Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction: Imagining South Asian Futures
- Section I South Asia as a Region
- Section II State Relations
- Section III Development
- Section IV Human Well-Being
- Chapter 27 Population Dynamics, Economic Prospects and Regional Coherence
- Chapter 28 Towards Cooperation for Poverty Reduction?
- Chapter 29 Health Challenges
- Chapter 30 Regional Disease Dynamics
- Chapter 31 Education: Time Bomb or Silver Bullet?
- Chapter 32 Scholarship in and on South Asia
- Chapter 33 Rights and Justice: A Prospective View
- Chapter 34 Patriarchy, Power and Paradox: Dreaming Gender Equality and Development
- Chapter 35 Women in South Asia
- Chapter 36 Media: New Trends, Old Problems
- Chapter 37 Sports: Passion and Industry
- About the Authors
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 32 - Scholarship in and on South Asia
from Section IV - Human Well-Being
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction: Imagining South Asian Futures
- Section I South Asia as a Region
- Section II State Relations
- Section III Development
- Section IV Human Well-Being
- Chapter 27 Population Dynamics, Economic Prospects and Regional Coherence
- Chapter 28 Towards Cooperation for Poverty Reduction?
- Chapter 29 Health Challenges
- Chapter 30 Regional Disease Dynamics
- Chapter 31 Education: Time Bomb or Silver Bullet?
- Chapter 32 Scholarship in and on South Asia
- Chapter 33 Rights and Justice: A Prospective View
- Chapter 34 Patriarchy, Power and Paradox: Dreaming Gender Equality and Development
- Chapter 35 Women in South Asia
- Chapter 36 Media: New Trends, Old Problems
- Chapter 37 Sports: Passion and Industry
- About the Authors
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The primary objective of this article is to outline scenario(s) of South Asian scholarship in the next half a century. It is a challenging task in many ways; two deserve special mention: first, forecasting is a perilous business, particularly on social and political issues. Secondly, my effort involves a region with eight countries, each of which is not only diverse on many counts but has also previously defied almost all predictions. There are several methods for forecasting, each has its own merits but none can be appropriate for all situations. However, in social sciences there is a proclivity towards quantitative method. When quantitative data is either unavailable or unreliable, and qualitative information can be gleaned from various sources to increase accuracy, relevance, or acceptability of forecasts, the preferred option among researchers has been to adopt the judgmental method (Makridakis, Wheelwright and Hyndman 1998; Adler and Ziglio 1996; Lawrence, Goodwin, O'Connor and Onkal 2006; and Surowiecki 2004). In this exercise, a simple trend-line extrapolation is neither expected nor helpful as scholarship is a precursor to imaginative innovation and by definition expected to influence trends in the future that are yet to exist. Inherent elements of the judgmental methods are based on certain assumptions and subjective bias. My approach in this paper is not devoid of these elements; I have adopted the subjective approach within the judgmental-qualitative method.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- South Asia 2060Envisioning Regional Futures, pp. 254 - 260Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2013