The value of traditional knowledge to women in fragile locations

This is an invited lecture I gave at University of California, Los Angeles to the Center for Asia and South Asia.

About the presentation: My work focuses on the visual and material cultures of regions to understand the shifts caused therein by the conflicts. I use a cultural mapping methodology to explore how communities of women, across different conflict contexts rely on coded and tacit knowledge to rebuild their lives. This knowledge and its related skills are often situated and specific to the community. However, this knowledge is key to understanding the dynamics of conflict and its impact on women. Larger numbers of communities than ever before are on the move and displaced from their homes, however they carry their culture with them, often in the shape of visual and material belongings, language and narratives. This culture and traditional knowledge is essential in defining not just their identity and its related politics but has implications for where they will go in the future. My work aims to understand these cultures to explore their potential as the starting point for discussions about identity, ambitions of peace, understandings and reconstructions of their futures and also the turning point at which cultures are identified as pre-conflict and shift and change as time goes by. Most of my work builds bridges between academic projects and real time development activity through partnering with industry or commercial organisations.

UCLA - invited keynote lecture