The Global South Hub is a meeting place for faculty, students, alumni, and others to foster research on the Global South, which we consider as all those spaces and people, including in the United States, that are in the peripheries of the world order. Global solidarity networks, such as the Bandung Conference, have historically served as the meeting points of people in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Pacific Islands, to reflect on and imagine their position in the world. We hope to continue this tradition and think of the hub as a safe and inspiring space to share our work support, cooperate with one another, and look for like-minded people elsewhere. Our research topics vary from globalization and new subjectivities, global dispossessions, Afro-Asian solidarities, the Syrian refugee crisis, digital colonialism, humanitarian aid, and human rights, to name a few. Along with workshops discussing critical methodologies, research overlaps, and ideas for collaboration, in the future, we intend to apply for grants for transnational research, engage with other similar groups and organizations, invite scholars, and fund students.
Upcoming Events:
Global South Research Hub presents a public lecture
Tracing the History of Indian Cotton Textiles from India to the Caribbean
Speaker: Dr. Deepthi Murali
Date: October 10, 2025
Time: Noon to 1:30 PM
Location: Horizon Hall 6325 and Zoom
Please register using the following link to receive the Zoom invite: https://cssr.gmu.edu/events/17445
Abstract:
This talk shares the story of Connecting Threads, a collaborative project that follows the Madras handkerchief from its origins in South India to its vibrant life in the Caribbean. By highlighting the creativity of Indian weavers and African Caribbean and African American communities, it reveals how a simple checked cotton became a powerful thread in global histories of dress and identity.
About the speaker:
Dr. Murali is Assistant Professor at the Department of History and Art History, and Affiliate Faculty at Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, George Mason University.
Light refreshments and tea will be provided!
Past Events:
Fourth Global South Graduate Student Conference
Theme: Global Ethnographies
Thursday, May 1, 8:30 AM EDT - Friday, May 2, 5:00 PM EDT
Horizon Hall 6325
Online via Zoom
The Global South Research Hub is organizing its fourth Global South Graduate Student Conference on May 1-2, 2025. Please RSVP at https://cssr.gmu.edu/events/17043 to register for the conference and to receive the Zoom invite.
A detailed program schedule is attached below. All times are in EDT.
If you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to the organizing committee:
Debamita Guha (dguha3@gmu.edu)
Arvind Geetha Christo (achris27@gmu.edu)
Sevil Suleymani (ssuleyma@gmu.edu)
Golzar Salih (gsalih@gmu.edu)
The Global South Research Hub presents a book talk
BANGALORE GIRLS: WITNESSING THE RISE OF NATIONALISM IN A PROGRESSIVE CITY
Dr. Supriya Baily, George Mason University
Date: Friday, April 11, 2025
Time: 11:30 am-12:30 pm (EDT)
Location (In person): Horizon Hall Room 6323, 4475 Aquia Creek Lane, Fairfax, VA 22030
Location (Online): RSVP at https://cssr.gmu.edu/events/16982 to receive the Zoom meeting information.
Fourth Annual Global South Graduate Student Conference
May 1-2, 2025
Conference Theme: Global Ethnographies
Deadline for submission of abstracts: February 14, 2025
Link for submission of Abstracts: Abstract Submission Form
Deadline for submission of full papers for the best student paper award: March 21, 2025
The Global South Research Collective Hub, situated within the Center for Social Science Research (CSSR) at George Mason University, is organizing its fourth Global South Graduate Student Conference, scheduled for Thursday, May 1st, 2025, and Friday, May 2nd, 2025, to be held in a hybrid format.
The theme for this year’s conference is Global Ethnographies.
Ethnography traditionally referred to a form of empirical investigation to understand different cultures and societies, ethnographic fieldwork being a central part of the discipline of anthropology. From having a contested past imbued with problems of subjectivity and power dynamics with a colonialist attitude to the study of ‘others’ by Western anthropologists in ‘primitive’ societies, ethnography shifted its terrain to the study of Western societies by Western scholars. Ethnography finally found its way to sociology through the Chicago School’s interest in analyzing human social life in urban locales to comprehend different patterns of life in the city. Again, globalization encompasses all the economic, social, political, and cultural processes that impact the interconnectedness between developed and developing societies against the backdrop of broader social structures of present-day neoliberalism and global capitalism. In this context, how do ethnographic sites encounter the processes of globalization to orchestrate new kinds of place-making and lead to the creation of new connections? How do global ethnographies contribute to the transcendence of boundaries and the imagination of new futures? What implications might they have in transforming politics by creating movements and counter-movements across the globe? How can global ethnographies account for the perpetuation or disruption of contemporary forms of inequalities and exclusions? What are the global imperatives of ethnographic endeavors that seek to unsettle universal categorizations of identities and experiences?
We invite abstract submissions from current graduate students at any stage of their study, across disciplines within the humanities and social sciences, from any university worldwide by the deadline of 11:59 p.m. ET on February 14, 2025. We will notify you about acceptance by February 21, 2025.
We also invite draft papers from students with accepted abstracts to be submitted for the best student paper awards competition by the deadline of 11.59 pm ET on March 21, 2025. The award will carry a cash prize of $300 for the winner and $200 for the runner-up, along with a certificate.
Note: Paper submission is only for the award and is not a requirement for the conference. All students with accepted abstracts will be invited to make conference presentations. The final conference program schedule will be released by the end of March.
Please submit a 250-word abstract with your name and academic affiliation by February 14, 2025, using the link below. Presentations should be given in English and should not exceed 15 minutes.
Registration Cost: No fee.
If you have questions about the conference, please reach out to the organizing committee here: cssr@gmu.edu
Hosted by Global South Research Collective Hub @ Center for Social Science Research (CSSR).
Past Winners of the Best Student Paper Award:
Soumodip Sinha, Delhi School of Economics, India. "Transnational collective action via digital activism: Using student political activism as a frame of reference to facilitate South- South interactions"
Shruti Gupta, National University of Singapore. "The Dynamics of (Im)mobilities within the Global South: Understanding gendered migration between India and UAE"
Sayendri Panchadhyayi, Presidency University, India. "Intimate Transactions in Carework: Precarity, Purpose and Pleasure"
Uthara Geetha, University of Oviedo, Spain. "Decolonise and Debrahminise: Bridging Transnational Feminism and Dalit Feminism"
Sevin Sagnic, Bernardo Mackenna, Tianyu Yu, UC San Diego, USA. "Coloniality of Knowledge and Global South in Refugee Studies"
Third Global South Graduate Student Conference
May 2 and May 3, 2024 (Thursday to Friday)
The Global South Research Hub, housed with the Center for Social Science Research (CSSR) at George Mason University, is organizing its third Global South Graduate Student Conference on May 2-3, 2024, scheduled to be held virtually over Zoom. The theme for this year's conference is "Decolonizing Methodologies".
Second Global South Graduate Student Conference
May 4 and May 5, 2023 (Thursday to Friday)
The Global South Research Hub, housed within the Center for Social Science Research (CSSR) at George Mason University, is organizing its second Global South Graduate Student Conference on May 4-5, 2023, scheduled to be held virtually over Zoom. The theme for this year's conference is "Staying Alive: Precarity and Survival in the Global South".
Book Talk | Access to Power: Electricity and the Infrastructural State in Pakistan
April 3, 2023 (Monday) 1:30pm to 3pm (EST) | Horizon Hall #6335 and Zoom
The Global South Research Hub is organizing a book talk by Ijlal Naqvi, who will be discussing his recent book "Access to Power: Electricity and the Infrastructural State in Pakistan", Oxford University Press (2022). Dr. Naqvi is Associate Professor of Sociology and Associate Dean at the School of Social Sciences of Singapore Management University.
February 3, 2023 (Friday) 8:30 AM to 12:30 PM EST
Research on South Asia remains marginalized within U.S. sociology. At this symposium, we explore how South Asia offers a uniquely generative site from which to rethink sociological practice. How can it build on a rich transnational intellectual legacy? How can it further efforts to decolonize the discipline? How can the sociology of South Asia be more liberatory, ethical, critical, and reflexive, and how can sociologists of South Asia better support one another?
The symposium would also feature a space for mentoring opportunities, sharing and discussing work, which is open to all.
May 5-6, 2022 (Thursday to Friday)
The Global South Research Hub, housed within the Center for Social Science Research (CSSR) at George Mason University, is organizing its inaugural Global South Graduate Student Conference on May 5-6, 2022, scheduled to be held virtually over Zoom. The theme for this year's conference is "Global South Possibilities: Exploring Linkages, Building Solidarity".
