Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka | |
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| Born | 20 July 1956 |
| Nationality | Swiss |
| Alma mater | University of Zurich |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Sociology |
| Institutions | Bielefeld University |
| Thesis | Power and ritual purity |
| Doctoral advisor | Prof. Lorenz G. Loeffler |
Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka (born: 20 July 1956) is a university professor in the Faculty of Sociology at Bielefeld University, Germany. [1] She is a former Pro-Vice-Rector at Bielefeld University and former Dean of the Faculty of Sociology at the University. [2]
Pfaff-Czarnecka was born in Warsaw, Poland to Janina (1932-2019) and Jerzy Czarnecki (1924-2007). The family moved to Switzerland in 1972. Between 1975 and 1983 Pfaff-Czarnecka studied social anthropology, law, communication studies, European anthropology and art history at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, and also completed a doctoral degree there. [3]
Pfaff-Czarnecka worked at the Institute of Social Anthropology of the University of Zurich between 1983 and 1999 as scientific assistant, lecturer, reader and research fellow. Between 1989 and 1999, she also worked as development expert and as translator for the International Committee of the Red Cross. In the years 1999-2001 she acted as scientific collaborator and deputy director at the Center for Development Research at the University of Bonn. She was appointed as full university professor at Bielefeld University (chair in Social Anthropology) in 2001. She has also taught at the universities of Bern, Oxford, Tokyo and Kathmandu and held several international Visiting Fellowships and professorships.
Pfaff-Czarnecka has engaged in several academic administration and offices: she was President of the Swiss Society of Social Anthropology (1996-1999); Pro-Vice-Rector of Bielefeld University (2007-2009); [4] member of the Commission 38 of the CNRS (France; 2004-2007); Dean of the Faculty of Sociology at Bielefeld University (2018-19); Co-Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research (Bielefeld University; 2011-2019) and senate member of the German Research Foundation (DFG). [5]
Pfaff-Czarnecka conducted field research in the Himalayan region (especially in Nepal) [6] [7] [8] as well as in the middle European immigration societies. Among her research topics are the Hindu caste system, democratization processes at the sub and the supra-national level, ethnic relations and the theory of belonging. [9]
She conducts research on the social life of universities, focusing on heterogeneities and inequalities in study processes, as well as on knowledge production and circulation in the Asian region. [10] [11]
The Tharu people are an ethnic group indigenous to the Terai in southern Nepal and northern India. They speak Tharu languages. They are recognized as an official nationality by the Government of Nepal. In the Indian Terai, they live foremost in Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The Government of India recognizes the Tharu people as a scheduled tribe.
Hinduism is the main and largest religion of Nepal. In 2006, the country declared itself a secular country through democracy, after the abolition of its monarchy. According to the 2021 census, the Hindu population in Nepal is estimated to be around 23,677,744 which accounts for at least 81.19% of the country's population, the highest percentage of Hindus of any country in the world. The national calendar of Nepal, Vikram Samvat, is a solar Hindu calendar essentially the same to that widespread in North India as a religious calendar, and is based on Hindu units of time.
The Terai or Tarai is a lowland region in northern India and southern Nepal that lies south of the outer foothills of the Himalayas, the Sivalik Hills, and north of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. This lowland belt is characterised by tall grasslands, scrub savannah, sal forests and clay rich swamps. In North India, the Terai spreads from the Yamuna River eastward across Haryana, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal. The Terai is part of the Terai-Duar savanna and grasslands ecoregion. The corresponding lowland region in West Bengal, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Assam in the Brahmaputra River basin is called 'Dooars'. In Nepal, the term is applied to the part of the country situated north of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. Nepal's Terai stretches over 33,998.8 km2 (13,127.0 sq mi), about 23.1% of Nepal's land area, and lies at an elevation of between 67 and 300 m. The region comprises more than 50 wetlands. North of the Terai rises the Bhabar, a narrow but continuous belt of forest about 8–12 km (5.0–7.5 mi) wide.
Chhetri, historically called Kshettriya or Kshetriya or Khas are Nepali speakers of Khas community, some of whom trace their origin to migration from medieval India. Chhetri was a caste of administrators, governor and military elites in the medieval Khas Kingdom and Gorkha Kingdom. The nobility of the Gorkha Kingdom mainly originated from Chhetri families. They also had a strong presence in civil administration affairs. The bulk of prime ministers of Nepal before the democratization of Nepal belonged to this caste as a result of the old Gorkhali aristocracy. Gorkha-based aristocratic Chhetri families included the Pande dynasty, the Basnyat dynasty, the Kunwar family, and the Thapa dynasty,.
The International Sociological Association (ISA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to scientific purposes in the field of sociology and social sciences. It is an international sociological body, gathering both individuals and national sociological organizations. The ISA was founded in 1949 under UNESCO and it has about 4,500 individual and 45 collective members, hailing from 167 countries. Its sole purpose is to "represent sociologists everywhere, regardless of their school of thought, scientific approaches or ideological opinion" and its objective is to "advance sociological knowledge throughout the world". Along with the Institut International de Sociologie (IIS), it is seen as a world-leading international sociological organization.
The Nepalese caste system was the traditional system of social stratification of Nepal. The Nepalese caste system broadly borrows the classical Hindu Chaturvarnashram model, consisting of four broad social classes or varna: Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Sudra.
Maithils, also known as Maithili people, are an Indo-Aryan ethno-linguistic group from the Indian subcontinent, who speak the Maithili language as their native language. They inhabit the Mithila region, which comprises Northern and Eastern Bihar and Northeastern Jharkhand in India and some adjoining districts of Nepal constituting Madhesh Province in addition to some terai districts of Bagmati and Koshi Provinces. The Maithil region forms an important part of Hinduism as it is said to be the birthplace of Sita, the wife of Ram and incarnation of Lakshmi.
Madheshi people is a term used for several ethnic groups living in the central and eastern Terai region of Nepal, constituting 32% of Nepal's population. It has also been used as a political pejorative term by the Pahari people of Nepal to refer to non-pahari people with a non-Nepali language as their mother tongue, regardless of their place of birth or residence. The term Madheshi became a widely recognised name for Nepali citizens with an Indian cultural background only after 1990. Madheshi people comprise various cultural groups such as Hindu caste groups, Muslims, Marwaris, Brahmin and Dalit caste groups, ethnic groups like Maithils, Bhojpuri, Awadhi and Bajjika speaking people and indigenous people of the Terai. Many of these groups share cultural traditions, educational and family ties with people living south of the international border in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. Tharu people and Pahari people living in the Terai do not consider themselves as Madheshi. In recent times, some politicians and journalists use the term for all Nepali citizens of the Terai.
Christianity is, according to the 2011 census, the fifth most practiced religion in Nepal, with 375,699 adherents, or 1.4% of the population. Many informed observers have estimated that there are at least 1 million Nepali Christians. According to some Christian groups, there may be as many as 3 million Christians in Nepal, constituting up to 10% of the country's population. A report by Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary identified the Nepali church the fastest growing in the world. The vast majority of Nepali Christians are evangelical Protestants ; there is also a small Catholic population of roughly 10,000.
Charles Albert Edward Ramble is an anthropologist and former University Lecturer in Tibetan and Himalayan Studies at the Oriental Institute, Oxford University. Since 2009 he has been Professor and Directeur d'études at the Ecole pratique des hautes études, Paris. Between 2006 and 2013 he was elected president of the International Association for Tibetan Studies (IATS) and convened the 10th seminar of IATS at Oxford in 2003.
Yogbir Singh Kansakar was a Nepalese poet, social reformer and one of the Four Pillars of Nepal Bhasa. He worked to develop his mother tongue and promote Arya Samaj sect of Hinduism and Buddhism in the face of repression by the Rana rulers.
Dor Bahadur Bista is a Nepalese anthropologist, social scientist and activist. Bista is considered the Father of Nepali anthropology, and has published popular books such as Fatalism and Development and People of Nepal. Bista mysteriously disappeared in 1995.
Mahesh Chandra Regmi was a historian and archivist of Nepal. In 1977, he became the first Nepali to receive the Ramon Magsaysay Award, for creating the Regmi Research Series. It was in recognition of his “chronicling of Nepal’s past and present, enabling his people to discover their origins and delineating national options.” In honor of the contributions made by Regmi to the scholarship on Nepal, the Kathmandu-based academic NGO Social Science Baha instituted the annual Mahesh C. Regmi lecture series in 2003, the first of which was attended by Regmi himself, just weeks before his death.
Greater Nepal is an irrendentist concept in Nepal, which claims current Indian and Bangladeshi territories beyond Nepal's present day boundaries. These claims typically include the areas controlled by Nepal between 1791 and 1816, a period that ended with the Anglo-Nepalese War and the signing of Sugali Treaty. In addition, extensive territories in present day Indian states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and some parts of Bangladesh are also included in the claims of the activist organisation Greater Nepal Nationalist Front, which demands the "return" of these territories to Nepal. A map similar to theirs was displayed by the mayor of Kathmandu in his office in June 2023, in reaction to an alleged "Akhand Bharat" map in the Indian Parliament building.
Gabriele Rosenthal is a German sociologist and head of Department for Qualitative Methods of the Center for Methods in Social Sciences of the University of Göttingen, Germany. Rosenthal is recognized for the introduction of the method of biographical case reconstruction using biographical narrative interviews. She is known for systemizing the influences of the Gestalt theory, the sociology of knowledge, and the sociology of figurations and processes to explain the interrelationship between experience, memory and narrative, as well as how social figurations intertwine with individual biographies.
Tharailath Koshy Oommen is an Indian sociologist, author, teacher, and Professor Emeritus at the Centre for the Study of Social Systems, Jawaharlal Nehru University. He was awarded Padma Bhushan, the third highest Indian civilian award in 2008 for his services to the fields of education and literature by the President of India.
Dhirendra Premarshi is a Nepalese songwriter, journalist, and cultural expert who mostly works on Maithili language and culture. He was, most notably, awarded the Atal Mithila Samman 2019 in New Delhi, India, by Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, in recognition of his prominent contribution to Maithili literature, music and media for decades.
Harisimhadeva was a King of the Karnat dynasty who ruled the Mithila region of modern-day North Bihar in India and parts of South Nepal.
Georg Elwert was a German ethnologist and sociologist who was one of the leading exponents of German development sociology.
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