Facilities

Facilities and Services   

The Centre has established a fully equipped working space for its personnel, researchers and Visiting Fellows. It has also established a fully functioning computer lab with 20 computers and provided working terminals inside the library. The Centre has procured more than 1500 books, reports and other titles in the areas of Human Geography, Human Ecology, Tribal Studies and Gender Studies, and is in the process of procuring books and journals that are required to further research activities. IUCSSRE library is also housed in the School of Social Sciences premises where the SSS has a well-established library and documentation Centre. A library-cum reading room which is open to researcher on working days has been set up. The Centre is in the process of setting up a Human Geography lab, and has already procured few computers for the purpose. Other supporting equipment for documentation and research has also been purchased.

Research Units 

• Gender Studies and Women Empowerment Unit of the centre focuses breaking methodological pathways for convergence research and consequent social action in the areas of gender relations through critically assessing natural and social sciences from feminist and gender perspectives. Further, the unit also concentrates on bringing gender critique in the matters of democratic governance and policy research. Towards achieving its goal, the unit has initiated the following activities:

• Conducts research projects to combat the dominant worldview that helps perpetuate the subordinate position of women.
• Conducts Feminist Methodology workshop periodically to reorient Social Science studies, feminist epistemology and evolve practical methods for disseminating the specialised knowledge thereof.
• Runs socially useful short-term courses for policy makers, project implementing agencies and local bodies in women empowerment.
• As part of its extension activities the centre had built a Resource and Training Cell for helping the Representatives of Local Bodies in sustainable development planning focusing on women, Dalits and tribals.

• The Human Geography-Human Ecology Unit of the centre focuses on developing convergence of social theory, environmental theory, natural history, ecological studies, and economic, political, cultural sociological aspects of land relations. The unit strives to methodological pathways through converging insights from anthropology, geography, ecology and also from relevant fields of natural sciences. The unit will also concentrate on policy studies, action researches and promotion of research and teaching focusing the homologous relationship between socio-economic change and landscape ecosystem changes. Towards achieving its goal the unit has initiated the following activities:
• Natural Resource Mapping Cell for helping the Local self-management of resources and planning combining economic growth with ecological sustainability.
• Research Projects with socially useful dimension of social science studies with human ecology that enables constructive intervention to local land use pattern of negative impact on ecosystem and biodiversity conservation.
• Efforts to evolve Methodologies for analysing the locally specific problems of development impact on landscape ecosystems and enrich the public through the dissemination of critical human ecology input, participatory research and training.