Last Day of Georgetown Conference on Indian Ocean World

Georgetown University in Qatar’s annual faculty conference will close on March 21st with wide-ranging discussions on the forms of nationalism, conflict, geopolitics, and governance impacting the countries of the Indian Ocean. The conference, convened under the theme of ‘The Liberal State and its Alternatives in the Indian Ocean’, is held on March 20-21 at GU-Q’s Education City campus.

The first day of the event saw experts and scholars from a range of local and international universities exchange knowledge on subjects such as ethnicity, urbanization, migration, and social development. The symposium is made possible by a Conference and Workshop Sponsorship Program award (CWSP 11-C-1019-16029) from the Qatar National Research Fund, a member of Qatar Foundation.

The program for the second day of the event includes a discussion of the differences in governance in China and India, how the rise of microfinance and the growth of the garment industry in Bangladesh has impacted local women, and the case of Singapore as a non-liberal electoral democratic state.

Later sessions will focus on the issue of climate change in the Gulf and the broader Indian Ocean, China’s interests in the region, and the role of chieftaincies in Somalia. The efforts of state building after the partition of countries in the Horn of Africa, as well as issues of Arab nationalism, will also be discussed.