Possibilities for Pedagogies of Empathy in an Exclusionary University

Can empathy work as a pedagogic tool to talk across everyday distance and disaffection in the exclusionary university? This presentation will examine empathy, an overworked term often uncritically overused in neo-liberal times to explore its possibilities and promises for navigating institutional and epistemological violence. Drawing on an action- research study in an Indian city addressing challenges and (im)mobilities of first-generation college students whose parents work in stigmatized occupations, it attempts to map the affective reflexive journey of the research students involved. It uncovers their multi-layered stories of betrayal and guilt, comfort and confrontation, and conflict and connectedness in the research process. This presentation then seeks to radically reframe empathy for reimagining the university.

Our guest speaker is Anagha Tambe, Assistant Professor and Head of KSP Women’s Studies Centre, Savitribai Phule Pune University.

The event will be chaired by Hugo Gorringe, Head of Sociology, University of Edinburgh.

Presented by GENDER.ED in partnership with the Centre for South Asian Studies.

Presenter Bio

Anagha Tambe is Assistant Professor and Head of KSP Women’s Studies Centre, Savitribai Phule Pune University, India. Her broad areas of research and publication include inequalities and democracy in higher education, genealogy of Women’s Studies in India, and gender, caste and sexual labour. She has been a recipient of Fulbright Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Scholarship, 2018-19 for her research on folk culture and hereditary performance labour of lower caste women in contemporary India. In the last ten years, she has been a part of several research studies investigating complexities and elusiveness of social inequalities in higher education. She has completed a research project, ‘Inclusive Universities: Linking Equity, Diversity and Excellence for the 21st Century’, supported under US-Indo Initiative during 2013-2017 in collaboration with the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. This is the first campus climate study of an Indian university mapping diversity in higher education and its implications for the learning environment of the campus. She has also studied higher educational success and social mobility, educational attainment and challenges amongst de-notified and nomadic tribes in Maharashtra, paradox of gender inclusion in higher education in India, and (hyper)visible ‘women’/invisible (dalit) women in Indian universities. Anagha is engaged in designing and teaching courses and developing critical bilingual pedagogies in Women’s Studies. She has edited, translated and written many teaching learning resources in women’s studies, especially in the Indian language Marathi. She has also been a part of institutional initiatives to promote inclusion and reimagine higher education such as developing open knowledge resources in Indian languages in women’s/gender studies, investigating teaching/learning of women’s studies in contemporary India, building teaching and research capacity in women’s studies. She was General Secretary of Indian Association for Women’s Studies, the national level professional body for Women’s Studies in India (2017-2020).

Registration

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This event will be in-person only.

This is a free event, which means we overbook to allow for no-shows and to avoid empty seats. While we generally do not have to turn people away, this does mean we cannot guarantee everyone a place. Admission is on a first-come, first-served basis.

Please note, filming, recording and/or photography may take place at this event.

If you have any queries regarding this event, please email gender.ed@ed.ac.uk