Location: Mergenthaler 526

The Chloe Center will host an information session about its annual graduate research and travel grants on Wed. March 12. It will also feature brief presentations by the three grant winners last year.

Lunch will be served. Please RSVP.

Presentations:

“This is How Spies Are Made”: South Korea’s Diaspora Governance Through Transnational Repression
Ga Eun Cho, PhD Candidate, Political Science

From 1953 to 2013, the South Korean government fabricated at least fifty spy cases, with more than half targeting overseas Koreans. I examine these spy cases as (sometimes obvious but) effective strategy of political repression that operated across national borders in both authoritarian and democratic South Korea. Doing so, I challenge the conventional dichotomy between authoritarianism and democracy in the study of transnational repression and state-diaspora relations.

The Evolution of Crude Oil (black gold) and Ecologies of Restoration in Ogoni, Nigeria
Omotayo Adekunle Adenugba, PhD Student, Anthropology

This study critically investigates the politics of restoration in Ogoni, Nigeria, questioning how SHELL led restoration efforts not necessarily yield environmental recovery but also sustain and reinforce the capitalist structures of crude oil extraction. This presentation is an ongoing research work of a bigger doctoral project focusing on complexities of restoration in Ogoni based on 2024 summer exploratory research.

Brewing Tradition: The Dimasa Women and the Forests of Northeast India
Rini Barman, PhD Student, Anthropology

In the Northeastern borderland district of India, Dima Hasao( Assam), women of the Dimasa community are negotiating with the market expansion of their traditional alcoholic brew, named Judima. This paper follows the Dimasa women as they work in their forests and households to brew a sacred product, which is now a source of some income for indigenous communities in a threatened environment, marred by longer histories of colonial exploitation and internal ethnic violence. In doing so, it attempts to understand the evolving relationships of the forest to the Dimasa hill tribes and how it has direct bearing to the shaping of their everyday lives, markets, and offerings to their deities.  

If you have questions about the grants, please attend this session. Full details about applications (due March 31) are available here.