Politics of Dialogue: Living Under the Geopolitical Histories of War and Peace (2004) was a culmination of his long work on justice, rights, and peace. Some other important writings include a two- volume account, The Materiality of Politics (2007) and The Emergence of the Political Subject (2009). He has co-authored a major work on New Town (a satellite township of Kolkata) and new forms of accumulation, Beyond Kolkata: Rajarhat and the Dystopia of Urban Imagination (2013). It takes forward urban studies in the context of post-colonial capitalism. Professor Samaddar is also a leading columnist in many newspapers, news journals and e-portals published from India and abroad.
Professor Sibaji Pratim Basu is (SPB) the Vice-Chancellor, Vidyasagar University, West Bengal, India. A regular contributor to academic journals/books as well as popular dailies, periodicals and news channels, Basu has also edited a number of books. His important publications include: The Poet & The Mahatma: Engagement with Nationalism & Internationalism (2009), edited volumes called, The Fleeing People of South Asia (2009) and Forced Migration & Media Mirrors (2014); Basu has also to his credit a co-edited volume, Politics in Hunger-Regime: Essays on the Right to Food in West Bengal (2011). A former secretary and treasurer of Calcutta Research Group, Basu’s academic interests centre round history of socialist thought; Indian political thought, popular movements, sustainable rights, forced migration and displacement, media studies and cultural politics.