Selected Presentations and Conference Sessions

Invited Lectures

  • “Global fairness through Fairtrade? The case of living wages in Indian tea plantations”. Presentation with Dr. J. Kister at the Geography Colloquium, Johannes-Gutenberg-University Mainz, Germany, 25 May 2023.
  • “Alternative production spaces? Moral values, private standards and transformations in the Indian tea economy”.Presentation at the Geography Colloquium, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany, 28 June 2022.
  • "How to hijack a stathood movement? Gorkhaland, domant parties and 'aware citizens'". Talk at the North Bengal University, Siliguri, 28.8.2015
  • "New parties and old demands ? Observations on the Gorkhaland movement after 2007". Talk at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, Delhi, 11. July 2012.



    Conference Sessions

  • “(Re)definitions of forms of state and non-state sovereignty”. Session (with Dr. S. Scholl) at the German Congress for Geography (DKG), Frankfurt, Germany, 22 September 2023.
  • “Valuable resources? Conceptual approaches to ethics, morality and space”. Session (with Prof. Dr. V. Cummings and Dr. J. Kister) at the German Congress for Geography (DKG), Frankfurt, Germany, 21 September 2023.
  • “Values in crisis? Geographical perspectives on morality, responsibility, justice and fairness”. Session (with Dr. J. Kister) at the Conference for New Cultural Geography, Halle, Germany, 28 January 2023.
  • "States of exception. Contested politics in the central-eastern Himalayan borderland" (together with Mona Chettri). Panel at the 23rd European Conference on South Asian Studies in Zürich, 23.-26. July 2014



    Conference presentations

  • “Sustainability transformation through voluntary standards? Morality and politics in the Global Production Network of Fairtrade tea”. Presentation at the German Congress for Geography (DKG), Frankfurt, Germany, 21 September 2023.
  • “Assembling ‘fair’ labour. Moral values and sustainability standards at Indian tea plantations and natural stone pits”. Presentation at the AK Labour Geography, Berlin, Germany, 10 February 2023.
  • “No place for values? Morality as an analytical category in geographical development research”. Presentation at the Geographischer Arbeitskreis Entwicklungstheorien, Vienna, 17 June 2022.
  • “Ethno-regionalism and regional authority. Negotiating de facto sovereignty in Northeast India”. Presentation at the GeoWoche2021 (digital), 6 October 2021.
  • “Values, dreams, and conflicts. Towards a moral economy of tea cooperatives in South Asia”. Presentation at the RGS-IBG Annual International Conference, London, United Kingdom (digital), 2 September 2021.
  • “What is (not) in a name? Toponymic ambivalence, national belonging and geopolitical imaginations in the Nepali flatlands”. Presentation (with D. Karki) at the meeting of AK Political Geography, Münster, Germany, 18 May 2019.
  • “Between ‘virtuous’ movements and ‘dirty’ politics. Value conflict and the situatedness of ethico-political conduct in Darjeeling/India”. Presentation at MANCEPT Workshop in Political Theory, Manchester, United Kingdom, 12 September 2017.
  • “Supporting poor parties? Anti-political visions and social movements in Darjeeling”. Presentation at the British Association of South Asian Studies Annual Conference in Nottingham, United Kingdom, 19-21 April 2017.
  • “Between ‘jana andolan’ and party-politics. Questioning the movement character of the Gorkhaland agitation”. Presentation at the South Asian Conference in Madison, USA, 22 October 2015.
  • “Contesting authority in Darjeeling. The politics of Gorkhaland”. Presentation at the research colloquium at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), Delhi, India, 15 September 2014.
  • “Political cultures in ‘Gorkhaland’. The state, criminal leaders, and (the limits) of money and muscle power”. Presentation at the 23rd European Conference on South Asian Studies in Zürich, Switzerland, 23-26 July 2014.
  • “Contesting spaces. Gorkhaland and the struggle over Darjeeling's geographies”. Presentation at the South Asia research colloquium, University of Oxford, United Kingdom, 25 November 2013.