The second annual retreat of the Foundation for Agrarian Studies (FAS) was held on February 26-27, 2016 at Wayanad in Kerala. It was attended by the staff of FAS and by by Aparajita Bakshi, Aditi Dixit, T. Jayaraman, Deepak Mercy Johnson, V. K. Ramachandran, Bheemeshwar Reddy, Madhura Swaminathan, and Noopur Varma.
The objective of the retreat was to assess the work done in FAS over the last year, and to plan for its immediate and mid-term future. Sandipan Baksi, Programme Coordinator, presented a detailed report on last year’s work, reporting separately on research, publications, our repository (that is, our photo and statistitical archives and the libraries) and on the events of the year. The presentation on research was assisted by PARI Coordinator Arindam Das, who described in great detail the work that had been done by the PARI team, reflecting also upon some of the problems associated with research pertaining to PARI. A lengthy discussion followed; some of the subjects discussed were the selection of survey (and re-survey) villages, themes for research by external collaborators, and means of enhancing access to PARI data by collaborators. An encouraging feature of PARI research is that it is now genuinely team work, characterised by the active participation of all members of the team.
The report on publications covered work on the Review of Agrarian Studies, the Agrarian Studies Series (including the fourth in the series, A New Statistical Domain In India: An Enquiry Into Village Panchayat Databases by Jun-ichi Okabe and Aparajita Bakshi), the survey report series (in which the forthcoming volume is on the Karnataka surveys), and other research publications, based either on PARI data or on the outcomes of different FAS projects. In the discussion that followed, it was agreed that all research projects should have a timeline and a paper or book associated with them.
The discussion on the events of last year reviewed the West Bengal Round 2 studies and on the symposium on results from the West Bengal surveys. The symposium was held in Durgapur in September 2015. During the discussion, it was decided that FAS would soon begin a monthly seminar series. The discussion on our data repositories covered the new website, challenges with respect to the archiving of (PARI and non-PARI) statistical data and the storage and use of photographs.
An important aspect of the retreat was to discuss and evaluate our work as a collective. In a lengthy session on shared experiences, every FAS employee briefly discussed their current work at FAS, their contributions to different projects, their aspirations, and their expectations from the Foundation.
The second day began with a trip to the Banasura Sagar Dam.
The final session was a group discussion moderated by Dr Shamsher Singh on the immediate and mid-term goals with regard to research, publications, events, and data repositories. This three-and-a-half-hour long session witnessed detailed discussions on the goals as well as the tasks involved in achieving them. It was an excellent discussion – we will review the plans we have made and our progress at next year’s retreat.
