Professor Behera
served as DAAD Guest Professor to Tubingen University, Germany for the period
April-July 2013. He was Visiting Professor in the Dept. of History and Area
Studies, Aarhus University, Denmark (2011), Dept. of Anthropology, University
of Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa (2001, 2003), Dept. of Anthropology,
University of Durban-Westville, Durban, South Africa (2001), Institute of
Psychology, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2004) and Maison des
Sciences de L’Homme, Paris and CNRS-EHESS, Toulouse (2006).He was also
the recipients of Carlos Chaga Foundation Fellowship, Brazil, National Research
Foundation Fellowship, Republic of South Africa, German Research Council,
Germany, Indo-French Fellowship, India/France, Indo-Israel Fellowship,
India/Israel, Nippon Anthropological Fellowship, Japan, etc.He has to his
credit more than 100 research publications in reputed journals and edited
volumes.
Most of his publications are in the fields of tribal studies, children
and childhood, social exclusion and gender studies. Professor Behera has in
total authored/edited twenty-two volumes. Of those, eight published volumes of
the series Contemporary
Society: Tribal Studies (Concept
Publishing Company, New Delhi) are jointly with Professor Georg Pfeffer of
Institute of Ethnology of Free University of Berlin, Germany. Some of the books
published by Professor Behera in the field of children and childhood are: Contemporary Society: Childhood and
Complex Order (Manak
Publication, New Delhi, 1996), Children
and Childhood in Contemporary Societies (Kamla-Raj
Enterprise, New Delhi, 1998), Public
Images of Children (Guest
Editor, Special Issue of Journal
of Social Sciences, New Delhi, 1999) and Children
and Youth in the Metropolitan Cultures (Guest
Editor, Special Issue of the International
Journal of Anthropology, Florence, June 2001, jointly with Professor
Margaret Trawick of Massey University of New Zealand), Childhoods in South Asia (Pearson Education, New Delhi, 2007), Extending Ethnographic Research
with Children in the Asia Pacific Region (Guest
Editor, Special Issue of The
Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, 12 (5), November 2011 (Routledge),
jointly with Professor Roxana Waterson of the Dept. of Sociology, National
University of Singapore). He has collaborated with more than 30 overseas
scholars in various publications and research projects. He has successfully
completed more than a dozen research projects funded by UGC, ICSSR, Ministry of
Welfare, National Literacy Mission Authorities, Winrock International, Shastri
Foundation, WHO, German Research Council, etc. Professor Behera has presented
paper in more than 25 different international conferences held in Mexico,
Germany, Belgium, Sweden, Israel, Denmark, USA, South Africa, China, Japan,
Italy, Norway, France, UK, Bangladesh, Brazil, France, Egypt, Singapore,
Australia, Ireland, Scotland, South Korea, etc.
He has delivered several
invited lecturers in different overseas universities and research institutes
(like Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, Tel Aviv University, Israel,
University of Orange Free State, South Africa, University of Durban West-Ville,
South Africa, University of California at Santa Cruz, University of Illinois at
Chicago, University of Utah, Logan, etc.) He was the Editor of the Journal of Social Sciences(New
Delhi)during 1997-2002. Professor Behera was elected as a member of the Executive
Board of International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences
(IUAES), the apex anthropological body at the international level, in the year
1998 and served in that position for two consecutive terms, i.e. for the period
1998-2009. He is the founding Chairman of the IUAES Commission on Children,
Youth and Childhood. Professor Behera is a member of Permanent Council of IUAES
and in this capacity he represents India. As the Chairperson of the
international commission, he has organized more than a dozen panels and
sessions relating to children and youth in different international conferences
and symposia. Professor Behera was the Coordinator of the Symposium titled
“Everyday Experiences of Children in Asia-Pacific” of the international conference
Asia-Pacific Childhoods held at National University of Singapore during July
17-20, 2006. He was also the Officer-at-Large of the International Sociological
Association Research Committee-53 - Sociology of Childhood for the session
1998-2006. He is a member of the International Advisory Board of the Journal - Sociological Analysis (USA), Boyhood Studies (New York, USA), and Practicing Anthropology (USA), Acta Academica (South Africa), Wheelock International Journal of
Children, Families, and
Social Change (USA).
Professor Behera is also a member of Advisory Board of the Greenwood
Encyclopedia of Children's Issues Worldwide (Greenwood Publishing House, USA)
and Global Gutter Press (Cambridge, UK).
He is also a member of the Editorial
Board of the Indian Journals:Oriental Anthropology and Journal
of Social Sciences. Professor Behera is in the Executive Board of the
Centre for India Study at Aarhus University, Denmark. He is a member of
Advisory Committee of the international organization “Knowing Children”. Berhampur
University signed seven MoUs (five with overseas Universities and two with
Indian Institutes) under his initiative. He was the Director of the UGC Centre
for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy of Sambalpur University.
He is also presently a member of the Advisory Committee of the ICSSR-ERC,
Kolkata. He is the Vice-President of the Institute for Social Research and
Applied Anthropology, India. He has been an accessor of NAAC, Bengaluru. He has
already served as chairman of NAAC Peer Team on couple of occasions. Professor
Behera was the chief organizer of the IUAES Inter-congress (international
conference) on “Children and Youth in a Changing World” held in Bhubaneswar in
2012 which was attended by 300 participants from 48 countries. Seventeen
scholars have already received their Ph.D. degree and one her D.Litt. degree
working under the supervision of Professor Behera.