Guwahati: Assam has
tied up with the Stanford University in the US for documenting the
rich culture, traditional knowledge, customs and indigenous
practices of various communities in the state, Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said Monday while inaugurating the Institute of
Research & Documentation of Indigenous Studies (IRDIS) at the
International Convention Centre of Srimanta Sankaradeva
Kalakshetra here.
"The institute has been conceived to carry out research and
documentation on indigenous practices of ethnic and indigenous
communities in the state," he said, adding that the tribal and
indigenous communities of Assam are very rich in culture, customs,
traditional knowledge and practices.
"All this needs to be researched and documented for posterity of
the communities and the IRDIS will go into multidisciplinary
research in collaboration with Stanford University on
documentation of the diverse ethnic and indigenous communities of
the state, which will, in turn, empower the communities socially,
economically and culturally," Gogoi said.
The chief minister also emphasized on the need for sticking to
traditional roots in the march for development and said: "We
cannot ignore our roots and have to be firmly entrenched in it.
For this it is important to link up the traditional system with
the modern system and apply those for the all round progress of
the ethnic and indigenous communities."
The IRDIS and the Stanford University would work in close
partnership for designing and implementing multidisciplinary
research and documentation projects for the empowerment of the
communities, and also for preservation of their traditional and
indigenous knowledge and practices.
Both the IRDIS and the Stanford University are expected to carry
out intensive studies in the way of life of the tribal and
indigenous communities including their food habits, their healthy
lifestyles, way of traditional treatment, their colourful attires
and their traditional judicial system.
Founder president of IRDIS Deepa Dutt explained that research and
documentation initiatives would be in a wide range of areas such
as indigenous culture, indigenous and traditional knowledge and
practices, socio-economic studies, health, education, and
population numbers.
"The knowledge resource that will be evolved from such research
work will be stored in a database for developing a modern data
archive on indigenous studies based on latest technology," she
added.
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