Special Centre for the Study of North East India (SCSNEI) at JNU was established in the year 2018, upgraded from a Programme of research and teaching called North East India Studies Programme (NEISP). In its new form, SCSNEI aims at expanding the horizons of research and teaching on North East India, rare in the country.
The Special Centre is conceived with a purpose to build corpus of academic works on northeastern region of India. It also aims at holistic understanding of the region by bringing together different epistemic perspectives with strong commitment to multi-disciplinary research. While there are several researches already under taken on the region in different Schools and Centres of the university, the unique experiment initiated by SCSNEI is the ‘coming together’ of people and ideas for a better comprehension of the region.To fulfil this objective, SCSNEI initiates a collaborative exercise to run its academic programmes with the partnership of eight Schools of the university, viz. School of Language, Literature and Cultural Studies; School of Social Sciences; School of International Studies; School of Environmental Sciences; School of Arts and Aesthetics; School of Life Sciences; School of Bio Technology; and School of Computational and Integrative Sciences.SCSNEI provides a common platform to the faculty members working in the areas of humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and other allied disciplines, whose works are directly or indirectly linked to the studies on the region. A further step towards fulfilling the objective is to expand the collaborative works outside the confines of JNU – withother academic and research institutions in the country and abroad.
This area studies programme, conceptualised under special circumstances, owns added responsibility of locating North East India in the national and broader regional frames of reference. To bring the region in the centre of national discourses, SCSNEI has taken up activities of research and teaching that will not only familiarise North East India to the young academics, but also work towards positive intervention on the region and its people with expectations for rich dividend. The Special Centre shall play the role of a catalyst towards policy intervention by developing new methods and approaches for human development and holistic growth. To fulfil these objectives, SCSNEI is committed to work closely with state institutions, corporate bodies, civil society organizations and discerning scholars.
SCSNEI focuses on areas of research, such as, social change, religion and statecraft, empowerment politics, regional economic growth, livelihood studies, border trade and state policies, global capital and institutions, conflict, peace and security studies, borderland studies, intercultural discourses, aesthetics and performance studies, traditional knowledge, health, bio-diversity, folk medicine, etc. Students and researchers are encouraged not only to conduct in-depth research but also simultaneously develop social commitment to judiciously apply the freshly acquired knowledge.
Acknowledging existing gaps between the people of the region and the rest of the country SCSNEI shall focus on programmes that will also adequately emphasize on cultural connectivity and regional awareness. New programmes will be developed to enable capacity building and self-sustenance. SCSNEI is committed to develop this Special Centre as a unique institution not only within JNU but also in the entire country – a most vibrant and committed research institute on North East India studies.