The School of Social Work has had a partnership with TISS since 2010, and Jan Magnusson, associate professor at the department, is responsible for the exchange programme. He has just returned after a trip to India within the framework of the Erasmus International Credit Mobility (ICM) programme. At the TISS campus in Mumbai he participated in research seminars with supervisors and doctoral students. He also visited a rehabilitation and development project that TISS has been running in Ladakh, a region in the heart of the Himalayas.

PhD students combine their research with concrete development work

In 2010, many villages and crops were destroyed by flashfloods. TISS launched a comprehensive rehabilitation and development project in cooperation with the local authorities and the Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI). The goal was to rebuild what had been destroyed but also to find more longterm solutions to the problems. A particularly hard-hit village, Taru, was designated as a model project for this effort. Jan Magnusson visited Taru together with TISS local project manager Sonam Jorges and the chairman of the village's board of directors.

"The work after the floods is about a completely different type of social work than what we are used to in Sweden," said Jan Magnusson.

"It does not involve any client work but is largely about community organizing, with far-reaching change ambitions. In the case of Taru, it has mainly been a matter of hard physical labour, construction and engineering. What constitutes social work is the question of how to organize this in cooperation with the villagers and involve them in the work.

PhD students combine their research with concrete development work

The Tata Institute of Social Sciences has sent both experts and students to Ladakh to carry out everything from background research to guidance, leadership training and preventive planning for potential future disasters. This is also how the TISS School of Social Work perceives its role in the social work of Indian society. Most PhD projects are versions of this type of project. Doctoral students combine their research with concrete development work in the field, and advocacy for marginalized social groups.

 "My impression in Taru was that the top-down approach failed and that the villagers, once the clean-up was completed, took control of both planning and implementation," Jan Magnusson continued.

"Modern engineering was used to a certain extent, but they have also relied on traditional and simple technological solutions when it comes to building roads and irrigation systems. One result of this has been a halving of the costs, compared to if the same work had been completed by the authorities."

 

Read more about the TISS project