ecsas 2012

Transcription

ecsas 2012

ECSAS
2012
22ND European Conference
on South Asian Studies
25-28 July 2012
ISCTE-University Institute of Lisbon
Lisbon | Portugal
Registration
Welcome
(from 13:30)
14:00-15:45
Panel session
15:45-16:15
Coffee
16:15-18:00
Panel session
18:00-18:30
Break
18:30-19:30
Keynote
20:00 onwards Reception
09:00-10:45
10:45-11:15
11:15-13:00
13:00-14:00
Wed 25 July
Fri 27 July
Panel session
Coffee
Panel session
Lunch
Panel session
Coffee
Panel session
Break
Keynote
Banquet
Thu 26 July
Panel session
Coffee
Panel session
Lunch
Panel session
Coffee
Panel session
EASAS General
Meeting
Timetable
Sat 28 July
Panel session
Coffee
Panel session
ECSAS 2012
22nd European conference on South Asian Studies
ISCTE – University Institute of Lisbon, Portugal, July 2012
Conference programme and book of abstracts
EASAS Council
Roger Jeffery, Margret Frenz, Ulrike Müller-Böker, Nicolas Jaoul, Anna
Lindberg, Rosa Maria Perez, Danuta Stasik, Heinz-Werner Wessler,
John Zavos
Steering committee
Rosa Maria Perez, Diogo Ramada Curto, Cristiana Bastos, Cláudia
Pereira, Rita Ávila Cachado, Everton Machado, José Mapril Gonçalves,
Hugo Cardoso, Paolo Favero, Jason Keith Fernandes
Collaborators
Ana Paula Laborinho, Helder Carita, Jorge Flores, Mohamed Azzim,
Susana Sardo, Inês Lourenço, Nandini Chaturvedula, Pedro Sobral
Pombo, Constantino Xavier, Luís Gomes
Volunteer coordinators
Lídia Cordeiro, Ricardo Rodrigues, Vanessa Amorim
Volunteer team
Ana Neves, Anastasia Kapidou, Anita Cunha, Beatriz Serrano, Bruna
Afonso, Daniela Florêncio, Diogo Marques Correia, Francisco
Figueiredo, Gefra Fulane, Giulia Panfili, Glória Martins, Irina Lima,
Joana Camões, José Alexandre, Lara Morbey, Márcia Reigadas, Maria
Elisa Rodrigues, Mário Magro, Marta Velez, Mónica Sousa, Ricardo
Silva, Rute Marques, Telma Santiago, Vanessa Branco, Vânia Roberto.
CRIA executive producer for ECSAS
Mafalda Melo Sousa
CRIA secretariat
Manuela Raminhos, Catarina Mira, Patrícia Freire
EASAS membership administration
Regina Kohler
Conference organisers
Eli Bugler, Megan Caine, Darren Hatherley, Triinu Mets,
Sammy Pereira, Rohan Jackson (NomadIT).
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the following for their generous support of this
event:
FCT: Professor Miguel Seabra, President
ISCTE – University Institute of Lisbon : Professor Luís Reto, Rector;
Dra. Teresa Laureano, Administrator; Mr. Fernando Gil Ferreira,
Secretary, Mrs. Carla Firmino, GARE
CRIA: Dra. Manuela Raminhos; Dra.Patrícia Freire; Dra. Catarina Mira
Câmara Municipal de Lisboa: Dr. António Costa, Mayor; Dra. Simonetta
Luz Afonso; Dra. Catarina Vaz Pinto
Fundação Oriente: Dr. Carlos Monjardino; Engenheiro João Calvão, Dr.
João Amorim
FLAD - Luso American Foundation: Professor Maria de Lurdes
Rodrigues, President; Dra. Fátima Fonseca, Program Director
Museu da Cidade: Dra. Elsa Gonçalves
Commender Mário Nabeiro, President DELTA cafes
Dr. Miguel Fialho de Brito, Intituto do Turismo de Portugal
Dr. Duarte D’Eça Leal
Publishers
Several publishers have given this event their support by either
advertising in this programme or presenting a range of titles at the
conference. Do please take time to browse their stalls and talk to their
representatives. The publishers’ stalls are located on Piso 1 just outside
the Grande Auditório. Please ask our conference team if you cannot
find them.
With thanks to Almedina, Bertrand, Cambridge University Press,
CRIA - Revista Etnográfica, Fim de Século, Horizonte, SAMAJ,
Taylor & Francis, and Temas e Debates, Circulo de Leitores.
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Table of contents
Welcome addresses ... 6
Practical information ... 9
Events and meetings ... 19
Daily timetable ... 22
Table of keynotes, panels ... 29
Abstracts of keynotes, panels and papers ... 35
Film programme ... 156
List of participants ... 160
Maps ... 170
ECSAS 2012: 22nd European conference on South Asian Studies
Welcome address from Conference convenor
Dear conference participants
The apparent unity of the category South Asia veils, in fact, a wide
diversity and complexity that challenges us to abandon Eurocentric
stereotypes whose fragility becomes evident when we study in detail
this context of the world.
The convergence between Europe and South Asia, intertwined
throughout time is known to us all - even though it hasn’t sparked
systematic studies within the social sciences and the humanities.
Portugal is, from the dawn of its national development, intrinsically
connected to South Asia. Standing witness to history, the large South
Asian diaspora which settled mostly in greater Lisbon has transformed
the Portuguese social and urban landscape.
As with other European countries, this diaspora is an important factor
for the rejuvenation and cosmopolitanism of our cities, constituting
an incomparable source of cultural and, above all, human enrichment
whilst stimulating a growing interest in South Asian cultures.
ISCTE – University Institute of Lisbon has been a part of that growing
seduction through the development of new protocols celebrated with
different universities and institutes, mostly in India, establishing a
new generation in social sciences aimed at South Asian topics whilst
stimulating partnerships and long term research in loco.
Therefore, on behalf of the Rector of ISCTE – University Institute of
Lisbon and myself, we welcome the participants of the 22nd Conference
of the European Association for South Asian Studies and we wish you
all, along with many intellectually productive debates over the coming
days, a pleasant stay in Lisbon!
Rosa Maria Perez
CRIA - ISCTE
6
INTRODUCTION
Welcome address from EASAS
A warm welcome to the 22nd ECSAS from the EASAS Council.
The Council of the European Association for South Asian Studies
(EASAS) welcomes you to Lisbon and to our 22nd Conference. We
can trace our descent from 1968, when our first conference was held
in Cambridge, hosted by Eric Stokes. Fortunately, some scholars from
that meeting will be with us in Lisbon this year, the first time we have
come so far West and South. For the first 30 years of our conferences,
informality ruled: until and unless somebody offered to host the next
one, it was always possible that there would be no further conferences.
But our constituency has always been enthusiastic, and every two or
three years a well-attended conference has been held in different parts of
Europe.
Lisbon bids fair to be one of our most successful conferences, with a
beautiful setting, efficient organisers and attractive academic and social
programmes. By coming to Portugal we acknowledge in particular one
of the smaller Imperial powers that intervened in South Asian history
over the past five centuries. Some of the Conference panels directly
address the historical and contemporary significance of the IndoPortuguese connections, and we hope that you might take in one or more
of their sessions to catch up on the most recent scholarship in these
fields.
Since 2009 we have moved to a more formal arrangement for our
conferences, with the Conference acting as the main activity of EASAS.
The Association has begun to build a programme of activities and
benefits for its membership, despite the complications of a global - not
just European - membership but needing a local bank account, charitable
status and tax return in one country.
To find out more about what is going on, and to contribute your ideas
(and energy) to what else we might do, please come to the General
Meeting on Thursday at 18:15 in Room B203.
Roger Jeffery, President of EASAS
Margret Frenz, Vice-President of EASAS
Ulrike Müller-Böker, Treasurer of EASAS
7
The South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal
(SAMAJ) is a peer-reviewed journal devoted to
social science research on South Asia. It specializes
in the publication of comparative thematic issues
as well as individual research articles, review
essays, and book reviews.
www.samaj.revues.org
Multidisciplinary in scope, SAMAJ combines the
approach of established disciplines—history, geography, anthropology, sociology, political science,
��
(media, environment, and gender studies, for instance).
EDITORIAL POLICY
SAMAJ’s editorial project is ��
(Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) by inves��
countries and regions, within the framework of the methodological and
theoretical discussions that prevail in the wider world of social sciences.
The journal invites proposals for thematic issues from guest editors whose
aim is to explore a particular research question through an inter-disciplinary
and comparative approach. A key element of SAMAJ’s editorial policy is to
provide a platform for research in progress by doctoral students.
PAST THEMATIC ISSUES INCLUDE
� ‘Outraged Communities’: Comparative Perspectives on the Politicization
of Emotions in South Asia (2008)
� Modern Achievers: Role Models in South Asia (2010)
� Rethinking Urban Democracy in South Asia (2011)
SUBMISSIONS & CONTACT
To submit a thematic issue, a research article
or a book review, please contact:
[email protected]
Free access online journal
www.samaj.revues.org
South
Asia
Multidisciplinary
Academic
Journal
PRACTICAL INFORMATION
Practical information
Using this programme
The timetable on the inside front cover gives times of the keynote, panel
sessions and other main events. For timings of specific panels, consult
either the Daily timetable which shows what is happening at any given
moment, or the Table of keynotes and panels which also lists locations
and convenors.
The map on the inside rear cover shows the campus and the immediate
vicinity.
This section aims to help you with the practicalities of being in Lisbon
this week.
The Events and meetings section informs you of the other activities
that are going on this week, outside of the core academic programme,
including the reception, dinner and other meetings.
The Daily timetable, the Table of keynotes and panels and the full set of
abstracts follow, which should allow you to navigate the content of the
conference.
Finally, at the end of the book there is the List of participants to help
you identify the panels in which particular colleagues will present their
work.
If you need any help interpreting the information in the conference
book, please ask one of the conference team at the reception desk.
Timing of panels
Panels are allocated one or more 105-minute sessions, according to
their size. We are using between 7 and 9 rooms, so any one panel is up
against that number of alternatives. The times of each panel are shown
in both the Table of keynotes and panels, the Daily timetable and in the
abstracts section.
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Timing of individual papers
Each 105-minute session accommodates four to five papers. This can
be used as a rough guide in establishing which papers will be presented
when, within multi-session panels. However with this diversity, the fact
that convenors have a degree of flexibility in structuring their panels,
and the fact that last minute cancellations inevitably occur, and you
will understand that we simply cannot guarantee the success of panelhopping! There is a running order placed on the door of each room, so
that convenors are able to indicate any last minute changes there.
If you are very interested to hear a particular paper but do not wish to
sit through the whole panel, we recommend you check with the running
order and/or the convenors at the start of the panel to find out when the
paper will actually be presented.
Venue
The venue is reasonably compact, as you will see from the map on the
rear inside cover. The core of the conference takes place on the ISCTEIUL campus in Edifício II, comprising 6 floors (pisos). The reception
desk and conference organisers’ (NomadIT) office are just outside the
Grande Auditório (Piso 1). The publishers are on the Ground floor; the
panel rooms are on the floors above.
Apart from the pre-existing campus signs there will be additional
conference signage giving directions to all rooms and facilities.
Each section of the book indicates locations being used. If you have
any problems finding your way around, please ask a member of the
conference team for assistance.
Keynote location
The keynotes will be given in the Grande Auditório (Piso 1).
Food
Registration includes refreshments (tea/coffee twice daily) and lunch,
which will be served in Sala de Exposições (Exhibition Room), on Piso
0, best accessed via the slope next to the Grande Auditório (Piso 1).
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Publishers’ space, Piso 1
The publishers’ stalls are located outside the Grande Auditório on
Piso 1. Delegates are invited to browse the titles and talk to the
representatives of the publishers present: Almedina, Bertrand,
CRIA - Revista Etnográfica, Fim de Século, Horizonte, Taylor &
Francis, and Temas e Debates, Circulo de Leitores.
Conference team
There is a team of helpful staff, familiar with the programme, university
and surrounding area, to whom you can turn when in need of assistance.
Team members can be identified by their brilliant orange conference tshirts and by their badges. If you cannot see a team member, please ask
for help at the reception desk on Piso 1.
All financial arrangements must be dealt with in the conference
organisers’ (NomadIT) office in the room near the reception desk.
Reception desk and conference office opening hours
The reception desk may be staffed a little longer than the conference
office, however approximate hours of operation will be:
Wed: 11:15-19:45; Thu: 08:30-18:30; Fri: 08:30-19:45;
Sat: 08:30-13:30.
Emergency contact details
During the conference, emergency messages should be sent to
[email protected]. There will be a message board for
delegates at the reception desk.
Rohan Jackson of NomadIT, the conference organiser, can be contacted
on Portuguese cell/mobile phone +351 919 434 474.
The Portuguese emergency services number is 112.
Wireless internet for those with their own laptops
There is wireless access within the conference venue, on Guest-e-U,
ISCTE’s own network which offers free access throughout the campus
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and in all the buildings. No login information is required. However
please note that the signal is weak in Edifício II, and from Piso 3 to Piso
6 it is poor.
Internet for those without laptops
For those who are not travelling with a laptop, there are two rooms
(laboratório de informática) located on Piso 1, namely room D.101 (38
PCs) and room D.102 (27 PCs). If you need assistance on how to login,
please ask our conference team.
Printing
Printing can be done from a USB memory stick in the two print shops
(Reprografia Danka and Reprografia KEV) in Edifício I: Danka is
located on Piso 0, East wing, next to the Students’ association cafeteria;
and KEV on Piso 1, East wing, next to an ATM. Danka is open 09:0018:00 and KEV. 09:00-20:00. Payment is cash only (5c/page).
Conference badges and dinner tickets
On arrival at the reception desk you will have been given this book
and your conference badge. Inserted in your plastic badge holder
will be your tickets for lunch, the reception and and also the banquet
(if you have booked). The lunch tickets are to be used in the Sala de
Exposições (Piso 0), the reception ticket and the banquet ticket must
be presented to gain entry to the conference dinner on the Friday night
– please do not lose it.
We re-use the plastic badge holders and lanyards, so please hand these
in at the boxes provided on the reception desk (or to a member of
the conference team) when leaving the conference for the final time.
This not only saves resources, but helps keep registration costs to a
minimum. With similar concern for the environment, we’d ask delegates
to please be careful to use the recycling bins for paper, plastic and glass.
The conference organisers’ office will be running an exchange for those
who wish to sell their banquet tickets; so if you are now interested in
attending the banquet, but haven’t pre-booked a ticket, please leave your
name at the NomadIT office.
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Local travel
Taxi phone numbers
Autocoope - Taxis de Lisboa: +351 217 932 756 (http://www.
taxislisboa.com/)
GEOTAXI: +351 218 444 400 ‎
Taxis 7C: +351 934 959 169 / +351 966 346 030
Taxitours + 351 964 120 673 (http://www.taxitours.com.pt/)
Rádio-táxis de Lisboa: +351 218 119 000
Taxis are a good way of getting around. Lisbon taxis are cheap. Taxi
fares are calculated on the basis of an initial flat charge, currently 2€. If
luggage is carried (bigger than 55x35x20cm) a further 1.6€ is charged.
The call-out is charged at 0.80€.
From the airport to most locations in central Lisbon should not cost
more than 12€ plus any baggage and call-out charges. Meters are
displayed in all licensed taxis so the fare should not come as a shock.
Tips are voluntary: 10% is the norm.
Lisbon local taxis charge 25% more after 10pm and on weekends
(using rate 2 rather than rate 1). The fare outside of the city is calculated
on a km basis upon leaving the city limits, about 0.40€/km, and any
motorway/bridge tolls are paid by the client. When taking a cab, try to
enquire about the price to your destination first. Save your receipt and
check if the license plate matches the receipt details. See if the meter is
running and rate code is correct.
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Metro - Metropolitano de Lisboa
This is one of the easiest ways to get around Lisbon. Accessible and
relatively cheap, the metro has four main lines:
- yellow (Rato - Odivelas)
- green (Cais-do-Sodré - Telheiras)
- blue (Santa Apolónia - Amadora Este)
- red (S. Sebastião- Oriente)
NB: the stations closest to the conference venue are Entre Campos
(yellow line) and Cidade Universitária (yellow line).
Ticket
Before hopping on the metro you must buy an electronic ticket, Viva
Viagem, and charge it up (minimum charge €5). The card itself costs
50 cents and can be bought at the ticket office or using the vending
machines. On charging the card, keep the receipt as it may be useful if
you need to change a damaged card. A ticket exclusively for the metro
can only be charged up to €20. You can check your card balance using
the machines, choosing the option ‘carregamento/leitura’.
Tip: recharge your card with the approximate number of trips in mind,
as you get a small bonus each time you charge it with more than €5.
A single ticket costs €1.25 and is valid for one journey, after validation,
throughout the metro.
A one-day ticket Carris/Metro costs €5 and is valid for an unlimited
number of journeys throughout the Carris and Metro networks for 24
hours after validation.
Hours
The first trains leave 06:30 from the terminal stations of each line; the
last trains leave at 01:00 from the terminal stations of each line.
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15
Business hours
Opening hours for shops and businesses across Portugal are usually
9.30am to 7.30pm, Monday to Saturday. Malls close late (11pm or
12am) daily. Cafes tend to open from 8am or 9am until 8pm, daily;
restaurants 12-3pm and 7-10pm daily; banks 8.30am to 3pm (Monday to
Friday); pharmacies 9am to 8pm, Monday to Friday; and supermarkets
9.30am to 8.30pm, daily.
About Lisbon
Once the launch pad for many of the voyages of European encounter
with other civilisations (notably Vasco da Gama’s journey to India),
Lisbon was the first true world city and still is a very cosmopolitan one.
It is known as the city of the explorers, and you too will be filled with
the spirit of discovery as you retrace the footsteps of Prince Henry the
Navigator or Ferdinand Magellan.
Explore World Heritage architectural marvels, the Jeronimos Monastery
and Belem Tower, with their intricate carvings showcasing all the glory
and excitement of the age, and discover the treasures from the East and
the West inside the world-class Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Museu
de Arte Antiga, or the acclaimed Design Museum and the fantastic
Berardo Collection of contemporary art.
The city’s legendary seven hills will also seduce you into admiring
characteristic mosaic pavements and dazzling tiled façades, and will
reward you with strategically-placed viewpoints offering breathtaking
panoramas over the city after a ride on a charming old tram (don’t miss
No. 25 and 28)
You’ll find yourself wandering through colourful 18th century squares
downtown and getting lost in the medieval maze of the Alfama district
overlooked by an ancient castle. Follow that with a dive into the
spectacular Oceanarium and spend your nights indulging in the city’s
gastronomic delights, listening to the sounds of Fado, or bar-hopping
through the cobbled alleys of the shabby-chic Bairro Alto district.
You’re sure to become mesmerized by Lisbon’s wonderful mix of the
old-fashioned and the hip; of the historic and the modern, but you’ll
also want to go outside the city to the fairytale town of Sintra and to the
cosmopolitan shores of Cascais and Estoril.
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Lisbon districts
Baixa: broad squares, 18th century architecture, patterned pavements,
popular cafes
Bairro Alto & Chiado: vibrant nightlife, picturesque streets, classic and
alternative culture, chic shopping, restaurants
Belém: the Age of Discovery, grandiose monuments, museums
Alfama: medieval maze, spectacular views, an imposing castle, the
sounds of Fado
Uptown: masterpieces and museum treasures, shopping malls
Parque das Nações: the 21st century by the Tagus; futuristic architecture
Closest metro stations
Bairro Alto: Baixa-Chiado (blue line)
Cais-do-Sodré: Cais-do-Sodré (green line)
Alfama: Santa Apolónia (blue line)
24 de Julho: Cais-do-Sodré
Parque das Nações: Oriente
Docas: Tram no. 15, 18; bus no. 28, 714, 727, 732
Nightlife
Traditionally, the Lisbon nightlife centre has been Bairro Alto, with its
fado clubs, traditional, canteen-style bars and upscale discos. In the past
year, the requalification of the by-the-river quarter Cais-do-Sodré led
to a new-born nightlife centre – currently the most trendy - with a large
spectrum of bars, tascas (traditional places where to eat) and clubs. The
bars are often open as late as 2am and the clubs from 4am to 6pm. Much
of the action also moves on to the Docas (Docks) district, situated just
to the east of Ponte 25 de Abril. But don’t rule out other districts such as
24 de Julho, Alfama, Bica, Parque das Nações (Expo).
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10 nightlife possibilities*
Club Lux: the city’s most stylish club
Club Music Box
Clube Ferroviário
Bairro Alto bar hop: Lisbon’s lively street party
Docas: cosmopolitan bars in an attractive setting
Chapitô: drink among young artists and with the best night-time city
views at this restaurant-bar
Senhor Vinho: the city’s best Fado House
Solar do Vinho do Porto: sample the country’s famous wine
Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation: world-class classical music program
Op Art: watch the sun rise to the sound of music
*check for the locations here: http://www.golisbon.com/night-life/
Useful links
Timout Lisbon: http://timeout.sapo.pt/
Agenda Cultural de Lisboa: http://agendalx.pt/cgi-bin/iportal_agendalx/
goLisbon: http://www.golisbon.com/night-life
Lisbon Guide: http://www.lisbon-guide.info
Turismo de Lisboa: http://www.visitlisboa.com/Home_
UK.aspx?lang=en-GB
Time Out Lisbon: http://timeout.sapo.pttipsguidelisboa:
http://www.tipsguidelisboa.com
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EVENTS
Events and meetings
There are other events taking place, beside the panels and keynotes.
These are all described here.
Wednesday 25th July
Opening session, 16:00-17:00, Grande Auditório, Piso 1
The conference will open with a welcome from EASAS and the
convenor of the conference.
Welcome reception, 20:00 onwards, Museu da Cidade
ECSAS2012 will host a reception with wine and canapés which
will take place in the cloisters and gardens of the Museu da Cidade,
where you’ll be entertained by a fadista and two guitarists (viola and
Portuguese guitar). The Museum is just a ten minute walk from the main
venue.
Thursday 26th July
Film screening, 11:15-19:15, Grande Auditório, Piso 1:
- From the inside looking out… Filmic visions of South Asia’s tacit ‘other’
There will be a film series screening in the Grande Auditório following
on from Panel 51. All are invited to attend. Details of the film
programme can be seen after the section of panel abstracts.
EASAS General meeting, 18:30-20:00, B203
All members are invited to attend this general meeting of the
Association.
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Friday 27th July
Conference banquet, 20:00 onwards, Museu do Oriente
The banquet will be held at Museu do Oriente on a terrace overlooking
the beautiful River Tagus. Travel time to the Museu is ~40minutes
by bus or metro+bus and some of conference team will be guiding
delegates, and ordering shared cabs (which might be cheaper).
Entry is by pre-bought ticket only. If you don’t already have a banquet
ticket and are now regretting it, please visit the NomadIT office during
the conference to see if any tickets have been returned for exchange.
NB: All delegates are entitled to free entrance to all the Museus’
exhibitions during the conference, granted by the Museum’s
administration.
20
Daily timetable
Wednesday 25th July
11:15-13:00
Reception desk opens and distributes badges and programmes
(Foyer, Piso 1)
13:30-14:00
Welcome (Grande Auditório)
14:00-15:45 (Panel session 1)
P04: State and tribe in central-eastern India: (re)approaching a troubled
and troublesome nexus
P05: The Empire at the margins: subaltern voices from Portuguese
colonialism in India
P10: Rural poverty, inequality and contemporary social mobilisation
P11: Changing spaces, identities and livelihoods in Delhi
P35: Imagining Bangladesh and its 40 years
P36: Language death and language preservation in South Asia
P38: The 19th century: discontinuities, sites and events in Indian
literature
P04: State and tribe in central-eastern India: (re)approaching a troubled
P05: The Empire at the margins: subaltern voices from Portuguese
P10: Rural poverty, inequality and contemporary social mobilisation
P11: Changing spaces, identities and livelihoods in Delhi
P16: Meerut revisited: the conspiracy case in context, 1929-1934
22
DATILY TIMETABLES
P35: Imagining Bangladesh and its 40 years
P36: Language death and language preservation in South Asia
18:30-19:30
Keynote: Tanika Sarkar (Grande Auditório) - Debating faith and law in
a new public sphere: Hindu widowhood and Indian modernity
20:00-22:00
Welcome reception (Museu Cidade)
Thursday 26th July
P09: Developing control: the reconfiguration of space and the making of
development on the ground
P15: Re-forming subjects: colonial and national approaches to moral
education, 18th to mid-20th century
P30: Village restudies in South Asia
P32: Marriage in South Asia: practices and transformations
P39: Narrative and counter narrative in contemporary South Asian
literature and film
P44: Security architecture in South Asia: prospects and challenges
P47: Of saints, converts, and heroes: hagiographies and conversion auto/
biographies across religions in South Asia
P51: From the inside looking out… Filmic visions of South Asia’s tacit
“other”
23
P30: Village restudies in South Asia
literature and film
FILM: From the inside looking out… Filmic visions of South Asia’s
tacit “other”
P18: Settled strangers: why South Asians in diaspora remain outsiders?
literature and film
P48: Life on the margins: Expressions of agency among the
marginalized in Contemporary South Asia.
tacit “other”
P02: Collective action and class struggle: anthropological and historical
perspectives on India’s working classes
P18: Settled strangers: why South Asians in diaspora remain outsiders?
P25: Mercantile spaces, networks, and mobility in early modern South
Asia
24
DATILY TIMETABLES
P26: The politicization of emotions in South Asia
P33: Law and religion in practice in South Asia
P42: Relevance of the economy in transformations from war to peace in
South Asia
tacit “other”
18:15-19:30
EASAS General meeting (B203)
tacit “other” (Grande Auditório)
Friday 27th July
P03: Possession, mental illness and the effectiveness of healing rituals in
contemporary South Asia and beyond
P06: Politics in the margins: the everyday state, violence and contested
rule in South Asia
P07: Knowledge, power and health in South Asia: historical tensions
and emerging issues
P23: Yogis, sufis, devotees: religious/literary encounters in pre-modern
and modern South Asia
P24: Pakistan: state formation, identity politics, and national
contestation
P40: Portuguese orientalism: postcolonial perspectives
P45: Objects of worship in the lived religions of South Asia: forms,
practices and meanings
P46: Christians, cultural interactions, and South Asia’s religious
traditions
25
P06: Politics in the margins: the everyday state, violence and contested
rule in South Asia
and emerging issues
contestation
traditions
and emerging issues
P19: Visions of Portuguese India, Portuguese visions of India, 16th-18th
centuries
contestation
P34: The partisan manufacture of citizens in India
26
DATILY TIMETABLES
traditions
P12: Rethinking gender and politics in South Asia
P17: Children and colonial (con)texts of power in India
P20: Bombay from the ashes: the creation and emergence of city space,
1803-1920
P21: The republic of letters: the Islamicate world of writing
P27: Technologies, industries, practices: examining the soundscape of
Indian films
P29: Courtesans in South India: towards a revisionist cultural history
P34: The partisan manufacture of citizens in India
18:30-19:30
Keynote: David Washbrook (Grande Auditório) - Europe, Asia and
Eurasia: reflections on South Asia in an age of European decline
20:00 onwards
Banquet (Museu do Oriente)
Saturday 28th July
P01: Ritual and the practice of texts in South Asia
P08: Dalit communities in India and diaspora: agency and activism,
research and representation
P14: Regimes of violence and phantasms of good government in
colonial India, 1800-1947
P28: The (im)morality of everyday life in South Asia
P31: Disability in South Asia: an emerging discourse
P37: Up to date? Hindi literature in the 21st century
27
P43: Political parties and change in South Asia
P50: State-identity interface: explorations in economic, social and
cultural dynamics of tribal communities
P01: Ritual and the practice of texts in South Asia
P08: Dalit communities in India and diaspora: agency and activism,
P13: The Indian state in transition in the 1940s and 1950s
P28: The (im)morality of everyday life in South Asia
P31: Disability in South Asia: an emerging discourse
P37: Up to date? Hindi literature in the 21st century
P43: Political parties and change in South Asia
P50: State-identity interface: explorations in economic, social and
cultural dynamics of tribal communities
28
29
P06
P05
P04
P03
P02
P01
Ref
C405
C407
Andrew Sanchez (London School of
Economics and Political Science ),
Thu 16:15-18:00
Christian Strümpell (Heidelberg University)
Helene Basu (Westfälische-WilhelmsUniversität), William Sax (South Asia
Institute, Heidlberg), Claudia Lang
(Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich)
Antonio Alito Siqueira (Goa University),
Rosa Maria Perez (ISCTE-University
Institute of Lisbon )
Nel Vandekerckhove (University of
Amsterdam), Bart Klem (University of
Zurich)
Politics in the margins: the
everyday state, violence and
contested rule in South Asia
Fri 09:00-10:45,
11:15-13:00
C301
Wed 14:00-15:45,
C301
16:15-18:00
Christian Strümpell (Heidelberg University), Wed 14:00-15:45,
C406
Uwe Skoda (Aarhus University)
16:15-18:00
Fri 09:00-10:45,
11:15-13:00,
14:00-15:45
B201
Sat 09:00-10:45,
11:15-13:00
Ritual and the practice of texts in
South Asia
Collective action and class
struggle: anthropological and
historical perspectives on India’s
working classes
Possession, mental illness and the
effectiveness of healing rituals
in contemporary South Asia and
beyond
State and tribe in central-eastern
India: (re)approaching a troubled
The empire at the margins:
subaltern voices from Portuguese
Anthony Cerulli (Hobart & William Smith
Colleges)
Fri 18:30-19:30
Location
Grande
Auditório
Grande
Auditório
Keynote: David Washbrook
Timing
Wed 18:30-19:30
Convenors
Keynote: Tanika Sarkar
Panel title
Table of keynotes and panel
30
P15
P14
P13
P12
P11
P10
P09
P08
P07
Ref
Changing spaces, identities and
livelihoods in Delhi
Rethinking gender and politics in
South Asia
The Indian state in transition in the
1940s and 1950s
Regimes of violence and
phantasms of good government in
colonial India, 1800-1947
Re-forming subjects: colonial
and national approaches to moral
education, 18th to mid-20th
century
Rural poverty, inequality and
contemporary social mobilisation
Panel title
Knowledge, power and health in
South Asia: historical tensions and
emerging issues
Dalit communities in India and
diaspora: agency and activism,
Developing control: the
reconfiguration of space and the
making of development on the
ground
C402
C406
C302
Location
Sat 11:15-13:00
Sat 09:00-10:45
Thu 09:00-10:45,
11:15-13:00,
14:00-15:45
Michael Mann (Humboldt-Universitaet zu
Berlin), Mark Condos (Wolfson, University
of Cambridge)
Monika Freier (Max Planck Institute for
Human Development), Jana Tschurenev
(ETH Zürich)
Fri 16:15-18:00
C302
C407
C407
C407
Wed 14:00-15:45,
C408
16:15-18:00
Wed 14:00-15:45,
C402
16:15-18:00
Thu 09:00-10:45,
11:15-13:00,
14:00-15:45
Sat 09:00-10:45,
11:15-13:00
Timing
Fri 09:00-10:45,
11:15-13:00,
14:00-15:45
Steven Wilkinson (Yale University)
Edzia Carvalho (University of Amsterdam)
Matthäus Rest (University of Zürich),
Sebastian Homm (Bonn University), Miriam
Bishokarma (University of Zurich), Pia
Hollenbach (University of Zurich)
Urs Geiser (University of Zurich),
Ramakumar Ramasubramonian (Tata
Institute of Social Sciences)
Radhika Govinda (Ambedkar University,
Delhi)
Manuela Ciotti (Aarhus University)
Convenors
Cristiana Bastos (University of Lisbon),
Salla Sariola (Durham University), Sanjoy
Bhattacharya (University of York)
31
P23
P21
P20
P19
P18
Yogis, sufis, devotees: religious/
literary encounters in pre-modern
Children and colonial (con)texts of
power in India
Settled strangers: why South
Asians in diaspora remain
outsiders?
Visions of Portuguese India,
Portuguese visions of India, 16th18th centuries
Bombay from the ashes: the
creation and emergence of city
space, 1803-1920
The republic of letters: the
Islamicate world of writing
Meerut revisited: the conspiracy
case in context, 1929-1934
P16
P17
Panel title
Ref
C401
C402
Heidi Pauwels (University of Washington),
Mauro Valdinoci (University of Modena and
Reggio Emilia), Veronique Bouillier (CNRS Fri 09:00-10:45,
France), James Mallinson (Institute of
11:15-13:00,
Classical Studies, Lavasa), Mikko Viitamäki 14:00-15:45
(University of Helsinki - Ecole Pratique des
Hautes Etudes (EPHE))
C405
C301
C406
C406
C401
Location
Fri 16:15-18:00
Manan Ahmed (Free University Berlin)
Fri 16:15-18:00
Fri 14:00-15:45
Thu 14:00-15:45,
16:15-18:00
Gijsbert Oonk (Erasmus School of History
Culture and Communication)
Antonella Viola (FCSH, UAç and
Universidade Nova), Hakim Ikhlef
(European University Institute)
Erica Wald (London School of Economics
and Political Science), Anna Gust (Five
Colleges, Massachusetts)
Fri 16:15-18:00
Wed 16:15-18:00
Timing
Sudipa Topdar (Illinois State University)
Convenors
Michele Louro (Salem State University ),
Alastair Kocho-Williams (University of the
West of England, Bristol), Carolien Stolte
(Leiden University), Ali Raza
32
Mercantile spaces, networks, and
mobility in early modern South
Asia
The politicization of emotions in
South Asia
P25
P26
P33
P32
P31
P30
P29
P28
Thu 16:15-18:00
Thu 09:00-10:45,
11:15-13:00
Sat 09:00-10:45,
11:15-13:00
Thu 09:00-10:45,
11:15-13:00,
14:00-15:45
Fri 16:15-18:00
Sat 09:00-10:45,
11:15-13:00
C301
C405
B202
C406
C301
C405
C408
C407
Amélie Blom (Institut d’études de l’Islam et
des Sociétés du Monde Musulman (IISMM- Thu 16:15-18:00
EHESS))
Fri 16:15-18:00
C402
C405
Location
Thu 16:15-18:00
Alka Patel
Timing
Fri 09:00-10:45,
Roger Long (Eastern Michigan University),
11:15-13:00,
Yunas Samad (University of Bradford)
14:00-15:45
Convenors
Technologies, industries, practices:
Madhuja Mukherjee (Jadavpur University),
examining the soundscape of
Carlo Nardi (University of Northampton)
Indian films
Filippo Osella (School of Social Sciences
The (im)morality of everyday life
and Cultural Studies), Geert De Neve
in South Asia
(Sussex University)
Courtesans in South India: towards Davesh Soneji (McGill University), Tiziana
a revisionist cultural history
Leucci (EHESS-CNRS, Paris)
Patricia Jeffery (University of Edinburgh),
Village restudies in South Asia
Edward Simpson (SOAS)
Disability in South Asia: an
Nidhi Singal (University of Cambridge)
emerging discourse
Anna Lindberg (Lund University), Rajni
Marriage in South Asia: practices
Palriwala (University of Delhi), Ravinder
and transformations
Kaur (Indian Institute of Technology Delhi)
Law and religion in practice in
Justin Jones (University of Exeter ), Nandini
South Asia
Chatterjee (University of Plymouth)
Pakistan: state formation, identity
politics, and national contestation
P24
P27
Panel title
Ref
33
Up to date? Hindi literature in the
21st century
P37
P43
P42
P40
P39
P38
Language death and language
preservation in South Asia
P36
Hugo Cardoso (Universidade de Coimbra)
José Mapril (CRIA-IUL), Manpreet Janeja
(University of Copenhagen/Cambridge),
Benjamin Zeitlyn (University of Sussex)
Nicolas Jaoul (CNRS)
Convenors
Ulrike Stark (University of Chicago),
Francesca Orsini (School of Oriental and
African Studies, University of London)
The 19th century: discontinuities, Heiko Frese (Heidelberg University), David
sites and events in Indian literature Shulman (Hebrew University)
Alessandra Consolaro (University of
Narrative and counter narrative
Torino), Heinz Werner Wessler (University
in contemporary South Asian
of Uppsala, Dept for Linguistics and
literature and film
Philology), Thomas de Bruijn
Everton V. Machado (University of Lisbon),
Portuguese orientalism:
Joana Passos (Universidade do Minho), Ana
postcolonial perspectives
Paula Laborinho (Universidade de Lisboa)
Relevance of the economy in
Andrea Iff (swisspeace), Rina Alluri
transformations from war to peace
(swisspeace)
in South Asia
James Chiriyankandath (University of
Political parties and change in
London), Andrew Wyatt (University of
South Asia
Bristol)
Imagining Bangladesh and its 40
years
Panel title
The partisan manufacture of
citizens in India
P35
P34
Ref
C104
Location
C402
Sat 09:00-10:45,
11:15-13:00
C406
Fri 09:00-10:45,
11:15-13:00,
14:00-15:45
C408
C408
Thu 09:00-10:45,
11:15-13:00,
14:00-15:45
Thu 16:15-18:00
C401
C401
Wed 14:00-15:45
Sat 09:00-10:45,
11:15-13:00
Wed 14:00-15:45,
C405
16:15-18:00
Wed 14:00-15:45,
C407
16:15-18:00
Timing
Fri 14:00-15:45,
16:15-18:00
34
FILM
P51
P50
P48
P47
P46
Sat 09:00-10:45,
11:15-13:00
Peter B. Andersen (University of
Copenhagen), Amit Prakash (Jawaharlal
Nehru University)
Grande
Auditório
Grande
Auditório
Paolo Favero (University Institute of Lisbon
Thu 09:00-10:45
), Giulia Battaglia (SOAS)
Paolo Favero (University Institute of Lisbon
Thu 11:15-19:15
), Giulia Battaglia (SOAS)
C408
C301
Thu 14:00-15:45
Deborah Christina Menezes (University of
Edinburgh)
C401
C408
C407
Location
C401
Mikael Aktor (University of Southern
Denmark), Knut Axel Jacobsen (University
of Bergen)
Richard Young (Princeton Theological
Seminary), Chad Bauman (Butler
University)
Objects of worship in the lived
religions of South Asia: forms,
Christians, cultural interactions,
and South Asia’s religious
traditions
Of saints, converts, and heroes:
hagiographies and conversion
auto/biographies across religions
in South Asia
Life on the margins: Expressions
of agency among the marginalized
in Contemporary South Asia.
State-identity interface:
explorations in economic, social
and cultural dynamics of tribal
communities
From the inside looking out…
Filmic visions of South Asia’s tacit
“other”
From the inside looking out…
Filmic visions of South Asia’s tacit
“other”
Timing
Thu 09:00-10:45,
11:15-13:00,
14:00-15:45
Fri 09:00-10:45,
11:15-13:00,
14:00-15:45
Fri 09:00-10:45,
11:15-13:00,
14:00-15:45
Sipra Mukherjee (West Bengal State
Thu 09:00-10:45,
University), Hephzibah Israel (University of 11:15-13:00,
Edinburgh)
14:00-15:45
Christian Wagner (German Institute for
International and Security Affairs)
Security architecture in South
Asia: prospects and challenges
P44
P45
Convenors
Panel title
Ref
ABSTRACTS
Keynote, panel and paper abstracts
Keynote 1
Wed 25th July, 18:30-19:30
Grande Auditório
Debating faith and law in a new public sphere: Hindu widowhood
and Indian modernity
Tanika Sarkar (Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi)
I will discuss Satipratha or the Hindu ritual of immolating widows on
the funeral pyres of their husbands : a ritual that was abolished by a
colonial law in 1829. I straddle two distinct but interrelated registers
in my discussion. One is the interface between faith and law under
early colonial rule. which I explore through a brief history of the
colonial governance of immolations. The other will be a reflection on
the changing and contested uses and functions of a word: consent, the
widow’s consent to burning alive.
The early colonial state formally institutionalized the widow’s consent
– something that was scripturally prescribed – as the basis for all lawful
immolations. That, I argue, eventuated, over a very long period of
time and through a strangely twisted dialectic, into a horizon of female
entitlements and immunities, into something like a right to life. This was
a development that neither the state nor the ritual specialists who were
consulted had actually intended to do – in fact, rather the reverse. Nor
did it happen suddenly and definitively. Hindu orthodoxy and reformists
initiated a convoluted process of arguments about Hindu gender norms
that lasted the entire century and beyond. In the process the woman was
reconfigured as a rights bearing person as well as a culture bearing one.
This is, therefore, a story of entirely conjunctural and contingent
developments. State administration of the ritual delineated a sphere
of scriptural provisions to demarcate who were and who were not
authorized to perform immolations. That, in turn, carved out a sphere
of legal activity, criminalizing death for certain categories of widows
35
or legally securing the life of others. Rights, therefore, were conjugated
largely from these encounters between scriptural and modern Hinduism
and Anglo Indian legal and judicial procedures rather than from a
fixed colonial agenda for cultural conquest. Nor were they parasitic
on systematic western Liberal theories, spreading out from them in a
diffusionist, modular way. I, therefore, try to place the process of rightsmaking within our histories rather than within western thought.
Keynote 2
Fri 27th July, 18:30-19:30
Grande Auditório
Europe, Asia and Eurasia: reflections on South Asia in an age of
European decline
David Washbrook (Trinity College, Cambridge University)
Since the Age of Empire itself, European perceptions of South Asia
have been dominated by the idea of difference in a context of assumed
European superiority. Yet where and how the particular points of
difference should be drawn has never been transparent, and has always
been subject to contention. Moreover, historical shifts have wrought
continuous changes in the character of both parties and lured them into
mutual transformations. As Europe’s own powers now become less
determinant, and its future less certain, these remarks look back over
the conventions once governing perceptions of Self and Other between
Europe and South Asia and suggest that the imminence of decline in the
former calls for different approaches to understanding (and appreciating)
the latter.
36
ABSTRACTS
P01
Ritual and the practice of texts in South Asia
Convenor: Dr Anthony Cerulli (Hobart & William Smith Colleges)
Sat 28th July, 09:00-10:45, 11:15-13:00
Location: B201
This panel examines the “practice of texts” in South Asia as a way to
explore the analytic category of ritual. Looking at the ways in which
texts have been and are used in South Asian history and contemporary
society, presenters on this panel will theorize the constitutive
components, uses, and expectations of ritual activity. Panelists ground
their theoretical investigations of ritual on specific case studies of
textual practices, covering an array of locations and focusing on
disparate cultural domains, including religion, medicine, and politics.
In theorizing ritual through textual practice, this panel approaches
the categories of “ritual” and “text” in South Asia as indeterminate
methodological fields, which frequently exist only when caught up in
some form of discourse or discursive activity. Texts, for example, may
be identified in multiple ways—as manuscript, image, the body, and oral
narrative—while ritual may be seen in various institutions of culture—
such as medicine, education, art, and religion. Panelists will employ a
number of different methodologies, such as ethnography, historiography,
and textual hermeneutics, and examine the efficacy of ritual and text as
analytic categories to study human experience, activity, and production.
Healing words: exploring the uses of ritual texts during healing
ceremonies in the Garhwal Himalayas, North India
Dr Karin Polit (University of Heidelberg)
Taking into account new developments in performance studies, critical
medical anthropology, and rituals studies, this paper shall explore
how sacred texts, spoken in the context of ritual healing events in the
Garhwal Himalayas take part in unfolding the performative power of
these rituals.
37
Women’s ritual agency: on texts and practice in a South Indian
Brahmanic tradition
Prof Ute Huesken (University of Oslo)
Ritual roles of women are ignored in Sanskrit texts. Women’s ritual
agency is transmitted orally and in performance, while male ritual
agency is text based. The analysis of recently printed ritual handbooks
for women demonstrates the need to see female agency as part of a
“network of agencies”.
Ritual as text, text as ritual: the poetics of possession in South India
Dr Kristin Bloomer (Carleton College)
This paper investigates the bodily poetics of spirit possession via three
Tamil Roman Catholic women who claim to be possessed by Mary.
Challenging common notions of “textual performance,” I investigate
the bodily practices of these women as improvisational, anti-hegemonic
counter-texts.
Rituals of Sāṃkhya-Yoga
Prof Knut Axel Jacobsen (University of Bergen)
The paper presents texts and rituals of the Sāṃkhya-Yoga system of
religious thought as practiced in a living Sāṃkhya-Yoga tradition in
north India. The singing of hymns is the most important form of lay
meditation in this tradition, and the paper analyzes this yogic textual and
ritual practice.
Saints and brotherhoods: ritual and ritual knowledge among the
Latin Catholics of Kerala, South India
Ms Miriam Benteler (State Museums of Berlin)
The paper examines the church festivals of the Latin Catholics of
Kerala/South India within the framework of ritual theory. It focuses on
changes which occur when formally orally transmitted ritual knowledge
is no longer passed on from generation to generation.
38
ABSTRACTS
The ritual use and production of texts in the education of Malayali
physicians
Dr Anthony Cerulli (Hobart & William Smith Colleges)
This paper examines the Malayali medical gurukula, “house of the
teacher,” and suggests that two modes of expression, Sanskrit orality
and vernacular commentarial writing, sustain a highly ritualized practice
of texts in the education of physicians in contemporary Kerala.
P02
Collective action and class struggle:
anthropological and historical perspectives on
India’s working classes
Convenors: Dr Andrew Sanchez (London School of Economics and
Political Science); Dr Christian Strümpell (Heidelberg University)
Thu 26th July, 16:15-18:00
Location: C405
Current scholarship calls into question the conceptual opposition of
stably employed Fordist working classes to the ‘working poor’. These
models posit that different types of working populations rely upon
distinct forms of collective action: the work-based ‘traditional unionism’
of the formal sector, distinct from the ‘community unionism’ of the
informal sector. This panel engages with the historically contingent
emergence of working classes through collective action, and interrogates
the spatial and political boundaries that are produced or contested
by such struggles. Papers in this panel investigate these issues with
reference to recent original ethnographic and/or historical research on
South Asia.
Discussant: Geert De Neve, Jonathan Parry
39
Sons of the soil, sons of steel: autochthony and the class concept in
industrial India
Dr Andrew Sanchez (London School of Economics and Political
Science)
Based on ethnographic field work in the company towns of Jamshedpur
and Rourkela, this paper explores how class interacts with other
identities in historically contingent ways. The paper interrogates the
conceptual utility of class consciousness and class solidarity for the
study of labour in India.
Paniya workers and “identity politics” in post-reform Wayanad
(Kerala): the unmaking of an Adivasi working class?
Dr Luisa Steur (University of Copenhagen/SOAS)
This paper looks at the political-economic context of the rise of adivasi
identity politics in Wayanad (Kerala), demonstrating it as the filpside of
the demise of modern class formation.
Informality, class and work culture in post-liberalisation India: a
study of urban private security guards
Dr Nandini Gooptu (University of Oxford)
Through a study of urban private security guards, this paper discusses
new forms of urban informality and work culture in post-liberalisation
India, and addresses analytical issues germane to our understanding of
emerging labour regimes and workers’ perceptions of class and social
relations.
40
ABSTRACTS
P03
Possession, mental illness and the effectiveness
of healing rituals in contemporary South Asia
and beyond
Convenors: Prof Helene Basu (Westfälische-Wilhelms-Universität);
Prof William Sax (South Asia Institute, Heidlberg); Dr Claudia
Lang (Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich)
Fri 27th July, 09:00-10:45, 11:15-13:00, 14:00-15:45
Location: C407
Across South Asia, mental illness and possession constitute major
disturbances addressed by both ritual and psychiatric therapies.
This panel seeks to explore recent transformations of mental health
concepts, help seeking and care in South Asia and South Asian
diasporic communities from the perspectives of sufferers and specialist
practitioners living in multiple, mobile and competitive social worlds.
How do people living in diverse local life-worlds connected by
transnational relationships of communication engage with adversities
and disorder experienced as mental suffering of Selves? What are the
effects of migration in terms of mental health and illness for those
who do not migrate? Moreover, anecdotal evidence suggests that
many healing rituals in India are effective, and there are a handful of
quantitative studies backing this up. However no comprehensive studies
of the topic have been done, and theories about possible reasons for the
effectiveness of healing rituals are very divergent. Why have so few
studies been done on this important topic? What do the results suggest
so far? What are the major contenders for theoretical explanations
of the effectiveness of healing rituals? This panel brings together
anthropologists, specialists in religion, and medical scientists to sort out
the issues and suggest a way forward. We invite scholars who work in
the field of mental health in South Asian contexts (on the subcontinent
and/or in diasporic communities) to share their findings and explore
new horizons of interdisciplinary exchange transcending conceptual
boundaries and dichotomies between magic and science, religion and
medicine, modernity and tradition.
41
Matas/pitas and their healing rooms
Ms Rinzi Lama (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB))
This paper traces the metamorphosis of an individual from ‘one among
the many individuals’ within the space of a shared community to ‘the
healer’ (mata/pita) of a community. The metamorphosis is not merely
in terms of the changes in the role and responsibilities but also in terms
of the space inhabited (the house and the temple) by the individual
undergoing this metamorphosis.
From possession to mental disorder and back: (re)inventing and
positioning ayurvedic psychiatry in the mental health pluralism of
Kerala
Dr Claudia Lang (Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich)
Possession and sorcery are officially excluded from reinvented
ayurvedic psychiatry while in practice doctors often bridge the gap
between mental disorder and vernacular framings of mental illness
as possession or sorcery. This paper traces the double engagement of
ayurvedic psychiatry with biopsychiatric and vernacular explanatory
models.
Rational exorcism: healing possession and the Swaminarayan panth
Prof Helene Basu (Westfälische-Wilhelms-Universität)
Scientific medicine and modern Hinduism tend to contest possession
and healing as irrational. This paper discusses practical transformations
and rationalisations of controlling occult madness in the context of the
Swaminarayan panth in Gujarat.
If I did not pray, the jinn would press me down even further: ethnic
and cultural determinants of help seeking among ethnic minorities
in Britain
Dr Rubina Jasani (University of Manchester); Mr Luke Brown
This paper aims at understanding the explanatory models of mental
illness among British Asian families the UK and the role that culture
and ethnicity play in seeking medical help. It draws on ethnographic
interviews conducted in the inner city areas of Birmingham
42
ABSTRACTS
Possession in transcultural perspective
Prof William Sax (South Asia Institute, Heidlberg)
In this paper I report on my planned research on transcultural
possession, focusing on possession amongst South Asian immigrants in
the UK.
The expectation of ritual efficacy as an Indian historical
phenomenon
Dr Frederick Smith (University of Iowa)
Does South Asia have a recognizable history of similarly construed
expectations of ritual efficacy with respect to possession and healing
practice? This will be addressed utilizing classical and pre-modern
(largely Sanskrit) texts, and compare these findings with what we see in
modern India.
The developing country advantage: assessing the effectiveness of
religious healing in South India
Dr Murphy Halliburton (Queens College, CUNY)
Based on research conducted in Kerala, this paper attempts to explain
the effectiveness of ritual healing of possession and psychopathology
and its relevance for WHO studies of serious mental disorder
Re-thinking ‘cure’ and ‘efficacy’: ritual healing and possession in
the Mahanubhav sect in Maharashtra, India
Dr Shubha Ranganathan (Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad)
Questions about the ‘efficacy’ and ‘functions’ of healing need to
be understood from a critical perspective. This paper draws on
ethnographic research on possession and healing in Mahanubhav
temples in Maharashtra to discuss issues in the theorization of ritual
healing.
43
The application of the process of ritual healing through spiritual
transformation, relations and radical empathy
Dr Hussan Ara (University Of Balochistan)
The research paper will explore the relationship between ritual healing
and spiritual transformation. Spiritual transformation plays a key role
in ritual healing. The healer’s actions work with empathy and impact
upon relationships. This process may include medical therapy and
psychotherapy .
P04
State and tribe in central-eastern India:
(re)approaching a troubled and troublesome
nexus
Convenors: Dr Christian Strümpell (Heidelberg University); Dr
Uwe Skoda (Aarhus University)
Wed 25th July, 14:00-15:45, 16:15-18:00
Location: C406
The mineral-rich hills of Jharkhand, Orissa, and Chhattisgarh have
been described as the regions where India’s economic liberalisation has
revealed its most brutal face, where private corporations in conjunction
with the state ruthlessly destroy ecological habitat and drive the
largely tribal people inhabiting the hills forcefully off their land. These
processes reveal once more the problematic relationship between the
(postcolonial) state and the tribes. Our panel seeks enquire into how
this relationship is produced, consented to and contested by various
actors and groups and we invite speakers to investigate these issues with
reference to recent original ethnographic and/or historical research.
Chair: Biswamoy Pati
Discussant: Georg Pfeffer
44
ABSTRACTS
Adivasis and the state in Chotonagpur: negotiation and resistance in
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
Dr Sanjukta Das Gupta (Sapienza University of Rome)
This paper seeks to trace the changing nature of the relationship between
the state and the people with reference to the Mundas and the Hos of
Chotonagpur in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Adivasis, chiefs and the state: notes on evolving relations and the
history of Bonai state in early 20th century
Dr Uwe Skoda (Aarhus University)
The paper looks at the evolving princely state bureaucracy in the former
kingdom of Bonai (Orissa) and at the repercussions on the Adivasi
population in early 20th century – a troubled relationship centred around
land and its settlements, police powers and a monopoly of force and
forest rights.
Hindu ‘mainstream’ and ‘tribal’ discourses about the origins and
functions of the state
Prof Raphael Rousseleau (University of Lausanne)
This paper will explore firstly Sanskrit literary descriptions of the
relations between ‘forest’ tribal chiefs and ‘Hindu’ kings, and then
some past and present ‘tribal’ (Poraja and Kond) representations of the
political power and mythical model in Southern Odhisa.
Mining and sacred landscapes in Eastern India
Dr Vinita Damodaran (University of Sussex)
This paper attempts to understand the predicament of Indigenous groups
in Eastern India in the context of globalisation. Adivasis currently find
themselves confronting the world’s most powerful multi-national mining
companies in nexus with global political and military interests that are
initiating massive but under-researched landscape changes.
45
Indigenous knowledge as a resource to promote an alternative
citizenship
Dr Marine Carrin Tambs-Lyche (Université de Toulouse - II)
I will further explore how indigenous knowledge has become a tool of
resistance, which articulates the defence of indigenous laws, considered
as paradigms of self-governance, linking it with environmental issues .
Landscape as Resistance
Dr Lidia Guzy (University College Cork (UCC))
The paper aims to present an example of successful eco-resistance
against bauxite mining and industrialisation fought in the mid 80ies by
Adivasi Paiko, Binjal and Soara communities in the Bora Sambar region
of Western Orissa up today.
The jungli raj in Western Orissa: tribal perspectives on
dispossession
Dr Christian Strümpell (Heidelberg University)
Based on long-term ethnographic field work around one of the region’s
oldest industries, the Rourkela Steel Plant, this paper seeks to explore
the tribal perspective on industrial modernity in Orissa, on the diku
state establishing it and on the brutal destruction and dispossession it
unleashes.
In Defence of their Endangered Life Worlds: The Adivasi Uprisings
in Contemporary Odisha
Prof Pralay Kanungo (Jawaharlal Nehru University)
Adopting neoliberal economic policy, the Orissa government has
been aggressively pursuing a strategy of development devastating
the life worlds of the Adivasis. In this context, this paper explains
how the state has been systematically trading off the bountiful natural
resources preserved in the Adivasi habitat, which has led to a large scale
dispossession and displacement, thereby compelling the Adivasis to
offer stiff resistance to the might of the state and the corporates.
46
ABSTRACTS
P05
The empire at the margins: subaltern voices
from Portuguese colonialism in India
Convenors: Mr Antonio Alito Siqueira (Goa University); Prof Rosa
Maria Perez (ISCTE-University Institute of Lisbon )
Wed 25th July, 14:00-15:45, 16:15-18:00
Location: C301
This panel privileges anthropological and ethnographic observations
and non-canonical archival research. Its primary focus lies on a
distinct fissure notable in the colonial archive: the silence of native and
antagonist voices that is lost or omitted in most official texts. These
voices may be recovered from non official texts like bulletins, almanacs,
family biographies, diaries and confidential reports and the range of oral
traditions.
This silence testifies the suppression of the subaltern in the Portuguese
colonial archive, written by colonial and national elites. Narratives
of dominant groups tend to be privileged even where not consensual
or uniformly shared. Marginal and subaltern views are absent from
Portuguese accounts. This gap reverberates in subsequent analysis of
Goan society which tends to privilege again the view of elites and to
ignore the groups at the margins of the social structure.
This panel seeks to identify groups at the margins of the social structure
and non-canonical texts that elucidate subaltern voices of Portuguese
colonialism. What arguably makes these ‘other’ voices interesting is
that the radical cultural transformation in the Portuguese colonies (what
Perry Anderson called ‘ultra colonialism’) began already in the 16th
century long before an enlightenment perspective on the evolution of
societies that informed the ‘civilising mission’ of the British. The echoes
of this early transformation continue to inform the construction and
contestation of post colonial spaces.
Fabricating a caste: a study of the role played by a foundational text
in forming a caste
47
Mr Sammit Khandeparkar (Arizona State University)
This paper elucidates the process of the Gauḍa Sārasvata Brāhmaṇa
caste formation in Goa and Konkan. My paper is based on Marathi
language literature published by Hindu elites from Goa during the first
half of the twentieth century.
A Chain of Subalternities?
Dr Jason Keith Fernandes (ISCTE)
Drawing from the experience of Portuguese-India this paper suggests
contemplating the location of the subaltern, not in a definite subjectposition vis-à-vis definite elite, but rather in a chain of subalternities.
Oral tradition and resilience to Portuguese domination: memory of
conversion among Catholic Gaudde in Goa, India
Dr Cláudia Pereira (ISCTE - Instituto Universitário de Lisboa)
Oral tradition of Catholic Gaudde in Goa, who traditionally were
illiterate and had no land, acknowledge their own version of religious
conversion, the underprivileged position in the Catholic caste system
and their resilience to colonialism by secretly rebuilding pre-Portuguese
rituals and songs.
Goa, an internal ‘exotic’ in South Asia: discourses of colonialism
and tourism
Dr Pamila Gupta (University of the Witwatersrand)
This paper takes the concept of the ‘exotic’ and situates it within
overlapping discourses of colonialism and tourism, and in relation to the
production of ‘Goa’ as a subaltern place within (the imagination of) the
postcolonial Indian nation-state.
In search of self: identity as resistance in Goa
Mr Parag Parobo (Goa University)
48
ABSTRACTS
Using text and ethnography data I explore subaltern resistance to the
cultural dominance of the elite castes in colonial and post colonial Goa.
On a trail with Konkanno
Dr Madhavi Sardesai (Goa University)
This paper attempts to uncover the historical play of foregrounding
and suppression of meanings around ‘Konknno’ “native of Konkan” in
Konkani literature of the colonial period. ‘Konknno’ was marginalized
when it came to be used in the sense of ‘gentile’ and eventually came to
signify “Hindu”.
Cutting Across Doctrines: The Goan Ganv
Prof Alexander Henn (Arizona State University)
In this presentation I will explore syncretistic intersections between
Hindus and Catholics in Goa. I argue, that the belief that the village is
an embodiment of the divine and practical concerns (neighborhood,
genealogy,health) are at stake when Goan Hindus and Catholics cut
across doctrines.
Celluloid subalterns: Goa and Goans In Hindi Film
Dr Robert Newman
From 1510 to 1961, the world viewed Goa from Portuguese eyes.
Colonial hegemonial discourse relegated Goans to subaltern status--“those acted upon” rather than major actors. Liberation from colonialism
should have changed matters but the new discourse of Hindi films has
created different, but still subaltern, roles for Goans in modern India.
The subaltern goes to school
Mr Antonio Alito Siqueira (Goa University)
The paper explores the compulsions that accompany the attempt to
facilitate subaltern voices in the University Classroom. The context is
the recent recognition of Tribes by the State in post colonial Goa
P06
49
Politics in the margins: the everyday state,
violence and contested rule in South Asia
Convenors: Dr Nel Vandekerckhove (University of Amsterdam); Mr
Bart Klem (University of Zurich)
Fri 27th July, 09:00-10:45, 11:15-13:00
Location: C301
This panel brings together a set of ethnographic case studies on
contested rule in South Asia. In line with the contemporary literature
on this topic, the contributors choose to move away from monolithic
notions of a coherent “up-there” state that hangs above the fray of
society, and instead focus on the emergence of different forms of
rule in South Asia’s contested environments. The case studies from
Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and India converge around the idea
that Maoist uprisings, armed separatism and vigilantes do not result
in the breakdown of order and state decay. Rather, they tend to propel
alternative forms of rule and authority beyond the state, which compete
and converge with the tentacles of formal state rule.
Contested rule in eastern Sri Lanka: a longitudinal perspective
Mr Bart Klem (University of Zurich); Dr Benedikt Korf (University of
Zurich)
This article explores the longer-term patterns of rule in Sri Lanka’s
eastern periphery. The separatist war between the Liberation Tigers of
Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Sri Lankan government propelled different
forms of rule and contested sovereignty. The article’s narrative ties
together different trajectories: the penetration of the (post)colonial state
in the periphery, the coming of age of the insurgent movement, and that
of ground level realities along the east coast.
The state, forest and bodo militant violence: mediated rule in the
50
ABSTRACTS
Indo-Bhutanese border
Dr Nel Vandekerckhove (University of Amsterdam)
This paper produces new insights into the critical role of local (forest)
administrators in the constitution of state in so-called ‘rebellious
borderlands’. Despite years of ethnic violence and deterrence, Indian
forest rangers found remarkable ways to assure a level of stateness in
this borderland.
Compromising local government: politics and authority in Nepal’s
post-conflict transition
Ms Sarah Byrne (University of Zurich)
This paper analyses local government in Nepal’s post-conflict transition.
It provides insight into how the Nepalese state is manifested in practice,
mapping the local authority (re-) configurations and arguing that local
government functions through everyday compromises among authority
claimants.
Campus bosses: violent student politics, non-state governance and
state rule in urban Bangladesh
Dr Bert Suykens (Ghent University)
This paper focuses on the links between student leaders and political
parties to explain the wide governance powers of student groups on
Bangladesh’ campuses. This paper offers an interesting discussion on
the relations between non-state violent governance, political parties and
state rule.
Practicing and imagining the Kashmiri intifada: stonepelting as
governance institution
Dr Simone Mestroni (University of Messina)
Kashmir is known mainly as the core of Indopakistani geopolitical
issue: through an ethnographic analysis of teenagers’ ritual practice of
stonepelting against army and related discourses it is possible to reveal
the intimate relation lying between a transnational conflict politics and
local moral economy
51
Ethnopolitics, business and connectivity in the Garo Hills region of
Meghalaya
Mr Timour Claquin (Centre de Recherches et d’Études
Anthropologiques (CREA), Faculté d’Anthropologie et de Sociologie,
Université Lumière Lyon2)
This paper examines various trajectories among state and non-state
actors engaged in clientele relationships. By focusing on ethnopolitical
configurations, we intend to explore territorial projections, economical
ties, fragmentary perceptions, and categorizations
Local forms of national resistance: the industrial workers of
Lahore, 1968-1973
Ms Anushay Malik (School of Oriental and African Studies)
Focusing on the late 1960s, this paper looks at how industrial workers
in Lahore took control of places in the city by setting up an alternative
system of rule, against the backdrop of a movement that was ostensibly
asking for nothing more than the reinstitution of parliamentary
democracy.
P07
Knowledge, power and health in South Asia:
historical tensions and emerging issues
Convenors: Ms Cristiana Bastos (University of Lisbon); Dr Salla
Sariola (Durham University); Dr Sanjoy Bhattacharya (University
of York)
Fri 27th July, 09:00-10:45, 11:15-13:00, 14:00-15:45
Location: C302
Social, anthropological and historical studies about health in South
Asia developed into vast bodies of scholarship on imperial science,
colonial knowledge, tropical medicine, dependency, development,
inequities, systems of knowledge, hybridism and other innovative
concepts, but much remains to be known about the actual local
52
ABSTRACTS
experience of large-scale interventions, whether under colonial or
independent administrations. This panel will host papers that approach
ethnographically, historically and politically the social actors, objects,
facilities, rhetoric, representations and practices involved in the
implementation of public health programs and clinical trials in South
Asia.
Of plagues and names: negotiating sanitary order in colonial Goa
Ms Cristiana Bastos (University of Lisbon)
The analysis of sanitary actions for epidemic control in colonial Goa
shows that beyond the tension between European biomedicine and
South Asian systems/practices/beliefs, there were more nuanced ways
in which sanitary order was fought & negotiated between different
intervening social actors.
Power and powerlessness: colonial- and post-colonial governance,
and international health in India, 1920-1980
Dr Sanjoy Bhattacharya (University of York)
My paper will seek to fill this historical gap by studying how tropical
medicine was perceived at different levels of colonial and independent
Indian administration, and how, in turn, this affected negotiations in
relation to the design and application of a number of internationallyfunded programmes within different locations.
Janus in the mediscape? The Indian pharmaceuticals industry (and
its global ambitions)
Dr Roger Jeffery (University of Edinburgh)
This paper will chart the political and moral economies and global
ambitions represented by two versions of the Indian corporate mediscape, represented by Cipla and Ranbaxy.
53
From being a care-giver to becoming a researcher - clinical research
in India
Ms Deapica Ravindran (Center for Studies in Ethics and Rights,
Mumbai); Dr Salla Sariola (Durham University)
This study illuminates why busy, practicing, doctors agree to become
investigators in clinical research, the benefits that the doctors expect
from clinical trials and how they manage to maneuver their schedules to
accommodate the time consuming research activity.
Adoption of new-age vaccines by India: a study of discourses on
nation building and international diplomacy
Miss Swati Saxena (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine)
This paper examines how the adoption of new vaccines by India can
be situated within the discourses (nexus of power and knowledge)
of nationalism by scrutinising the historical and political processes
that accompanied the project of nation building after colonial rule.
Furthermore in the present scenario the adoption of these new age
vaccines can serve as a tool for the consolidation of India’s power
position within the global health community.
Evolution and growth of health research and experimentation in
Nepal: emerging trends, actors and modalities
Dr Jeevan Sharma (University of Edinburgh); Dr Ian Harper
(University of Edinburgh); Ms Rekha Khatri (Social Science Baha)
This paper traces the evolution and the development of health sector
research in the context of Nepal. Based on the mapping of key research
activities, actors, journals, investigators and research focused NGOs
as well as key informant interviews, this paper begins to attempt to
reconstruct a social history of health research in Nepal.
54
ABSTRACTS
Situating ‘evidence’ in public health interventions and policymaking in Sri Lanka
Ms Tharindi Udalagama (University of Colombo); Dr Salla Sariola
(Durham University); Prof Robert Simpson (Durham University)
The project ‘Biomedical and Health Experimentation in South Asia’
researched researchers in Sri Lanka. With evidence from two public
health interventions followed during the years 2011-2012, this paper
will compare and comment on the different research practices within
such research enterprises.
Maternity policies in Northern India: issues and implementation of
maternal and child healthcare programs
Miss Clémence Jullien (Univeristé Paris Ouest Nanterre)
Motherhood which has depended on traditional midwives is becoming
a medicalized and institutionalized experience in India. Based on an
ethnographic investigation in Jaipur and Delhi, this paper considers how
motherhood is constructed through negotiations among doctors, Hindu
nationalists, NGO workers and the urban poor for whom such projects
are designed and implemented.
British Pakistanis, new reproductive technologies, and transnational
(in)fertilities
Dr Mwenza Blell (Durham University); Prof Robert Simpson (Durham
University); Dr Kate Hampshire (Durham University)
This paper reports on an anthropological study of Pakistani-origin
patients in an IVF clinic in the Northeast of England and explores
issues arising as members of a transnational community confront
the controversies that come with the choices that new reproductive
technologies make available.
55
P08
Dalit communities in India and diaspora:
agency and activism, research and
representation
Convenor: Dr Manuela Ciotti (Aarhus University)
Sat 28th July, 09:00-10:45, 11:15-13:00
Location: C406
This panel brings together an eclectic ensemble of papers exploring
subjectivities, socio-cultural practices, and life-ways amongst Dalit
communities across India and in diaspora. Not only do the insights
generated through textual, economic, visual and legal investigation
show emerging trends in the lives of such communities and beyond but
they also suggest the need for broadening the empirical and analytical
terrains explored thus far. Taken together, the papers point to the need
for reflection on the Dalit category, the field of study which centres on
it, and future research directions. In this respect, the panel fosters the
aims of the newly-created British Association for South Asian Studies
(BASAS) research group entitled: ‘Dalit communities and diasporas in
global times: Interdisciplinary perspectives’.
Dalit rights &the development agenda: the promise, progress and
pitfalls of NGO networking and international advocacy.
Prof David Mosse (SOAS); Dr Luisa Steur (University of Copenhagen/
SOAS)
We examine how Dalit movements in India have recently taken a turn
towards a ‘development’ agenda and how simultaneously development
organisations (NGOs, international donors and United Nations bodies)
now address the question of caste discrimination within their poverty
reduction policy frameworks.
56
ABSTRACTS
Dalit community in the business contexts: incorporated or
marginalised?
Mr Kaushal Vidyarthee (University of Oxford)
This study examines the trends and the context of participation of Dalits
in the business economy as the owners of firms; and how this process
varies spatially and sectorally across India. Using mixed methods
approach, it elicits insights about the factors implicating Dalits’ entry to
the business.
Function of remittances and intra-state migration for Dalits in rural
Bihar: 1980s to 2000s
Dr Mariko Kato (Seinan Gakuin University)
This study will use household data provided by National Sample Survey
Organization (NSSO) to analyse changes in the intra-state migration
and remittances of rural Dalits in Bihar, the state with lowest GDP but
highest growth in 2000s. The paper will look at data from three decades.
Being a Dalit in Ludhiana, Punjab
Dr Meena Dhanda (University of Wolverhampton)
Findings from survey-interviews of 300 dalits of Ludhiana profiling
their living conditions, opinions and aspirations are presented. Using the
idea of symbolic exchange to capture relations between dalits and uppercastes the paper seeks to explain the emergence of anti-consumerist dalit
reformers.
Agency of Dalits in a conflict situation: the case of Jammu and
Kashmir
Ms Mohita Bhatia (University of Cambridge)
Examining reasons for the absence of Dalit political assertion in Jammu
and Kashmir, this paper maintains that agency of Dalits become visible
in social rather than political realm. It demonstrates that this agency
operates in close interaction with the dominant structures.
57
Adjusting the image: “traditional” and “modern” in Punjab Deras’
representation
Dr Anna Bochkovskaya (Institute of Asian and African Studies,
Lomonosov Moscow State University)
The paper discusses the use of traditional symbols and images by Dalits
in Punjab (India) in their quest for identity with special reference to
the multifaceted activities of controversial religious/pseudo-religious
communities (deras).
The other modernity and forgotten tradition: resurfacing of Dalit
cultural heritage in contemporary India
Prof Ronki Ram (Leiden University, The Netherlands)
Cultural heritage is fast emerging as a politically contested site where
the hitherto marginalised and socially excluded Dalit communities
are learning to deploy it as a viable agency in their identity formation
process.
North India 1950s-2000s: two (conceptual) villages, its (Chamar)
inhabitants and the question of ‘the new’
Dr Manuela Ciotti (Aarhus University)
Drawing on the comparison between Cohn’s work on a Chamar
community in a northern India village in the 1950s (An anthropologist
among the historians and other essays) and my work on the same
community in a nearby village (Retro-modern India), this paper
investigates the occurrence of ‘the new’.
58
ABSTRACTS
P09
Developing control: the reconfiguration of
space and the making of development on the
ground
Convenors: Mr Matthäus Rest (University of Zürich); Mr Sebastian
Homm (Bonn University); Ms Miriam Bishokarma (University of
Zurich); Mrs Pia Hollenbach (University of Zurich)
Thu 26th July, 09:00-10:45, 11:15-13:00, 14:00-15:45
Location: C402
Despite the sweeping and general notions of ‘development’,
development remains a process that happens in actual places,
intervening in the lives of actual people. Different actors – including the
state, social movements, (multi-)national corporations and organizations
– attempt to appropriate places in order to design them according to
their interests and vision of development. The panel will be based on
case studies from South Asia focusing on the everyday practice and
perceptions of people actually affected by development projects. We put
development in perspective and ask: how do different actors use, frame,
shape and negotiate the practice of development?
Nature conservation as “development”, or is environmentalism for
everyone? The case of the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, Mumbai
Dr Frederic Landy (University of Paris Ouest-Nanterre)
The protection of “natural areas” is today an important factor of people
displacement on behalf of “development’”. The case of the Sanjay
Gandhi National Park, Mumbai, illustrates how too binary models such
as nature vs. city, or bourgeois environmentalism vs. needs of the poor,
must be qualified
59
Dhaka’s transport: (re-)negotiating governance and control in a
megacity
Dr Elvira Graner (BRAC University)
When considering urbanisation and urban development, the transport
sector needs to be attributed a quintessential role. In this sector space
is constantly being reconfigured and re-negotiated. This case study
of Dhaka provides a crucial and paradigmatic case study on urban
economic governance.
Spatial strategies in the industrial development of peri-urban
Chennai, India
Mr Sebastian Homm (Bonn University)
The paper discusses driving factors behind the transformation of periurban Chennai from rural remoteness into a global manufacturing hub.
Whether to create a Special Economic Zone or abandon agriculture – it
is suggested that actors pursue spatial strategies to realize their interests.
Redefining space through aid: an analysis of development as a tool
for elite mobility in southern Sri Lanka
Mr Maurice Said (Durham University)
This paper provides an analysis of the effects of aid on local structures
and social networks in a southern Sri Lankan village, and shows how
Sri Lankan elite have utilised development aid, following the tsunami of
2004, to further their local authority and redefine social boundaries and
space.
A dam cancelled and reincarnated: the Nepalese Arun-3
hydropower project
Mr Matthäus Rest (University of Zürich)
The Nepalese Arun-3 hydropower project was recently resumed by the
Indian state-owned SJVN. As the project was initially developed by the
World Bank in the 1990s and later cancelled, it is a telling example to
trace the fundamental shifts in transnational infrastructure development.
60
ABSTRACTS
External and internal perspectives on development in tribal
Jharkhand
Mrs Lea Schulte-Droesch (Groningen University); Mr Ketan Alder
(Manchester University)
Parallel to development projects run by the state, local actors promote
their own version of development in tribal Jharkhand. This paper shall
explore how three initiatives strategically use the term development,
while merging it with the practice of a redefined tradition.
The urban conquest of the periphery
Ms Anjali B Datta (Trinity College, University of Cambridge)
The proppsed paper examines the impact of rapid urban expansion
on the fringe of Delhi, leading to the displacement of agricultural
communities and villages in the post Partition scenario and the
consequent effect on gender relations.
Development as a strategy in the struggle over “Gorkhaland”
Ms Miriam Bishokarma (University of Zurich)
This paper seeks to display the utilization of the idea and promise
of development by state and non-state actors in order to further their
territorial claims in the context of statehood movements in India.
Panchayat politics and translocal discourses of development
Dr Stefanie Strulik (University of Zurich)
The paper will look into the normative amalgamation of modernization,
development and democracy discourses in the context of the panchayati
raj reform in India. It will address both, locales and routes through
which knowledge is accessed, produced and dispersed as aspects of
space reconfigured in the context of policy intervention.
61
P10
Rural poverty, inequality and contemporary
social mobilisation
Convenors: Dr Urs Geiser (University of Zurich); Dr Ramakumar
Ramasubramonian (Tata Institute of Social Sciences)
Wed 25th July, 14:00-15:45, 16:15-18:00
Location: C402
Throughout South Asia, rural poverty and inequality persist – in
spite of efforts by state, donors, sections of civil society, or ‘the
market’. In this broader context, we observe an increasing presence
of heterogeneous ‘non-state actors and movements’, challenging and
even resisting the state’s (mostly neo-liberal) development agenda,
claiming to authentically represent people’s aspirations towards wellbeing, and taking actions ranging from non-violent protest to militancy.
We hypothesise that such contemporary social mobilisation transcends
earlier forms (e.g. peasant movements), calling for a new theorising
(esp. linking material and non-material dimensions) of the complex
everyday articulation between expectations of rural poor upon the
‘demand of development’ and the competing discourses and practices
of ‘supplying development’ specifically by state and ‘non-state actors
and movements’. We invite empirically grounded contributions across
theoretical positions (old and new) that critically engage with our
thoughts.
Discussant: Roger Jeffery
Popular movements and the uneven geography of opposition in
Punjab
Mr Hassan Javid
Through a comparison of the anti-Ayub and anti-Musharraf movements
in Pakistan, this papers attempts to answer two question; what are the
constraints on rural mobilisation in Punjab, and what underpins the
enduring disconnect between urban and rural protest in Punjab.
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ABSTRACTS
Piety and the ‘Market’
Dr Humeira Iqtidar (King’s College London)
The concurrent growth of pietist movements with the dominance of
neoliberalism as the horizon of possibilities requires deeper engagement.
Through a focus on a lower middle class neighbourhood in Lahore, the
paper will attempt to analyse the relationship between new expression of
extremely depoliticized religiousity and neoliberalism.
New socio-legal movements in India: Anna Hazare’s hunger strike
against corruption and India’s new middle-classes
Mr Vinay Sitapati (Princeton University)
Why are new social movements in India increasingly adopting
legislative (think of ends in terms of favourable laws) and adjudicatory
(think of ends in terms of favourable court judgments) strategies? Does
this alter the basic social cleavages that the movement is based on? I
answer this question by analyzing Anna Hazare’s 2011 hunger strike
demanding a strong anti-corruption law, and what this says about India’s
new middle-classes.
Where is the “agrarian” in contemporary rural mobilisations?
Dr Ramakumar Ramasubramonian (Tata Institute of Social Sciences)
My aim in this presentation is to try and explore the links between the
contemporary forms of rural mobilisations in India – in the spheres of
agriculture and caste – and the continuing relevance, as in my argument,
of the “agrarian question”.
Does identity based social mobilization matter?
Dr Prabin Manandhar (Kathmandu University)
Donor agencies have had great influence on social mobilization in Nepal
and the NGOs are a major catalyzing force that attempt at class based
mobilization to improve material dimension of poverty. Based on a
critical re-reading of ‘social capital’, the paper argues that identity based
mobilization is required to reduce poverty and inequality.
63
P11
Changing spaces, identities and livelihoods in
Delhi
Convenor: Dr Radhika Govinda (Ambedkar University, Delhi)
Wed 25th July, 14:00-15:45, 16:15-18:00
Location: C408
This panel proposes to explore the changing spaces, identities and
livelihoods in contemporary Delhi as it is re-imagined, re-engineered
and re-presented in complex and contradictory ways in the pursuit
of ‘world-classness’. Given the maddening pace of these changes,
it is urgent that the processes and politics behind these be carefully
examined. The papers on this panel shall engage with issues such
as gender and identity politics in urban villages, labour, livelihood
and migration in industrial estates, housing rights in slums and
gated communities, preservation of class privilege, environment and
monuments at the centre and on the margins of the city.
Which place for the homeless in an aspiring global city like Delhi?
Scrutiny of a mobilization campaign in the context of the 2010
Commonwealth Games
Dr Véronique Dupont (Institute of Research for Development)
The restructuring of Delhi to meet the requirements of its globalisationin-the making entailed large-scale slum demolitions and an increase of
homeless population. This paper examines a mobilization campaign
for the right to shelter of the homeless in the context of the 2010
Commonwealth Games.
Gender and identity politics in urban renewal in Delhi: changing
dynamics of life and livelihood in Lal Dora villages
Dr Radhika Govinda (Ambedkar University, Delhi)
This paper proposes an understanding of gender and identity politics
in Delhi’s historic urban villages, its intersections with state and
development politics, migration and urban culture.
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ABSTRACTS
No planning, no policies: the case of the Tibetan colony of Majnu ka
tila
Dr Julie Baujard (Centre for South Asian Studies (CNRS - EHESS))
The threat of eviction of the Tibetans living in Majnu ka tila and the
struggle that arose between the refugees and the Indian authorities offers
an interesting insight of the way New Delhi deals with refugees. It
shows that precarious settlement goes with precarious status though, as
an international issue, Tibetans benefit from a special treatment.
Changing identities, risk and livelihood diversification: live-in
domestic’s in Delhi
Ms Linda Oecknick (Ambedkar University)
The paper examines domestic service in Delhi exploring changing
identities with regard to gendered labor markets, livelihood
diversification, informal credit, social security and the breaking down of
urban spatial segregation through physical proximity in live-in domestic
service constellations.
Negotiating Liminality in a megalopolis
Mr Aditya Mohanty (UCL and IIT Kanpur)
It is in the backdrop of a rapidly neo-liberalising city that the proposed
paper attempts to explore the ‘new politics’ that has emerged due to
the entrenched performance of civil society in participatory urban
governance models like that of ‘Bhagidari’ in the Indian megalopolis of
Delhi.
Migrant identities and kinds of industrial work in Delhi
Dr Sumangala Damodaran (Ambedkar University)
The paper will document and compare the presence, kinds of and
characteristics of the migrant population in two different kinds of
industrial areas in the city of Delhi. The different kinds of industrial
work that will be examined are first, in organised industrial estates
which are part of the city’s master plan, and second, in a cluster to
which ‘dirty’, polluting industries have been relocated with the idea
65
that they will gradually disappear. Given various migrant identities and
possible different typologies of migration into the two different kinds of
areas, their relationship with the industrial activity that they are engaged
in and to the different spaces that they work and live in will also be
addressed.
Middle class environmentalism: Indian media and activism
Dr Somnath Batabyal (University of Heidelberg)
This paper looks at present day urban environmental politics in India
and argues that a middle class media with middle class concerns have
taken over the environmental agenda in metropolitan cities.
P12
Rethinking gender and politics in South Asia
Convenor: Dr Edzia Carvalho (University of Amsterdam)
Fri 27th July, 16:15-18:00
Location: C407
This panel brings together various strands of research on politics in
South Asia that take a closer look at how ‘gender’ is conceptualized and
applied in social science research. The first presentation examines the
notion of masculinity in the context of the separatist groups involved in
the civil war in Sri Lanka. The second paper takes this discussion further
by addressing the issue of ‘the third sex’, i.e. eunuch tribes in Calcutta
(West Bengal, India) and the application of colonial modes of legal
thought and social ordering to them. The last two presentations address
the role of women’s political participation in India and Pakistan through
the prism of electoral quotas and the the conceptualization of ‘Islamic
Feminism’.
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ABSTRACTS
Masculinity, violence and the body
Dr Jani de Silva (Centre for Studies in Gender & Post-Conflict
Development)
This paper will explore the way in which combat violence transforms
practices of masculinity in young Tamil boys involved in Sri Lanka’s
protracted inter-ethnic war
Criminalizing the “third body”: gender, law and sexuality in
colonial Calcutta
Mr Caio Araújo (Central European University)
This paper will look at effects and the legal reasoning underlying
the Criminal Tribes’ Act of 1871, which criminalizes the “eunuch”
population in colonial India. I will discuss how the Act tried to reform
their bodies in terms of stable gender roles, sexuality, production and
spatial practices.
The impact of women’s mobility on political participation in rural
Pakistan
Dr Shandana Mohmand (Institute of Development Studies)
This paper revisits and questions the concept of empowering women
through reserved seats and electoral quotas without first addressing
social restrictions that severely limit their political participation.
To be or not to be ‘Islamic feminist’: Comparing the approaches of
the Indian and Pakistani women’s movements vis-à-vis islam
Dr Nida Kirmani (Lahore University of Management Sciences)
This paper will compare the approaches of Indian and Pakistani
women’s movements to the promotion of women’s rights vis-a-vis
Islam. It will explore when these movements have chosen to engage
proactively with Islamic discourses or taken a more secular or ‘human
rights’ based approach.
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P13
The Indian state in transition in the 1940s and
1950s
Convenor: Prof Steven Wilkinson (Yale University)
Sat 28th July, 11:15-13:00
Location: C407
This panel will examine various aspects of the transition from the
colonial state to independent India in the 1940s and 1950s, looking
at the beginnings of the ‘permit raj’ and anti-corruption measures
(Gould), the Indian Army’s response to efforts to make it stop recruiting
predominantly from the ‘martial classes’(Wilkinson), and debates over
minorities, the constitution and role of the state (Shani).
Chair: Steven Wilkinson
History in flux: Indira Gandhi and the great all-party campaign for
the protection of the cow, 1966-67
Prof Ian Copland (Monash UIniversity)
This paper canvasses the case for seeing the 1960s as a major
transitional monent in the history of post-colonial India by looking at
the response of the India Gandhi-led Congress government to a mass
agitation designed to bring about a federal laww banning cow-slaughter.
Food controls, rationing and the politics of corruption and anticorruption in Uttar Pradesh in the 1940s and 1950s
Dr William Gould (University of Leeds)
This paper examines public discourses of ‘corruption’ during 1940s/50s
India’s food rationing/controls. It explores the public mediation of
scandals in black marketing and how representations of the ‘public’ and
‘state’ were informed by scandal, and uncertainties about citizenship and
belonging.
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ABSTRACTS
Forging India’s democratic nationhood: the preparation of the first
electoral roll and the making of universal franchise (1947-1952)
Dr Ornit Shani (University of Haifa)
This paper explores the preparation of the electoral roll for the first
general elections on the basis of universal adult suffrage in India along
the unfolding consequences of partition. It analyses the implications of
this process for the institutionalisation of India’s democratic nationhood
Army, Nation and Democracy in India after 1947
Prof Steven Wilkinson (Yale University)
Prior to independence nationalist politicians were united in their
criticism of the divide and rule structure of the colonial Indian army. I
examine why, despite this, successive governments have not decided
radically reshaped India’s ‘martial class’ military.
P14
Regimes of violence and phantasms of good
government in colonial India, 1800-1947
Convenors: Dr Michael Mann (Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin);
Mr Mark Condos (Wolfson, University of Cambridge)
Sat 28th July, 09:00-10:45
Location: C407
Why, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, did the East India
Company and Great Britain – two self-professed liberal, humanitarian
imperial powers – resort violently to suppressing individuals and groups
that threatened their dominion? From the torture of individuals, the
pacification of purportedly wayward groups and larger-scale military
campaigns, the Company and Raj frequently used highly coercive and
violent measures in order to ensure their continued stability. This panel
investigates ways in which the British attempted to reconcile inherent
contradictions between more brutal aspects of their regimes and notions
of justice, civil improvement and good government for India that they
also claimed to hold dear.
69
Torture and good government: the violent contradictions of
company governance in India
Mr Derek Elliott (Peterhouse, University of Cambridge)
Torture as a means to extract revenue and confession from Indian
subjects was an unsanctioned, yet ubiquitous mode of governance
for the East India Company’s rule in India. This paper demonstrates
the liberal imperial project’s contradictions of humanitarianism and
maintaining empire at any cost.
Belligerent empire and military despotism in colonial India, 1800-60
Mr Mark Condos (Wolfson, University of Cambridge)
This paper traces how the taint of military conquest in colonial India
was rehabilitated by British military officers by the mid-nineteenth
century into a theory of governance, known as “military despotism,”
which openly embraced coercion and conquest as fundamental to
colonial rule.
Liberal imperialism on trial: Muhammad Ali, Abul Kalam Azad,
and colonial justice in early twentieth century India.
Ms Faridah Zaman (Corpus Christi, University of Cambridge)
To study the progress and dissemination of ideas often requires study
into moments of epistemological repression. This paper will look at the
censorship, internment, and high-profile court trials of two prominent
Muslim intellectual leaders of the 1910s and 1920s, Muhammad Ali and
Abul Kalam Azad.
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ABSTRACTS
P15
Re-forming subjects: colonial and national
approaches to moral education, 18th to mid20th century
Convenors: Ms Monika Freier (Max Planck Institute for Human
Development); Dr Jana Tschurenev (ETH Zürich)
Thu 26th July, 09:00-10:45, 11:15-13:00, 14:00-15:45
Location: C302
This panel offers a broad perspective on the history of moral education
in modern India against the background of colonial knowledge
and the global circulation of educational ideas. On the one hand, it
focuses on different efforts to provide moral education in schools
and kindergartens. Instructing children in ethical principles and the
proper code of conduct is an important element in many pedagogical
approaches and educational institutions. The panel analyses the complex
objectives and different meanings of children’s moral education, as
well as the pedagogical technologies and institutional settings which
were employed to achieve those objectives. Matching insights from the
history of schooling with studies on literary sources, the panel on the
other hand explores the agenda and technologies of moral education for
adults. It analyses how different literary genres such as advice books or
novels aimed to promote standards of ethics and etiquette, challenged or
creatively reformulated notions of proper conduct in the world. In many
ways literature contained implicit and explicit pedagogical agendas to
shape the mind, feelings and body of the reader and thus also to reform
the community or society at large. While notions of “character”, ethics
or personality development were often framed in universalistic terms as
applying to human beings in general, efforts to morally educate people
were linked to the promotion and negotiation of gender norms, class
identities, as well as national identities.
Session 1, “Reforming pedagogy”, focuses on three international
pedagogical models, the so-called “monitorial system of education” in
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the early nineteenth century, the Froebelian “kindergarten system” and
anthroposophist “Waldorf pedagogy” and points at important shifts in
the techniques employed to morally educate children. Session 2, “Moral
education for the home and nation”, looks at efforts to reform the “inner
world”, including household, domesticity, and parenting practices, and
their deployment in the formation of class identities. Exploring advice
literature for women and women’s writings, it analyses contrasting
norms and models of femininity.Session 3, “Colonial education
and the formation of male leadership” analyses gendered notions of
proper conduct, particularly focusing on the connection of ethics and
masculinity. Important concepts are social virtue and entrepreneurship
as well as the central notion of “character”.
Inscribing minds: card-boards, copy-books and rote learning in
early nineteenth century monitorial schools
Dr Jana Tschurenev (ETH Zürich)
The paper analyses some pedagogical technologies introduced in early
19th century elementary schools, contrasting schools set up for “the
poor” in Britain with those promoted by missionaries and educational
reformers in Bengal. How were schools to function as “moral and
intellectual machines”?
New educational theories and India: advocates of Froebelian
principles and practices in the late nineteenth century
Dr Avril Powell (SOAS (University of London))
This paper focuses on Froebelian ideas on moral education as
transmitted to colonial India through the London-based Froebel Society
itself, but also through its links with some newly founded pressure
groups concerned with Indian education, notably Mary Carpenter’s
National Indian Association.
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ABSTRACTS
A “universal brotherhood of men” through education? Rudolf
Steiner’s (1861-1925) reform pedagogy and theosophy’s South Asian
liaison
Ms Maria Moritz
While many papers in the panel investigate pedagogical import from
Europe to colonial South Asia this paper focuses on the inspiration from
South Asian ethical concepts such as reincarnation on one of the most
successful progressive educational projects of Europe and beyond –
Waldorf pedagogy. Through its links with the global theosophical milieu
Waldorf pedagogy was inspired by South Asian spiritual concepts which
shaped a pedagogical agenda for educating head, heart and hand of the
students and thereby aimed at producing a sense of global solidarity and
tolerance.
Modern ethics and etiquette - Hindi advice books in colonial India
Ms Monika Freier (Max Planck Institute for Human Development)
Advice literature in India aimed at morally educating its readers while
negotiating ‘modern’ value systems. My paper examines the colonial
setting of the genre and explores how the teachings of these books
establish national, educational, and gender-related moral codes.
Constructing ‘madhya sreni’ (middle-class) values: social and
religious education in the Hindi-speaking household
Dr Leigh Denault (Churchill College, Cambridge)
This paper examines Hindi texts on the family, household, and education
to explore the creation of new social, political and religious identities in
19th c. North India.
Fruits of knowledge: polemics, humour, and moral education in
selected Bengali women’s writing, c. 1920-c.1960
Dr Barnita Bagchi (Utrecht University)
This paper analyses literary sources, by women writing in Bengali,
c.1920-1960, which offered far more complex, heterogeneous,
innovative, and creative strategies for the shaping, reform, and moral
73
education of subjects, than have hitherto been recognized. Authors
focused on include Rokeya Hossain, Ashapurna Devi, and Lila
Majumdar.
The exemplary modern man: Mirza Rusva’s Sharif Zada
Dr Christina Oesterheld (South Asia Institute Heidelberg)
The paper is dedicated to a book on the exemplary career of a Muslim
male by the famous novelist Mirza Rusva (1857-1931). His “Sharif
zada” (A man of noble birth) was written in 1900 and is a very detailed
fictional account of the happy and contended l life of a man who adopts
the new social virtues and turns into a successful enterpreneur. His
success in life already suffices to illustrate the usefulness of the new
values, nevertheless the message is also brought home in a number of
reflexions of the main protagonist and in his discussions with the author/
narrator.
Enlightened ruler or decadent prince: colonial education and
reform of princely India
Mr Razak Khan (Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures & Societies
(BGSMCS))
The rhetoric of ´´backward native states´´ provided new ground for
colonial projects of reform through education. This paper locates
such efforts in the post-1857 period and analyses shifts in the colonial
discourse and practices around princely education by focusing on two
Nawabs of Rampur.
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ABSTRACTS
P16
Meerut revisited: the conspiracy case in
context, 1929-1934
Convenors: Dr Michele Louro (Salem State University); Dr Alastair
Kocho-Williams (University of the West of England, Bristol); Miss
Carolien Stolte (Leiden University); Mr Ali Raza
Wed 25th July, 16:15-18:00
Location: C401
The Meerut Conspiracy Case placed thirty-three well-known public
figures – trade unionists, socialists, nationalists and communists – on
trial for conspiracy against the King. This highly publicized case
became a watershed moment in anti-imperialist politics in South Asia,
which led to the realignment of and between various political players.
It also incited critical responses beyond India’s borders and turned
the ‘Meerut prisoners’ into anti-imperialist symbols internationally.
This panel re-examines the Meerut case in the overlapping contexts of
interwar internationalism and South Asian history. It invites participants
to analyze the event through the writings and activities of both
organizations and individuals.
Discussant: Ben Zachariah
The impact of the Meerut Conspiracy case on the Comintern’s
challenge to British India
Dr Alastair Kocho-Williams (University of the West of England, Bristol)
The paper examines what the impact of the Meerut Conspiracy Case
was for the Comintern’s challenge to British India in the interwar
period.
75
Meerut and its impact on regional politics: a case study of the
Punjabi Leftist movement
Mr Ali Raza
This paper will seek to explore the impact of the Meerut Conspiracy
Case on regional and local politics. In this regard, the focus of this paper
will be on the Leftist movement within the Punjab.
Rethinking Meerut: Nehru, the League against Imperialism, and
the limits of internationalism in India
Dr Michele Louro (Salem State University)
This paper examines the Meerut Conspiracy Case as a site for the
intersection of national, international, and colonial politics in British
India. It focuses on the specific case of the League against Imperialism
(LAI) as a seditious organization targeted by the Meerut trial.
The impact of the Meerut case on the international engagements of
the Indian trade union movement
Miss Carolien Stolte (Leiden University)
In March 1929, tensions between various factions in the All India
Trade Union Congress (AITUC) regarding AITUC’s international
engagements were made urgent by the Meerut arrests. This paper
examines the influence of the Meerut Conspiracy Case on AITUC’s
break into to rival factions in December 1929.
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ABSTRACTS
P17
Children and colonial (con)texts of power in
India
Convenor: Dr Sudipa Topdar (Illinois State University)
Fri 27th July, 16:15-18:00
Location: C406
This panel seeks to contribute to the emerging scholarship on the history
of colonial childhoods which remains a largely marginalized subject
within South Asian historiography. The papers in the panel focus on the
late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in India, a period marked
by a new socio-cultural emphasis on the management, protection and
improvement of children through ideas on child-rearing, education,
gender, law and medicine. By focusing on these themes the panel
will interrogate the related but discrete understandings of childhood
produced during this period.
Nupur Chaudhuri’s paper explores the prescriptive discourses on child
rearing written by female Bengali authors particularly on the issue of
female education and their rebellion against the traditional norms of
raising girl children. Using an early twentieth century Marathi women’s
magazine, Stree, as an archive Aswini Tambe explores the literary and
visual representations of unmarried adolescent girls and how transitions
from childhood to womanhood were framed. Ishita Pande scrutinizes
textbooks on medical jurisprudence that focused on sexual violence
against native children to explore the medical discourses that produced
new definitions of ‘the child’ and shaped colonial rape laws. Sudipa
Topdar examines the interplay between the dissemination of formal
education through colonial school textbooks and its critique within
the space of Bengali children’s magazine. Topdar explores how the
magazines played upon the anxieties surrounding bhadralok masculinity
to represent the native male child’s body as a metaphor of the nation
and undertake projects of remasculinizing the youth through a revival of
indigenous martial sports.
Chair: Ishita Pandey
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Discourse on Bengali girls’ education from 1880s to 1930s
Dr Nupur Chaudhuri (Texas Southern University)
Anxieties of masculinity: the nation and the child’s body in Bengali
children’s magazines
Dr Sudipa Topdar (Illinois State University)
The paper analyzes Bengali children’s magazines as a nationalist
pedagogy that contested ideologies defining colonial educational
practices. It examines the idiom of body deployed by the magazines
to dispel anxieties of masculinity and undertake nationalist projects of
remasculinizing native youths
Fantasized childhoods: representations of adolescence in a Marathi
women’s magazine, 1931-1985
Dr Ashwini Tambe (University of Maryland)
This paper presents an analysis of the covers of Stree, a Marathi
women’s magazine, from 1931 through 1985, centering around the
question: what are unmarried girls shown doing? My goal is to explore
what representations of adolescent girls tell us about fantasies of
childhood across this period. By tracking changes in visual symbols,
appearance and activities, I will also comment on shifts in the age
boundaries of childhood.
Law, medicine and ‘child-rape’ in late nineteenth century India
Dr Ishita Pande (Queen’s University)
An analysis of medical and legal discussions of sexual violence
against children in late nineteenth-century India, which simultaneously
produced a new definition of ‘the child’; a humanitarian narrative
focused on the body; and a racialized discourse on the ubiquity of childrape in India.
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ABSTRACTS
P18
Settled strangers: why South Asians in
diaspora remain outsiders?
Convenor: Dr Gijsbert Oonk (Erasmus School of History Culture
and Communication)
Thu 26th July, 14:00-15:45, 16:15-18:00
Location: C406
In this panel I propose the concept of ‘settled strangers’ that may help
us to understand the ambivalent relations between ‘strangers’ and the
local society through generations. Settled strangers are descendents of
migrants who eventually settled in their new environments for at least
three generations. They are often referred to as ‘third or fourth or more’
generation migrants, despite that they didn’t migrate themselves. They
(and their parents)are born and raised in the new countries, which they
have made their own. Here they enjoyed their education, they know
the local language and they most likely will get married locally (but
frequently within their own ethnic group). Often, but not always they
carry local passports or have obtained local citizenship. Despite of
this, their loyalty towards the local society is at stake in the discourses
on migration, citizenship. Frequently the suggestion is that ‘strangers’
are not committed to the local economy or the local politics because
settled strangers always have an ‘escape’. Nevertheless, if they take
up local citizenship or become political active, they are said to do for
‘personal gains’ and not to ‘serve the country’. Even after three or four
generations running local business, paying taxes, spending money on
charities, hospitals, dispensaries and what not, they find out that it is
never enough to be accepted as locally loyal. In his Inaugural Lecture
at the University of Cape Town, Mahmood Mamdani rethorical asks:
When does a Settler Become a Native? And his shortcut answer is: from
the point of view of ethnic citizenship, NEVER.
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South Asians, Gujaratis, Hindus, and other identities - the process
of being a Hindu in Portugal
Dr Inês Lourenço (CRIA-ISCTE/IUL); Dr Rita Cachado (ISCTE-IUL,
University Institute of Lisbon )
Ethnographically grounded, this presentation intends to reflect upon
the process of Hinduism recognition in Portugal through two different
lenses: one that analyses the recognition of Hinduism in this country;
and another that presents the current Hindu religious and cultural
practices as well as their transformations among Portuguese society.
Negotiating NIMBY, neighbourliness, and being publicly Hindu in
the United States
Dr Hanna Kim (Adelphi University)
“Not in My Back Yard” is a reality that South Asians have encountered
throughout the diaspora. Looking at an American Gujarati community’s
efforts to build a temple complex, this paper probes the tensions
between ideas of neighbourliness and offering a publicly identifiable
form of Hinduism.
Gurdwara, Sikh youth and identity politics in London: a case study
of the Hounslow Gurdwara and the transmission of British Sikh
identity
Mr Gurbachan Jandu (Royal Anthropological Institute)
What role does the Sikh Temple play in the formation of British Sikh
Identity for the youth in London? Does it help, hinder or ignore the
process of citizenship and communitarianism? This paper proposes
that it does all three – with failed societal coalescence a result of this
institutional agency.
Struggling for migratory and citizenship rights - the experiences of
free Indian migrants to Natal 1880-1930
Prof Kalpana Hiralal (University of Kwazulu/Natal)
This paper examines free Indian migration to Natal between 1880-1930.
It adopts a biographical analysis as a methodological tool to understand
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ABSTRACTS
the complexity of the migratory process in terms of race, ethnicity,
gender and citizenship.
Performing difference or getting lost in the rainbow nation?
Dr Simona Vittorini (SOAS University of London)
Based on primary research carried out in Johannesburg and Pretoria
during the 150th Year ceremonies commemorating the arrival of the
first Indian indentured labourers to South Africa, the paper is concerned
with the ways in which collective self-commemorations of belonging
contributed to the articulation of a South African Indian identity torn
between Pretoria’s efforts to accommodate difference and construct an
inclusive, non-sectarian national identity and the desire to perform and
institute difference.
Unsettled citizens? British South Asians
Dr John Mattausch (Royal Holloway College)
I examine the development of Britain’s chief South Asian communities
concomitant with the transition from Imperial subject-hood to legal
citizenship. Chance, and the unfinished transition to national citizenship,
rather than cultural peculiarities, explains these communities’ enduring
strangeness.
Small Acts, Big Society: Sewa and Hindu (nationalist) identity in the
UK
Dr John Zavos (University of Manchester)
The paper explores a recent initiative in the UK promoting the idea
of Sewa as localised social action. It examines the role played by
organisations involved in the initiative in representing Hindus as
model ‘ethnic citizens’, framed by a State focus on ‘Big Society’
empowerment.
81
Russian Indians: do they become natives?
Dr Indira Gazieva (Russian State University for the Humanities);
Dr Irina Maksimenko (”Voice of Russia” (Russian International
Broadcasting Company))
The paper deals with two main problems of Indian Diaspora in Russia
– religious and national matters. The content of the Indian Diaspora
is multifold because Indians are not a homogeneous ethnos. The word
“Indian” is like the word “Russian” but they are not comparable.
Hindu diaspora in the United States - negotiating an identity
through religious pilgrimage
Dr Deepa Nair (University of Central Florida)
Hindu Americans are one of the fastest growing communities in the
United States. The rise in religious travel or pilgrimage (tirtha) back to
India by the Hindu diaspora cannot be regarded merely as an immigrant
attachment to their homeland. This stems from the feeling of being a
racial minority in the United States and a need to obtain recognition
of their ethnic and cultural heritage. Hindu Americans are not only
trying to model their identity in an Abrahamic paradigm by interpreting
Hinduism as a monotheistic religion, but also renewing their ties to their
homeland through religious travel and pilgrimage. This paper explores
the importance of religious travel in the lives of Hindu Americans, and
illustrates ways and means through which the Hindus are using religion
to negotiate an identity in an alien culture.
Experiences in settling down - Indians in Germany
Dr Joachim Oesterheld (Humboldt Universitaet zu Berlin)
The paper will deal with the history and circumstances under which
Indians migrated to Germany from the 1950s onwards. The focus will
be on their experiences in communicating with the majority community
for the process of their settling down while keeping their links with the
‘origin country’ alive.
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ABSTRACTS
P19
Visions of Portuguese India, Portuguese
visions of India, 16th-18th centuries
Convenors: Dr Antonella Viola (FCSH, UAç and Universidade
Nova); Mr Hakim Ikhlef (European University Institute)
Fri 27th July, 14:00-15:45
Location: C301
The panel focuses on visions of India, understood as perceptions and
portrayals of different aspects of Indian social, economic, political and
artistic life. More specifically, the panel deals with representations of
Portuguese India as produced by external observers on the one hand, and
with representations of India produced by the Portuguese themselves.
The analysis of the converging and diverging visions of India serves the
purpose of discussing how images and perceptions have been shaped,
used and circulated, producing a stratified and complex narrative about
India. The panel’s overriding goal is to tackle the multiple models of
representation through which India has been perceived and depicted
during the Early Modern period.
Visions of Portuguese India in the Italian documentation of the 16th
century
Dr Nunziatella Alessandrini (Centro de História de além mar)
This paper aims to discuss ideas about and visions of India, more
specifically Portuguese India, as they were developed in the second
half of the 16th century, when Portugal was about to be subjected to the
Spanish rule. Its main goal is to see how Portuguese India was perceived
and portrayed in the Italian documentation (merchant letters, travel
accounts, and so forth) of the 16th century.
83
Portuguese India in the Florentine documentation of the second half
of the 17th century: economic and commercial aspects
Dr Antonella Viola (FCSH, UAç and Universidade Nova)
This paper aims at discussing the ways in which Portuguese India was
portrayed in the Florentine documentation of the second half of the 17th
century. The focus is on the economic and commercial conditions of
Portuguese India.
Thru art with art, the strategies of conversion thru native forms and
symbols.
Dr Mónica Esteves Reis
See, compare and adapt: the individuality of Indo-Portuguese retable
art begins with the missionaries understanding of the potential of
conversion thru art, and at the same time, local artisans begin the
introduction of non-liturgical representations, even though with the
same devotional connotation
Rhetoric or Reality? Perceptions of Corruption in Portuguese India
Dr Nandini Chaturvedula (FCSH-UNL)
This presentation will examine Portuguese perceptions of corruption
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in order to expose how the
Portuguese thought about corruption, what they viewed as corrupt,
what might have motivated accusations, and how they responded to the
challenges corruption posed.
Portuguese visions of the Sultanate of Mysore in second half of the
18th century.
Mr Hakim Ikhlef (European University Institute)
The paper deals with the relations between Portuguese India and the
Sultanate of Mysore under the rule of Haydar Ali and Tipu Sultan.
Its main goal is to analyse and discuss how the Portuguese saw and
perceived the rising power the Sultans of Mysore in the changing geopolitical context of 18th century India.
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P20
Bombay from the ashes: the creation and
emergence of city space, 1803-1920
Convenors: Dr Erica Wald (London School of Economics and
Political Science); Dr Anna Gust (Five Colleges, Massachusetts)
Fri 27th July, 16:15-18:00
Location: C405
In February 1803, a large fire tore through Bombay’s Fort and Black
Town, destroying much of what was the central town. The destruction
wrought by the fire offered British military and government officials
the opportunity to embark on an ambitious and complex campaign of
city planning. It enabled the authorities to re-conceptualise the city
space and, in so doing, to impose order and categorisation upon the
city’s diverse population. Thus, the fire began a long process of spatial
negotiation and conflict between different social groups ranging from
government, medical societies and mill owners. This panel will examine
the overlapping processes of (re)creating the city and explore the
complex, competing narratives of city space in Bombay over the long
nineteenth century.
“Public good” versus “private convenience”: colonial ideology and
city space
Dr Anna Gust (Five Colleges, Massachusetts)
Using petitions in the Town Committee reports, this paper explores the
ways in which ideologies of colonial space clashed with the demands
and practices of the local, Bombay population.
Gentlemen prefer hotels: hoteliering in colonial Bombay
Ms Simin Patel (University of Oxford)
This paper explores the geography and internal worlds of early hotels in
colonial Bombay. Run predominantly by Parsi proprietors and catering
to a European clientele, hotels promised the material comforts and
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respectability of an English home in the midst of the bustling urban
milieu of Bombay.
The antinomies of industrial relations: Bombay, 1881-1897
Dr Aditya Sarkar (Centre for Modern Indian Studies, University of
Goettingen)
This paper traces the transformation of industrial relations in the cotton
textile industry of late nineteenth-century Bombay, between the Factory
Act of 1881 and the global plague pandemic of the late 1890s.
P21
The republic of letters: the Islamicate world of
writing
Convenor: Dr Manan Ahmed (Free University Berlin)
Fri 27th July, 16:15-18:00
Location: C401
This panel will focus on the world of writing, including the arts and
practices of epistolary sciences in South and West Asia. The genre of
epistolary art, the training and careers of secretaries, the productions of
divans and compendiums which highlight the finest examples, provides
a key insight into the knowledge systems which propagated the political,
and the discursive, literary and cultural role played by “writing”. Works
on grammar, dictionaries, compendiums and collections of poets were
integral parts of forming a literary as well as political canon within
which advice manuals or conquest narratives could find equal footings.
The panelists will trace the developments in South Asia from the early
thirteenth century to Mughal period.
From circulation to publication in Mamluk correspondence
Mr Adam Talib (University of Oxford)
This paper examines how certain Mamluk litterateurs were able to
profit from their official roles as chancery secretaries by using the work
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ABSTRACTS
they produced in an official capacity to enhance their literary careers.
This was done through the ‘publication’ of their official and collegial
correspondence.
The flower of Arabic philology and its Persian fruit: Siraj al-din Ali
Khan Arzu’s (d.1756) appropriation in his ‘Musmir’ of Jalal al-din
al-Suyuti’s (d.1505) ‘Al-Muzhir’.
Dr Prashant Keshavmurthy (McGill University); Mr Islam Dayeh (Free
University Berlin)
We aim to explore the nature of and motivations for Siraj al-din Ali
Khan Arzu’s (d.1756) appropriations in his treatise on the Persian
language of Al-Suyuti’s (d.1505) treatise on Arabic.
P23
Yogis, sufis, devotees: religious/literary
encounters in pre-modern and modern South
Asia
Convenors: Prof Heidi Pauwels (University of Washington); Dr
Mauro Valdinoci (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia); Dr
Veronique Bouillier (CNRS France); Dr James Mallinson (Institute
of Classical Studies, Lavasa); Mr Mikko Viitamäki (University of
Helsinki - Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (EPHE))
Fri 27th July, 09:00-10:45, 11:15-13:00, 14:00-15:45
Location: C402
This panel seeks to investigate the confluence of ideas in modern and
pre-modern South Asia, by highlighting reports/depictions/imaginations
of encounters between holy men of all stripes, whether Sufi, Yogi,
Bhakta, Sikh, Buddhist, Siddha... We want to focus on the dynamics
of exchange/competition between them and the processes involved in
identity construction/affirmation. We welcome contributions from all
disciplines, whether religious studies, comparative literature, history, or
art...
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As for the core-contributors: Véronique Bouillier (EHESS, Paris)
will present on Nāths and Sufis encounters, Jim Mallinson (Oxford
University, UK) will discuss how from the 16th century onwards
sectarian affiliation became important and within a relatively amorphous
group of ascetics various orders coalesced, adopting organisational
structures, and philosophical and doctrinal principles, Heidi Pauwels (U.
of Washington, Seattle) will present on soirées of Bhaktas and Sufis in
the early eighteenth century, Mauro Valdinoci (University of Modena
and Reggio Emilia, Italy) will look at the views of a contemporary
Hyderabadi Sufi master concerning the dealings between various
religious traditions, and Mikko Viitamåki (Univ. Helsinki – Ecole
Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris) will discuss the controversial Nizami
Bansuri “translated” by Khvaja Hasan Nizami in the late 1940s.
Nâth and Sufis encounters
Dr Veronique Bouillier (CNRS France)
I shall focus on a short text recently published by the Nāth Yogis entitled
Mohammad Bodh and present it in the more general context of the Nāth
Yogīs’ encounters with Islam as seen from the Nāth side.
Unity and difference among medieval Indian ascetics
Dr James Mallinson (Institute of Classical Studies, Lavasa)
Indian ascetics are very similar in appearance and practice, despite a
variety of sectarian and doctrinal affiliations. This paper explains the
origins of their shared features and of their differentiation into different
sects in the late medieval period.
The formation of the identity of the Dasanami-Samnyasis
Dr Matthew Clark (SOAS (affiliate))
According to tradition, the Dasanami-Samnyasis were founded by
Sankaracarya. I have previously suggested that the identity of the sect
developed in several stages. This paper explores the extent to which
their identity was influenced by Sufi institutions and practices.
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Kabir’s banis in Mauritius: holy men and devotees
Dr Catherine Servan-Schreiber
In Mauritius, the habit of welcoming holy men coming from India in
order to give sermons, explain the Hindu ritual, give a lecture, or a
lead a religious ceremony, is quite usual. Craftsmen skilled in sculpture
or wooden carpentry are requested for the decoration of the newly
built temples. This paper will analyse the role played by the Varanasi
leaders of the Kabirpanth in the transmission of the message of Kabir in
Mauritius through musical medias, booklets or sermons.
The Niranjani connection: bhaktas, yogis, Sikhs and courts in early
modern Rajasthan
Mr Tyler Williams (Columbia University)
This paper explores how the Niranjani devotional community of 17th
and 18th-century Rajasthan, by embracing literacy, participated in
literary and intellectual exchange with nearby bhakti, yogi, and Sikh
communities as well as Rajput and Mughal courtly traditions.
Religious others redacted: the writings of and hagiographies about
Eknath
Dr Jon Keune (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen)
The compositions of the 16th-century Marathi poet Eknath portray a
wide variety of religious others, whereas the 18th-century hagiographies
about him depict a much narrower set. This discursive change indicates
a coalescing standard narrative about Marathi bhakti and its priorities
over time.
Soirées of bhaktas and Sufis in the early eighteenth century:
evidence from the pen of Savant Singh of Kishangarh
Prof Heidi Pauwels (University of Washington)
This paper will look at poetic dialogues and exchange of ideas in
eighteenth-century North India by studying the case of Savant Singh
of Kishangarh (1699-1764). The paper will present evidence of poetic
dialogues between what is now regarded as separate poetic traditions of
Braj Bhasha and Urdu.
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Encounters with the Guru
Dr Anne Murphy (University of British Columbia)
This paper will examine how the Sikh Guru is constructed as a “holy
man” or saintly figure, and how this construction--and the ways in
which devotees related to him--reveal the religious and cultural contact
zone that comprised the Guru’s community.
Archetypal Bhakti encounters
Prof Jack Hawley (Barnard College, Columbia University)
I will try to pull apart archetypal relationships and representative genres
that constitute the “encounter stories” aspect of the pan-Indian narrative
of the bhakti movement, asking whether they are specific with regard to
region, religion, social level, or epoch.
Encounters between Sufi saints and court musicians in the sultanate
and Mughal periods
Prof Françoise ‘Nalini’ Delvoye (EPHE (Ecole Pratique des Hautes
Etudes))
The paper will present a survey of representative examples of historical
and imaginary encounters between Sufi saints and court musicians
from the time of Shaikh Nizamuddin and Amir Khusrau (13th-14th c.)
onwards, as documented by Indo-Persian and vernacular chronicles,
hagiographies and song texts.
An [imaginary?] encounter of a Hindu prince with a Sufi master in
Khwaja Hasan Nizami’s Nizami Bansuri
Mr Mikko Viitamäki (University of Helsinki - Ecole Pratique des Hautes
Etudes (EPHE))
The paper discusses the encounter of the Hindu prince Hardev with
Nizamuddin Auliya’ in Nizami Bansuri, a text allegedly translated
from a single Persian manuscript by Khwaja Hasan Nizami (d. 1955).
I analyse the text as a means of instructing both Hindu and Muslim
disciples of the author.
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Encounters between Sufis and Yogis in the Sufi hagiography of the
Deccan: a preliminary analysis
Dr Mauro Valdinoci (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia)
By analyzing two narratives of encounters between Sufis and Yogis in
an anthology of Sufi saints’ lives of the 19th century, this paper aims to
explore how the author reproduces the dynamics of exchange between
these religious figures and how he views and portrays Yogis and their
spiritual powers.
Truth, exchange and rivalry: constructions of Prannath’s
seventeenth century encounter with the call to prayer
Dr Jacqueline Suthren Hirst (University of Manchester)
This paper will analyse the very varying constructions of Prannath’s
apparent aural encounter with the Islamic call to prayer in 1674, in
terms of truth claims, cultural exchange and rival identities, both
contemporary and modern.
The formation of the Bengali Sufi idiom and religious debates in
seventeenth-century eastern Bengal
Dr Thibaut Dhubert (University of Chicago)
This paper focuses on the dialogue between Islam, Nathism and
Vaishnavism in eastern Bengal in the 17th c. It provides a study of
Sufi treatises on yoga from Chittagong and relocates the doctrinal
standpoints of their authors in the contemporary debates on morals and
around the figure of Krishna.
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P24
Pakistan: state formation, identity politics, and
national contestation
Convenors: Prof Roger Long (Eastern Michigan University); Prof
Yunas Samad (University of Bradford)
Fri 27th July, 09:00-10:45, 11:15-13:00, 14:00-15:45
Location: C405
Pakistan has become one of the premier test cases for the analysis
of nation building and state/formation in post-colonial settings. In
particular, the last two decades have witnessed the development of
methodological innovations in the study of these issues which promise
new insights into the problematic affecting global politics. This panel
aims at gathering perspectives on the dynamics of the Pakistani nationstate — from its establishment to its current dealings with militarism,
terrorism, and internal-international crises — through the application
of such innovative and methodological approaches. The aim is to
develop comparative, historicist, and multidisciplinary nuanced views
on the role of identity politics in the development of Pakistan, and to
provide insights on the matrix of the contemporary processes of national
contestation that are crucially affected by their treatment in the world
media, and by the reactions they elicit within an increasingly globalised
polity.
Chair: Yunas Samad, Pippa Virdee, Gurharpal Singh
Violence and state formation in Pakistan
Prof Gurharpal Singh (SOAS)
This paper will examine the argument that violence was central to the
state formation process of Pakistan, and such is crucial to understanding
contemporary developments and the future evolution of Pakistan.
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Constructing a state: constitutional Integration of the princely
states in Pakistan, 1947-73
Dr Yaqoob Bangash (Forman Christian College)
This paper will trace the convoluted process of the constitutional
integration of the princely states, the principles behind such a process,
and the effects of such a policy on constructing a new nation-state and
identity.
Understanding the ‘persistently unstable’ nature of Pakistan’s
hybrid regime
Dr Mariam Mufti (University of Oklahoma)
This paper attempts to provide a theory for the continuous oscillation
between authoritarian and democratic tendencies in Pakistan’s hybrid
political regime by examining the recruitment and selection of the
political elite as a window into regime dynamics.
Women’s emancipation and identity formation in Pakistan
Dr Pippa Virdee (De Montfort University)
This paper will compare the position of women’s emancipation in the
formative years of the Pakistan state with contemporary developments.
Partition refugees’ agricultural resettlement in West Punjab:
changing balance of power in Pakistan
Dr Ilyas Chattha
This paper will explore the part that the exchange of population and
redistribution of ‘evacuee property’– the agricultural land abandoned by
departing Hindus and Sikhs during the mass migrations after Partition
– played in changing the balances of power in the Pakistan Punjab.
Path dependence and the persistence of landed power in Punjab
Mr Hassan Javid
This paper uses the concept of path dependence to explain the ability
of landowning elites in Punjab to reproduce their power over time,
focusing in particular on the mechanisms through which this is done.
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The paper also considers the potentialities for institutional change in
Punjab.
Pakistan’s religious others: reflections on the ‘minority’ discourse
on Christians
Dr Navtej Purewal (University of Manchester)
This paper will explore the significance of contemporary discourses
on religious minorities in Pakistan, drawing upon anecdotal and
ethnographic evidence from rural Punjab.
Sufism in Pakistan at the ideological crossroads
Alix Philippon
Since its inception, Pakistan has been the arena of a heated competition
around the ‘assets of salvation’ (Max Weber). Sufism, as the
contested ‘mystical’ aspect of faith, has naturally become part of the
ideologization of Islam and hence of the language of Muslim symbolic
politics. It emerges as a relevant symbol to analyze the never-ending
ideological debate on the identity of a country caught in controversial
political contexts.
Ethnicity and conflict in Baluchistan
Prof Yunas Samad (University of Bradford)
This paper will examine ethnic conflict in Baluchistan and evaluate
various perspectives that have been used to explain the present crisis.
Sindhi nationalism and identity politics in Pakistan
Dr Sarah Ansari (Royal Holloway, University of London)
Political life in Sindh since 1947 has witnessed the growth in support
for, often competing, so-called ethnic nationalisms. This paper looks at
identity politics in the context of Pakistan from the perspective of Sindhi
nationalism, considering legacies of the colonial past alongside the
changing realities of the post-independence decades.
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Rise of militancy in the Pakistani Barelwis: the case of Sunni Tehrik
Dr Mujeeb Ahmad (International Islamic University, Islamabad)
By and large, the Pakistani Barelwis are submissive in their religiopolitical behavior. However, ST-a relatively new religio-political
movement has some tendency towards militancy. In religious side they
are rivals of Deobandis and in political field its targets are the MQM and
Jama’at-i-Islami.
Ethnicity and politics in Pakistan: the case of Karachi
Prof Roger Long (Eastern Michigan University)
This paper will discuss the ethnic politics of Karachi examining the
various ethnic allegiances of political parties and the implications for
these on the politics and future of Pakistan.
P25
Mercantile spaces, networks, and mobility in
early modern South Asia
Convenor: Dr Alka Patel
Thu 26th July, 16:15-18:00
Location: C402
This panel explores various mercantile communities in South Asia,
including Gujaratis, Marwaris (princpally Jains and Hindus) and
“Eurasians,” along with their networks outside of their home regions,
many originating in Gujarat and Rajasthan. These papers will highlight
the importance of non-royal – not to be mistaken for non-elite
– actors in the circulation of capital, commodities, and ideas (such as
architectural traditions), emphasizing the significance of mercantile
history in the overall discourse on early modern South Asia. The
papers’ approaches will be varied and conducive to an interdisciplinary
dialogue, encompassing art and architectural history, history, literature,
and anthropology.
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Lalludas Diwan and the mercantile ethos of 18th century Gujarat
Dr Samira Sheikh (Vanderbilt University)
As Mughal authority waned in Gujarat, the East India Company and
the Gaekwads shared power. The paper traces how Gujarat’s mercantile
culture was shaped by former Mughal revenue officials through the
story of the entrepreneurial Lalludas Dayaldas, a minister of the Nawab
of Bharuch.
Visualizing Udaipur as a charismatic landscape: circulating people,
objects, and ideas in 18th and 19th century India
Ms Dipti Khera (Columbia University)
This paper explores urban imaginings of Rajasthan’s towns and cities,
particularly Udaipur, visualized by artists and poets in Jain painted
invitation letters and poems for mercantile and religious communities in
the context of changing territoriality in early modern and early colonial
India.
Mercantile spaces, networks, and mobility in early modern South
Asia
Dr Karen Leonard (UC Irvine)
Entitled “Hyderabad’s Palmer and Company Revisited,” the paper
argues that, rather than being infamous interlopers in Hyderabad’s
affairs, the members of this Eurasian-Gujarati banking firm were crucial
indigenous participants in the state’s tumultuous early ninettenth-century
politics.
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P26
The politicization of emotions in South Asia
Convenor: Ms Amélie Blom (Institut d’études de l’Islam et des
Sociétés du Monde Musulman (IISMM-EHESS))
Thu 26th July, 16:15-18:00
Location: C407
Emotions have become a “hot topic” in the study of politics and
societies. They shed a new light on classic questions related to political
regimes, political participation, activism and mobilization. This renewed
interest has somehow left unexplored the distinct, yet similar, role of
emotions in non-Western political spheres. South Asian states offer
in this regard a perfect, but much overlooked, site of observation.
This panel aims at studying, in an interdisciplinary and comparative
perspective, those mechanisms that make private emotions become
public in South Asia. How are political problems requalified (or
disqualified) as being a matter of legitimate (or illegitimate) emotions?
Papers may focus on four distinct, but closely related, themes: (1) the
historical evolution of the norms and rules governing political emotions;
(2) the interdependency between individual emotions (positive and
negative), judgmental processes (allocating blame for instance) and
political activism; (3) the “emotional-institutional contexts” regulating
the public expression of emotions, and even making some of them
“obligatory emotions”; (4) the properties of the language of emotions in
South Asian politics.
Chair: Martin Aranguren
Discussant: Martin Aranguren
A community of the virtuous: emotions and the moral foundation
of Khwaja Hasan Nizami’s and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s
visions of the Indian nation
Ms Maritta Schleyer (Max Planck Institute for Human Development)
The paper explores visions of the political and religious self as a
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reformed moral community – with a set of emotions and virtues at
the core of its identity – of the Delhi based Sufi shaikh, author and
Muslim activist Khwaja Hasan Nizami (1878-1955) in the context of the
contemporary Gandhian movement.
Fun and political mobilization in India
Dr Stéphanie Tawa Lama-Rewal (CEIAS (Centre for South Asian
Studies, Paris))
On the basis of a series of films on public hearings conducted in Delhi
in the past few years, this paper will attempt to analyse the various uses
made of the festive elements of the Indian repertoire of collective action.
It will also reflect on the methodological issues attached with that type
of analysis, and that type of material.
“Talking emotions”: exploring young born-again Muslims’
narratives in Bangalore and Lahore
Ms Amélie Blom (Institut d’études de l’Islam et des Sociétés du Monde
Musulman (IISMM-EHESS)); Dr Aminah Mohammad-Arif (CEIAS
(CNRS-EHESS))
The interlinkage between re-Islamization and the emotional expressions
and norms that appears in the narratives of young “born-again Muslims”
from Bangalore and Lahore shows that emotions said to be felt and
to have to be felt partake in the political delimitation of a “Muslim
community”.
Maternal desire and the origin of political order in a South Indian
village
Prof Charles Nuckolls (Brigham Young University)
A south Indian myth traces the development of the political order to
matricide, and to the suppression of maternal desire.
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e-paper: Sectarian emotions vs. religious politics: Pakistan’s Islamic
parties and the Defence of Pakistan Council
Dr Dietrich Reetz (Zentrum Moderner Orient)
The Difa-e-Pakistan Council (DPC), a group of 40 religious and
conservative groups founded in November 2011, with an aggressive
anti-American and anti-Indian agenda, offers an insight into the ways
how sectarian emotions are being used and controlled for political and
strategic gains. The paper will examine the type of emotions the Council
is appealing to and the ways they intersect with political calculations.
P27
Technologies, industries, practices: examining
the soundscape of Indian films
Convenors: Dr Madhuja Mukherjee (Jadavpur University); Dr
Carlo Nardi (University of Northampton)
Fri 27th July, 16:15-18:00
Location: C408
Writings on the sound in Indian cinema have by and large dealt with the
social history of the music industry, circulation of music, structures of
compositions etc. Regula Qureshi (1986), and Bhaskar Chandavarkar,
Ashok Ranade (1980) et al, have done considerable work on Hindi film
music. In addition to this, Peter Manuel (1993), more recently Gregory
Booth (2008), Sangita Gopal and Sujata Moorti (2008), and others
have written about the industrial meaning and reception of film music.
Moreover, Anna Morcom (2007), largely borrowing from Alison Arnold
(1988) writes about the structures of film music. However, what remain
somewhat unaddressed within this context are the thorough evaluation
of sound cultures and the histories of Indian film music.
While the ‘Journal of Moving Image’ (2007) addressed the question
of cultures and practices of sound in India, this panel invites papers,
which tackle various aspects of sound in cinema, examine issues of
technologies, its multifaceted history, the major breakthroughs in the
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Indian context, its connections with the mass media (like Radio or even
gramophone), as well as the deployment of sound in narrative cinemas,
popular perceptions and memory of sound and music. Beyond the
analysis of ‘song and dance’ in films, this panel includes papers that
study sound and music from diverse linguistic and industrial contexts
as well as their varied modes of reception in India and outside. Papers
that present primary research to problematize existing histories shall be
encouraged.
Unsound sound: a brief history of Indian talkies in the 1930s
Mr Joppan George (Princeton University)
This paper on early sound cinema in India brings together
advertisements for film and film equipment, and various contemporary
editorials and essays from film periodicals. It uses these materials to
sketch key conflicts and discourses that surrounded the emergence of
the talkies in India.
Soundscape, soundmarks, musical trajectories: the architecture of
sound and music in popular Hindi cinemas
Dr Madhuja Mukherjee (Jadavpur University)
This paper studies the soundtrack of Hindi popular films between 1930s
and 1960s. Moreover, it deals with film music’s connections with the
gramophone industry and it’s the mass acceptance with the intervention
of radio. Furthermore, I discuss the shifts in the patterns of consumption
during 1970s and 1980s. Briefly, I produce morphology of film music.
(Can we) do it like this? Politics and the sounds of a convivial ‘desi’
London space
Dr Helen Kim
This paper explores the relationship between ‘desi’ urban music and the
possibilities of making of a political, convivial space for Asian cultural
production in London. More broadly, it asks whether popular music can
still provide critique or ‘resistance’ to a dominant way of thinking or
being and even whether that is still a relevant or right question to ask.
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Film sound and the negotiation of moral boundaries
Dr Carlo Nardi (University of Northampton)
Indian popular cinema often reflects concerns for the moral boundaries,
narrativizing situations of deviance and simulating either their
sanctioning or their acceptance. This paper is aimed at analysing the role
of music and sound in the cultural negotiation of deviance.
P28
The (im)morality of everyday life in South
Asia
Convenors: Dr Filippo Osella (School of Social Sciences and
Cultural Studies); Dr Geert De Neve (Sussex University)
Sat 28th July, 09:00-10:45, 11:15-13:00
Location: C405
In this panel we explore sites, debates and practices through which
moral and ethical dispositions in South Asia are produced, debated,
cultivated or subverted in actual engagements between social actors.
We are also interested in investigating how people navigate through
complex, contradictory and fragmented moral/ethical orientations,
negotiating between the latter and the contingencies of everyday life.
The panel will address practices and debates emerging in a variety of
contexts such as, for instance, those concerning sexuality and kinship,
labour and entrepreneurship, education and consumption, public
and political life, youth cultures and relations between generations,
community and religion.
Of untold riches and unruly homes: Neoliberalism, property and
morality in middle-class Calcutta families
Dr Henrike Donner (Oxford Brookes University)
The paper discusses how ‘property’ becomes a focus of the reordering of
social relationships under conditions of neoliberlism
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Migration and the immorality of everyday life
Dr Filippo Osella (School of Social Sciences and Cultural Studies)
Based on ethnographic data collected over twenty years in rural and
urban Kerala, as well as in a number of Gulf countries, the paper
focuses on the affective and intimate lives of migrants and how these are
represented and discussed in both Kerala and the Gulf.
Money, marriage and morality: moral evaluations of love marriages
in a South Indian industrial town
Dr Geert De Neve (Sussex University)
Based on ethnographic research in Tiruppur, a booming garment
centre in Tamil Nadu, this paper explores contemporary practices and
discourses of love marriages. It analyses moral discourses that surround
such marriages and considers ‘money’ as a key trope through which
moral evaluations are made.
Justice beyond Law - eroticism, morality and the juridical register
in India
Dr Akshay Khanna (Institute of Development Studies)
This paper argues that the concept of ‘Constitutional Morality’
articulated by the Delhi High Court while decriminalising
homosexuality in India is a transcendent unsignificable (Lacanian) Real
that places the ‘moral’ at the centre of negotiations of sexual citizenship
in the juridical register.
Greed and scarcity in the Pakistani Punjab
Dr Nicolas Martin (London School of Economics and Political Science)
Pakistani Punjabis blame their fellow Muslims’ immorality, and lack of
adherence to ‘true’ Islam, for all the social evils and natural disasters
afflicting Pakistan and the broader Muslim world. It is said that things
and people lack the fertility/vitality (barkat) that they once possessed
when people were less selfish (khudgarz) and remembered God. But
now food is no longer nutritious and people are small and weak. My
paper explores the relationship between this discourse and the decline
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of local community ties resulting from elite withdrawal, the decline of
village crafts and the growth of a rural footloose proletariat. It explores
how Sufi pirs and their followers try to regain access to God’s power
and bounty, and to recreate communities based on trust.
“Asceticizing” and “ethicalizing” everyday peasant life: the case of
the Rajavamshis of Bengal, ca 1910-2010
Mr Milinda Banerjee (Heidelberg University, Germany)
In order to interrogate the relevance of self-transforming regimes of
morality in ‘modern’ life, the paper focuses on the Rajavamshi peasants
of Bengal. Codes of Kshatriyaizing ethics produced by peasant elites are
analyzed, along with the subsequent ambivalent response of lower-class
peasants.
“Schooling with a difference”: an ethnography of Indian citizenship
in an urban Kerala private school
Mr David Sancho (University of Sussex)
The paper shows how a reputed middle class school in a South Indian
city conveys highly contradictory ideas about the meaning of being a
modern Indian citizen in the global era
Being the change that you want to see in the world? The practice of
anti-corruption activism in India
Dr Martin Webb (University of Sussex)
This paper will explore the ways that anti-corruption activism, which
aims to discipline the state and inculcate bureaucratic ethics in officials,
itself works through informal relationships and connections to political,
bureaucratic and media power. Drawing on ethnography of the lives and
practices of anti-corruption activists I will consider the extent to which
the organisation of anti-corruption activism prefigures the changes that
activists want to see in the world, and how the conceptual boundaries
between state, market and civil society that activists would police are
actually penetrated and blurred by activist practice.
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P29
Courtesans in South India: towards a
revisionist cultural history
Convenors: Prof Davesh Soneji (McGill University); Dr Tiziana
Leucci (EHESS-CNRS, Paris)
Fri 27th July, 16:15-18:00
Location: C301
The English term “courtesan” is most often used in the South Asian
context to refer to professional female musicians and dancers from
North India, known as tawa’ifs and baijis. By contrast, parallel figures
from South India have been glossed by the term devadasi and as such,
have been fossilized under the archaic sign of “temple women.” This
panel opens up the idea of “courtesan cultures” in South India by
focusing on the non-religious lives of such women and examining their
substantial and sometimes agentive roles in the production of modern
Tamil literature, popular South Indian theatre and cinema, dance, and
music. Indira Peterson examines representations of the courtesan in the
little-known Tamil literary genre of Viralivitututu. She focuses on the
ways in which the genre foregrounds an image of the courtesan as artist
and as the object of patronage by Brahmin elites in the Tamil-speaking
regions. The paper by Joep Bor explores European constructions
of South Indian “bayadères” through travel writing and other texts,
and also discusses the visit of devadasis from Tiruvahindrapuram to
Europe in 1838. The papers by Tiziana Leucci and Saskia Kersenboom
interrogate indigenous articulations of “courtesan culture” from a range
of textual and ethnographic sources. Davesh Soneji discusses the place
of aesthetics, memory, and autobiographical telling in his fieldwork with
contemporary women from the Telugu kalavantula courtesan community
of coastal Andhra Pradesh.
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‘Courtly culture’: some thoughts on the dharma of South Indian
courtesans
Dr Tiziana Leucci (EHESS-CNRS, Paris)
The purpose of this paper is to ponder about the specific precepts of the
Indian courtesan’s dharma as referred to in some literary and epigraphic
texts.
Ganika: glorifying the public
Dr Saskia Kersenboom (University Of Amsterdam)
The public (‘gana’) as a female, professional domain in contrast to
private purity of lineage was disrupted by (post-)colonial modernity.
Courtesans -both sacred and secular- were the first to suffer
marginalization. in spite of new, global validations, contemporary India
has not provided new vitality neither to past courtesans nor to new
professionalism in the performing arts.
The Courtesan’s life as Art in the Viralivitututu, an 18th-century
Tamil literary genre
Prof Indira Peterson (Mount Holyoke College)
The 18th-century Tamil Viralivitututu genre counters the stereotype
of dasi courtesans as avaricious prostitutes or spiritualized figures.
Through its unique descriptive language and themes, and the courtesan’s
pairing with the brahman as connoisseur, the genre celebrates the
courtesan as artist, and her lifestyle (in the erotic and the performing
arts) as art.
Performing untenable pasts: aesthetics and selfhood in kalavantula
communities of coastal Andhra
Prof Davesh Soneji (McGill University)
This paper investigates the present lives of former Telugu-speaking
courtesans. While “courtesan dance” is understood as aesthetically
deprived by urban elites, the dance survives within their households and
this mnemonic mode is central to self-understandings in the present.
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P30
Village restudies in South Asia
Convenors: Prof Patricia Jeffery (University of Edinburgh); Dr
Edward Simpson (SOAS)
Thu 26th July, 09:00-10:45, 11:15-13:00
Location: C406
Social scientists have increasingly focused on the important social,
economic and political developments in the fast-growing urban and
metropolitan centres of South Asia. Yet around 70% of South Asia’s
population still lives in villages which have themselves been deeply
affected by such developments: villagers are bound into the wider
economy through labour migration, are exposed to new ideas about the
good life and can obtain a greater range of consumer goods. In recent
years, some scholars have returned to villages that they or others had
previously studied through intensive fieldwork to assess how these
wider developments play out at the local level.
Such ‘restudies’ offer fascinating insights into the nature and direction of
social and economic change but they also raise complex methodological
and ethical issues. How best can we analyse comparison over time?
How can we measure and conceptualise change? What should we do
about issues that are crucial nowadays but on which little or no data
were collected during earlier research? How should we address the
ethical challenges of handling data from a bygone age (sometimes
collected by another scholar) that run the danger of breaching the
confidences of earlier informants? We invite contributions from scholars
who have tackled challenges such as these. This panel arises from the
research project “Rural change and Anthropological Knowledge in postcolonial India: A Comparative ‘restudy’ of F.G. Bailey, Adrian C. Mayer
and David F. Pocock” and will be a round-table discussion rather than
entailing the formal presentation of papers. In this Roundtable Session
several well-known scholars will consider ‘village restudies’ in South
Asia. Participants will include Richard Axelby, Jan Breman, Chris
Fuller, John Harriss, Zoe Headley, Jonathan Parry, Adrian Mayer, David
Mosse and Gerry Rodgers.
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Such ‘restudies’ offer fascinating insights into the nature and
direction of social and economic change but they also raise complex
methodological and ethical issues. How best can we analyse comparison
over time? How can we measure and conceptualise change? What
should we do about issues that are crucial nowadays but on which
little or no data were collected during earlier research? How should
we address the ethical challenges of handling data from a bygone
age (sometimes collected by another scholar) that run the danger of
breaching the confidences of earlier informants?
This panel arises from the research project “Rural change and
Anthropological Knowledge in post-colonial India: A Comparative
‘restudy’ of F.G. Bailey, Adrian C. Mayer and David F. Pocock” and will
be a round-table discussion rather than entailing the formal presentation
of papers. In this Roundtable Session several well-known scholars will
consider ‘village restudies’ in South Asia. Participants will include
Richard Axelby, Jan Breman, Chris Fuller, John Harriss, Zoe Headley,
Jonathan Parry, Adrian Mayer, David Mosse and Gerry Rodgers.
P31
Disability in South Asia: an emerging
discourse
Convenor: Dr Nidhi Singal (University of Cambridge)
Sat 28th July, 09:00-10:45, 11:15-13:00
Location: B202
Exclusion of disabled people and their concerns from mainstream
society, policies and academic engagement has been a dominant
feature in South Asia. In such a scenario, global discourses on
disability have anchored themselves in the Northern context, with
little acknowledgement of the lived realities – historical, socio-cultural
and economic – of people with disabilities in South Asia. This panel
provides a unique opportunity to bring together researchers working
with this significant minority in South Asia. Discussions will focus
on the different cultural interpretations of disability, the economics of
disability, and the participation of people with disabilities in education
and development.
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The South Asian disability experience and the social model within
the context of globalization: implications for policy and practice
Dr Shridevi Rao (The College of New Jersey)
This presentation examines the strengths and limitations of the social
model for capturing the disability experience within the South Asian
context and the ways in which insights on the South Asian experience of
disability could inform, enrich, and expand the social model.
Changing perspectives of disability in India’s transition towards
globalization: implications for educational policy and practice for
children with disabilities
Prof Maya Kalyanpur (Ministry of Education)
This paper argues that the legacy of colonialism and India’s current
transitional status towards globalization have combined to create
structural inequities concurrent with changes in child rearing practices
and attitudes towards disability, resulting in a disconnect between
policy and practice in perceptions of disability and the educational
needs of children with disability. It also examines the implications for
India as an emerging leader in the current global arena of South-South
collaboration.
Hybridizing idioms: interrogating the shifting interpretations of
disabilty in a north Indian biomedical setting
Dr Serena Bindi (Université Paris 5 Descartes)
Based on some case studies, this paper highlight the complex dynamics
by which, in a north Indian biomedical setting, people come to integrate
different idioms and paradigms in the interpretation for their child’s
disability.
“He is intelligent but different”: Stakeholders’ perspectives on
children on the autism spectrum in an urban Indian school context
Ms Shruti Taneja Johansson (University of Gothenburg)
This presentation explores awareness and perspectives amongst head
teachers, teachers, special educators, counsellors, parents and private
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specialists, about children with the disability autism in mainstream
educational settings in urban India.
Evolving understandings of disability: reconciling concept, culture
and context
Dr Nidhi Singal (University of Cambridge)
P32
Marriage in South Asia: practices and
transformations
Convenors: Dr Anna Lindberg (Lund University); Prof Rajni
Palriwala (University of Delhi); Prof Ravinder Kaur (Indian
Institute of Technology Delhi)
Thu 26th July, 09:00-10:45, 11:15-13:00, 14:00-15:45
Location: C405
The panel welcomes researchers who study varied aspects of the
institution of marriage and its implications for gender relations in South
Asia. Papers may address issues such as age at marriage, religious
concerns, caste relations, attitudes toward love, marriage payments and
the transfer of wealth, marriage and mobility, legal and state interfaces.
The panel will also discuss theoretical concerns that arise due to the
variety of marriage practices in the region during the late colonial, postindependence and contemporary periods.
The session will be organised as a Round Table discussion. Participants
are urged to send their papers to the organisers who will then extract
certain key issues that concern all papers. This will allow us to include
several papers and to have a comparative approach on theoretical
questions.
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Marriage in early twentieth century Northern India: Hindi
literature vis-à-vis social transformations
Mrs Justyna Wiśniewska-Singh (University of Warsaw)
This paper explores how a changing social situation in the late
colonial northern India influenced issues related to marriage. The most
controversial matters were: proper age at marriage, ritual concerns,
marriage expenses as well as side effects of child marriages and
immature widow problem.
Dowry in Kerala: from women’s wealth to women’s marriage fee
Dr Anna Lindberg (Lund University)
Marriage payment from the family of brides to bridegrooms is a severe
gender related problem in contemporary India. This paper discusses
people’s own explanations for the shift from “women’s wealth” to
“women’s marriage fee” in Kerala over the past 70 years.
Who Do You Love? Premarital and marital choices in rural
Pakistan-administered Kashmir
Mr Miguel Loureiro (Lahore University of Management Sciences /
University of Sussex)
This paper analyses the continuing changes in attitudes towards love
before and during marriage in rural Pakistan-administered Kashmir. It
looks in particular at how male migration to the Gulf and the aftermath
of the 2005 earthquake played a role in redefining premarital and marital
choices.
The answer to our prayers? The possibilities and limits of the
nikahnama as a means to protecting Muslim women’s rights in
South Asia
Dr Nida Kirmani (Lahore University of Management Sciences)
Muslim women’s rights activists in India and Pakistan frequently face
opposition on religious grounds particularly with relation to marriage
and personal laws. This has led activists to strategically engage with
religious discourses and actors in order to secure women’s rights.
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This paper will explore the effectiveness of using ‘woman-friendly’
nikahnamas (Muslim marriage contracts) as a means of securing
women’s rights without offending religious sensibilities in India and
Pakistan. Drawing on primary research, this paper will question how far
this approach can go in challenging entrenched patriarchal structures of
power.
I like love marriage but I will go for arranged marriage’: Exploring
the changing dynamics of love, sex and marriage in the lives of
young Dalit women in India
Ms Juhi Sidharth (University of Cambridge)
This paper is chiefly concerned with the processes through which 16-22
year old Dalit women make choices related to love, sex and marriage
in the context of the liberalization of sexual culture in urban India. It
draws upon data collected through in-depth interviews, focus group
discussions and observation for my doctoral research.
The Indian online matrimonial market: changing patterns of
marriage matchmaking
Mrs Fritzi-Marie Titzmann (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin)
The proposed paper looks into the diverse forms of engaging with online
matrimonial media in India. An analysis of the matrimonial profiles
offers a remarkable insight into the changing concepts of marriage, love
and gender roles and challenges the dichotomy of arranged versus love
marriage.
Institutional continuities, changing dynamics? Marriage in
contemporary South Asia
Prof Ravinder Kaur (Indian Institute of Technology Delhi); Prof Rajni
Palriwala (University of Delhi)
This paper explores the shifts and continuities that characterize marriage
in a globalizing South Asia, a context marked by changing economies,
demographics, dislocating politics, and new imaginings of love,
conjugality, and gender relations.
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P33
Law and religion in practice in South Asia
Convenors: Dr Justin Jones (University of Exeter); Dr Nandini
Chatterjee (University of Plymouth)
Thu 26th July, 16:15-18:00
Location: C301
This panel seeks to interrogate the interactions of law, whether defined
in terms of state legal principles or normative legal practice, and the
management and experience of ‘religion’ in South Asia. Building on
a wide body of literature which has examined how forms of legal
adjudication and religious identities were profoundly transformed by
their mutual encounter, this panel invites discussions of such subjects
as the administration of religious personal laws, state management of
religious institutions, court interventions into ‘religious’ questions, or
the centrality of legal autonomy in the making of religious community
identities. This panel aims to bring together papers on colonial India and
postcolonial South Asia in comparative perspective, as well as linking
studies of South Asia’s multiple religious communities and their various
interactions with law.
Cultural expertise and social vision: Justice Amir Ali’s
interpretation of Indian tradition
Dr Nandini Chatterjee (University of Plymouth)
This paper examines the judicial career of the first Indian and first
Muslim judge to sit on the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the
final court of the British empire. It explores Justice Amir Ali’s social
vision, especially his placing of Islam in modern society, and does so by
connecting his better known philosophical, historical and legal writings
with his reasoning in legal judgments.
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“Mohammadan Revealed Law” and “Mohammadan Common
Law”: law, religion and political reform in late 19th century India
through the eyes of Chiragh Ali
Dr Carimo Mohomed (Universidade Nova de Lisboa)
The aim of this paper is to analyse Chiragh ‘Ali’s political and legal
thought, especially his work “The proposed political, legal, and
social reforms in the Ottoman empire and other Mohammadan states”
(Bombay: Education Society Press, 1883).
Of courts and codes: Islamic legal pluralism and the question of
authority in colonial India
Dr Justin Jones (University of Exeter)
Focusing on Anglo-Muhammadan Law, this paper examines the
interactions between ‘traditional’ Muslim scholars and the legal system
in colonial India. It claims that, rather than the two existing in isolation,
the ‘ulama began to interact with many institutions, and assumptions, of
colonial adjudication.
Dancing with skulls: the Tandava case and its repercussions on a
contemporary Hindu sect
Dr Raphaël Voix (Center for South Asian Studies)
Through an ethnographical analysis of the “Tandava Case”, this paper
questions the way legal adjudication affected Ananda Marga’s own
religious identity and contributed to its institutionalization after its
founder’s death.
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P34
The partisan manufacture of citizens in India
Convenor: Dr Nicolas Jaoul (CNRS)
Fri 27th July, 14:00-15:45, 16:15-18:00
Location: C104
The panel will discuss the way notions of citizenship informs the
formation of political subjectivities in India. Contrary to the widespread
assumption that the production of citizens is a monopoly of the State,
the task of training and disciplining citizens has been appropriated by
social and political organizations. Whether secular or communal; ethnic,
caste, class or gendered based; banned or legal; separatist or not, the
ideological and physical training that organizations provide to their
recruits, often conveys notions of citizenship.
What do these ideological discourses and practices of citizenship tell
us about the way political subjectivities are crafted? Does the political
subject that political organizations seek to produce mimic the virtues of
the ideal subject promoted by the state? Or do these redefinitions carry
alternative political models?
What are the social uses of citizenship? Does it provide symbolic
resources to political minorities seeking legitimacy? Does it help
subaltern groups and categories to contest prevailing hierarchies? Is
the democratization of political participation able to challenge socially
prevalent (even if non official) prerequisites of citizenship in terms of
age, gender, class, community, etc?
The panel welcomes historical as well as contemporary case studies
on a wide range of political and social movements across India and the
“diasporas”. Proposals should deal with these organization’s ideas on/
practices of political participation, and/or emphasize on the practical
manners of carving political subjectivities in terms of pedagogy,
narratives, biographies, bodily techniques and material objects (uses of
flags, dresses and uniforms, monuments, printed materials, etc).
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Bringing up citizens: education and identity amongst partition’s
orphans
Dr Uditi Sen (Hampshire College)
Through the reminiscences of the ex-students of Abhedananda Boy’s
Home, West Bengal, this paper explores the comparative role played by
state-sponsored secular training and socio-cultural reform movements in
inculcating ideas of citizenship amongst orphan refugee boys.
Caste sovereignties: who is entitled to govern?
Dr Lucia Michelutti (University College London)
I propose divine kinship as a central vernacular idiom through which to
analyse the complex interplay between citizenship, popular sovereignty
and Indian ‘patronage democracy’.
Making citizens, forging states: political subjectivities among rural
poor in Eastern India
Dr Indrajit Roy (St Antony’s College, University of Oxford)
This paper argues that political subjectivities are fostered by institutional
as well as extra-institutional forces. In turn, these subjectivies shape
how institutions are imagined and constructed.
“Harijan Sandesh”: finding one’s way to citizenship
Dr Nicolas Jaoul (CNRS)
This study of the organization of a Dalit (“sweeper”) community in
the two decades after independence, discusses the manner in which the
paternalistic notion of the “Harijan” subject was questioned critically
and contested practically, as a claim to political agency and universal
citizenship.
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Urban subalterns and the political thought of emancipation
Dr Anupama Rao (Barnard College, Columbia University)
This paper will address how caste-class perspectives challenged ideas of
liberal democracy in late colonial and postcolonial Bombay.
Shaping caste and citizenship in “shining” India: effects of the Dalit
struggle’s global turn
Dr Luisa Steur (University of Copenhagen/SOAS)
This paper seeks to explore how its turn toward transnational advocacy
networks, commencing in preparation of the 2001 World Conference
Against Racism in Durban, affected political dialectics within the Dalit
struggle and in particular the form of its engagement with the nature of
citizenship.
The tensions over liberal citizenship in a Marxist revolutionary
situation: the Maoists in India
Dr Alpa Shah (Goldsmiths College, University of London)
This paper analyses the limitations of various concepts of citizenship
deployed in explanations of the spread of the Maoist insurgency in
India, and critically analyses the relationship between the individual and
the state underpinning Maoist tactics.
P35
Imagining Bangladesh and its 40 years
Convenors: Dr José Mapril (CRIA-IUL); Dr Manpreet Janeja
(University of Copenhagen/Cambridge); Dr Benjamin Zeitlyn
(University of Sussex)
Wed 25th July, 14:00-15:45, 16:15-18:00
Location: C407
This panel inquires into the ways in which Bangladesh is imagined in
contemporary research and popular discourses. It examines what their
implications might be for the study of Bangladesh today. Bangladesh
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studies comprise a wide diversity of fields, with exciting new work
emerging across a range of disciplinary, theoretical and methodological
boundaries. Bangladesh is imagined through a range of frameworks,
such as medical discourses, visual formats, developmental approaches,
aesthetic frames, political perspectives, material cultures, affective
tropes, migrant and transnational imaginaries, and literary frameworks.
This panel endeavours to bring together original and innovative research
in the field of Bangladesh studies that critically investigates some of the
frames by which Bangladesh is imagined, at home and abroad. Inviting
papers that imaginatively approach the study of Bangladesh, we aim to
create a cross-disciplinary debate about research themes, agendas, and
methods in the contemporary study of Bangladesh.
Urban development in Bangladesh: The spatial planning
perspective
Mr Md. Mokhlesur Rahman (The University of Hong Kong); Mrs
Shammi Akter Satu (The University of Hong Kong)
Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated
cities in the world. This paper explores the changing patterns of Dhaka
in terms of area and population density and the major causes and
consequences of this development pattern.
Desh Bidesh Revisited
Dr Benjamin Zeitlyn (University of Sussex)
In this paper I propose that in the years since Gardner’s (1993) research,
the nature of British Bangladeshi communities and connections
and transnationalism itself has changed. This is due to advances in
technology and the emergence of a distinctly British Bangladeshi social
field and habitus.
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“Were we born here to suffer?” Constructing notions of belonging
and disengagement in Bangladesh
Dr Ellen Bal (VU University Amsterdam)
This paper addresses the cultural construction of migration aspirations
among educated youth in Dhaka. It shows how the failure of the state,
political leadership and fellow citizens to provide human security causes
them to disengage with the nation-state and to aspire migration.
A Shaheed Minar in Lisbon: national imaginaries, objects and the
transnational person
Dr José Mapril (CRIA-IUL)
This paper relates the agency of objects, the distributed person and the
transnational experience. Through an ethnography of the construction
of a replica of the Shaheed Minar in central Lisbon, the argument is that
this sculpture remakes nationalist imaginaries and social ties, at home
and abroad.
Food and ownership in imagining Bangladesh
Dr Manpreet Janeja (University of Copenhagen/Cambridge)
This paper focuses on the role of relations of ownership as belonging
generated by food that are recognized/disputed, and appropriated as
rights of possession, in imagining Bangladesh.
The South Asian Institute of Photography and the “independent”
imagination of Bangladesh
Ms Fabiene Gama (UFRJ / EHESS)
This paper aims to explore the representations built by Pathshala’s
photographers. Through analyses of their photos and discourses I’ll
reflect on how these photographers are imagining their country and with
whom they are seeking dialogue to build their own representation of
Bangladesh.
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P36
Language death and language preservation in
South Asia
Convenor: Dr Hugo Cardoso (Universidade de Coimbra)
Wed 25th July, 14:00-15:45, 16:15-18:00
Location: C405
Although historically South Asia has been among the richest linguistic
ecologies in the world, as well as a hotbed of multilingualism and
contact, recent reports clarify that obsolescence and death are now
conspicuous in the region. Endowed with more knowledge than ever
before, South Asian nations now face the challenge and opportunity
to tackle the problem more effectively than other countries have in the
past. In this respect, we will attempt to ascertain whether the threat to
South Asia’s linguistic diversity can be quantified, what the root causes
are, and also analyse how the topic has been addressed in the South
Asian media/education or what reactions it has elicited from policymakers and members of the society at large. Despite the global reach
of the problem, there is no assurance that scenarios which have been
identified elsewhere apply in every region of the planet; therefore, we
are also interested in finding out if there is any specificity or recurrent
risk factors in the South Asian context, so as to develop better-suited
solutions.
Script as a preserver of languages in South Asia?
Ms Carmen Brandt (Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg)
South Asia is not only rich in languages, but also in scripts. While most
scripts have been continuously in use for centuries or even millennia,
others were introduced only in the 20th century. This paper will discuss
how scripts intentionally and unintentionally function(ed) as agents of
demarcating and preserving languages.
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Majority language death
Dr Liudmila Khokhlova (Institute of Asian and African Studies, Moscow
State University)
The aim of the paper is to analyse historical, economic, political and
cultural reasons for the death of Punjabi – the majority language of
Pakistan – as tools of expressing intellectual demands of the speakers
and of preserving cultural traditions of the society.
Diversity, convergence and modernity in Sri Lanka: a retrospective
Dr Umberto Ansaldo (The University of Hong Kong); Dr Lisa Lim (The
University of Hong Kong)
This paper looks at marginalized communities of Sri Lanka and
discusses the factors behind their present linguistic conditions. We
review the discourse of endangerment behind Sri Lanka Malay and
Batticaloa Portuguese, and discuss the various forces that influence
them.
Death by other means: neo-vernacularization of South Asian
languages
Dr E Annamalai (Universitiy of Chicago)
Language endangerment of South Asian languages with long history and
big population is about reducing their functionality and restricting their
use to in-group communications and for cultural and political identity.
For smaller minority languages and tribal languages, it is their speakers
shifting to dominant languages. Both developments are encouraged by
the economic and political changes from feudal to capitalistic in the
post-colonial period.
The demise of Indo-Portuguese in South India
Dr Hugo Cardoso (Universidade de Coimbra)
Indo-Portuguese, the generic term to denote the Portuguese-lexified
creoles of South Asia, has a long and important history in India and
Sri Lanka, and subsists in some locations with variable degrees of
vitality. In this talk, we will zoom in on South India, where the rise and
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fall of Indo-Portuguese were particularly dramatic – from extremely
widespread up to the late 19th-century to extinct (with a single known
exception) nowadays.
Language maintenance and loss in North East India
Dr Stephen Morey (La Trobe University)
Comparing languages of the Tai and Tibeto-Burman language family,
this paper will study the effect of writing systems, orthography linguistic
ecology and language history on the maintenance of minority languages
in North East India.
P37
Up to date? Hindi literature in the 21st
century
Convenors: Prof Ulrike Stark (University of Chicago); Dr
Francesca Orsini (School of Oriental and African Studies,
University of London)
Sat 28th July, 09:00-10:45, 11:15-13:00
Location: C401
Plenty of exciting new writing and new voices have appeared in Hindi
since the 1990s, and although certain strands (like Dalit writing) have
received considerable attention, there has not yet been a collective
attempt to step back and take stock of where Hindi literature is now. As
Hindi is turning from scorned vernacular into “cool India’s preferred
bhasha” (Hindustan Times, 2008), Hindi literary criticism has largely
failed to engage with the literary production of the past two decades.
Given the rapid socio-economic changes of the post-liberalisation era,
much attention has focused on the sites of globalised India (call-centres,
gated communities, etc.)—have Hindi writers concerned themselves
with these changes, and if so how? What trends can we identify, on the
basis of the most significant texts and authors of the past twenty years?
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The papers will:
- Analyse particular texts from this period, highlighting their
significance and impact upon the Hindi literary scene;
- Identify particular trends or genres of writing;
- Discuss important critical interventions by contemporary critics on the
current Hindi literary scene;
- Probe the literary marketplace, production trends and consumption
patterns
- Investigate the role of the internet and Hindi/bilingual web journals as
new sites of literary expression, criticism, and dialogue
- Discuss socio-literary features, such as the rise in literary and nonliterary translations, readership, the role of particular journals (e.g.
Tadbhav)
Is Nai Kahani fading away? From K.B. Vaid’s critique and his
fiction to U. Prakash’s fiction
Prof Annie Montaut (INALCO)
The literary program of Nai Kahani in the 60-70es has rarely been
explicitly criticized. KB. Vaid (critical essays significantly entitled No
Answer) is an exception, which will be read in reference to some recent
novelists like U. Prakash.
A poetic of the quotidian: Vinod Kumar Shukla’s Divar mem ek
khirki rahti thi (1997)
Prof Ulrike Stark (University of Chicago)
Shukla’s award winning novel Divar mem ek khirki rahti thi (1997)
marked a significant departure from the tradition of social realism in
the modern Hindi novel. The paper analyses Shukla’s creative use of
language as a tool to transcend both realism and reality: toward a poetic
of the quotidian.
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The ambivalent return to the village in the post-liberalization
period: Maitreyi Pushpa’s novel “Chak” [the potter’s wheel]
Mr Richard Delacy (Harvard University)
This paper examinesa recent critically acclaimed Hindi pastoral novel
Chak, by the celebrated feminist writer Maitreyi Pushpa, to think
through literary responses to liberalization in South Asia and anxieties
over Hindi as a literary register in the new millennium.
Writing about work
Dr Francesca Orsini (School of Oriental and African Studies, University
of London)
The most successful Indian novels in English dealing with postliberalisation India, A. Adiga’s The White Tiger (2008) and Vikas
Svarup’s Q&A (2005), both feature subaltern protagonists catapulted
themselves into spectacular professional success.
What about post-liberalization fiction in Hindi, which has tended
to focus on small-town characters and stories of curbed ambitions,
joblessness or job frustration, and limited mobility?
Hindi on the web
Dr Thomas de Bruijn
The unlimited communication potential of the internet has also touched
Hindi writing in a big way. Many venues have started to emerge from
the 1990s when web-based journals or portals appeared. Journals
have been the live blood of the innovations in literature in all Indian
languages. They created a literary field with its own specific codes and
rituals for accession. Did these change with the seemingly open and
unlimited web-based venues.
This paper dives in and compares a reader’s experience of a selection
of web-based venues with that of a reader of the 1950s who looked at
Indian writing through the journal Ajkal.
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New horizons for Hindi writing in the contemporary age: the case of
Kuṇal Siṃh.
Dr Alessandra Consolaro (University of Torino)
This paper aims at pointing out how contemporary Hindi writing makes
a parallel use of both established publishing tools and the internet:
writers can thus reach a wider and more interactive audience, changing
the “traditional” relation between writer and reader.
Choosing an English for Hindi: recent translations
Mr Jason Grunebaum (University of Chicago)
Survey of recent translations of Hindi fiction into English.
P38
The 19th century: discontinuities, sites and
events in Indian literature
Convenors: Dr Heiko Frese (Heidelberg University); Prof David
Shulman (Hebrew University)
Wed 25th July, 14:00-15:45
Location: C401
The nineteenth century saw profound innovations in all the literatures of
southern India, in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam. Normally,
these changes are keyed to the introduction of Western genres, such
as the modern novel and the short story, although antecedents to these
genres exist from medieval times in all these literatures. What, then,
constitutes a “modern” sensibility expressed in the nineteenth-century
literary forms? Is there only one dominant modernity or, as Narayana
Rao has suggested, might we speak both of an organic or indigenous
modernity and a “colonial” one, the latter considerably impoverished
in relation to the former? How can we begin to think about the
deeper ways of reading the great nineteenth century poets such as
Minaksisundaram Pillai in Tamil or Gurujada Appa Ravu in Telugu?
What can we learn from a comparative perspective that takes into
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account each of the literatures just mentioned?
Journals, Telugu literature and its encounter with the West
Dr Heiko Frese (Heidelberg University)
The paper revolves around forms of literature in Telugu journals from
the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Self as the other: Autobiography of Chellapilla Venkata Sastry
Dr V. Narayana Rao (Emory University)
This paper presents a close reading of parts of the autobiography of
Chellapilla Venkata Sastry, to explore its multiple voices and individual
identities, and investigates questions of self in a person who believes in
astrology.
Tiricirapuram Minaticuntaram Pillai: Modernist Manqé
Prof David Shulman (Hebrew University)
Tiricirapuram Minatcicuntaram Pillai, the doyen of 19th-century Tamil
poets, is usually seen as a pure traditionalist writing in the medieval
genres. I will show that the forms he has chosen mask a rather ironic,
modern sensibility.
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P39
Narrative and counter narrative in
contemporary South Asian literature and film
Convenors: Dr Alessandra Consolaro (University of Torino); Dr
Heinz Werner Wessler (University of Uppsala, Dept for Linguistics
and Philology); Dr Thomas de Bruijn
Thu 26th July, 09:00-10:45, 11:15-13:00, 14:00-15:45
Location: C408
We invite papers dealing with the significance of contradictory
cultural narratives in current literary and cinematic discourse from
South Asia. Dominant narratives are challenged by competing cultural
and subcultural narratives. Advocacy and action that is the result of
cultural resistance to ideological hegemony, and alternative identity
constructions also fit into the scope of this panel. Counter narratives
can also be analysed from a formal point of view, as for example in the
process of generating new genres or stylistic and aesthetic approaches.
We invite contributors to move away from the normative monologic
reading of a paper and to experiment with more flexible forms of
presentations: readings of literary texts with discussion, meetings
with authors or film artists, discursive presentation of sources, etc.
Publication is an option.
Dominance and counter-narrative as positions in the cultural and
literary field
Dr Thomas de Bruijn
This paper will investigate the relative positions of dominance and
resistance and will look at the relative position of dominance and
resistance against the ‘hidden’ ideologies that steer the appraisal and
acceptance of Hindi writing of the modern period.
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“Comment on écrit l’histoire?” Writing and unwriting history in
modern Hindi and Bengali literature
Dr Anne Castaing (Cerlom (Inalco)); Mr Olivier Bougnot (INALCO)
This paper aims to discuss the complex and ambiguous relationship
between fiction and the writing of History and at identifying the
ideological trends which lie in the fictionalization of Historical events. It
explores the way formal strategies can elaborate an alternative discourse
on History.
Misplaced gods and new Puranic heroes: topsy-turvy countermythology in modern South Asian literatures
Dr Hans Harder (SAI Heidelberg, Germany)
After a survey of the numerous mock-myths and narratives of displaced
gods and divines, I will discuss such satirical inversions with reference
to the notion of counter-narrative and try to position and interpret
satirical counter-mythology in modern South Asian literary culture.
From “Kāśī kā Assī” to “Rehan par Raghu”: the (counter-)
narrative world of Kashinath Singh
Dr Heinz Werner Wessler (University of Uppsala, Dept for Linguistics
and Philology)
The paper is on the Kashinath Singh’s fiction and its enactment on stage
and in film.
An exemplary counter narrator: Krishna Baldev Vaid
Prof Annie Montaut (INALCO)
Krishna Baldev Vaid’s novel Bimal urf jaaen to jaaen kaahaan (Bimal in
Bog) dismisses right from its incipit, which we can also see as a reading
protocol, the canons of classical narrative, both at the formal and content
levels, the formal devices voicing an integral critic of the hegemonic
models.
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The dramas of Urdu-Hindi author Upendranath Ashk (1910-1996):
narrative and counter narrative
Prof Diana Dimitrova (Michigan State University)
This paper deals with the dramas of Urdu-Hindi playwright Upendranath
Ashk. His oeuvre reveals a creative encounter of Urdu-Hindi literature
with Western naturalism. It challenges current ideological hegemony
and represents a contradiction in the cultural narrative of dominant
literary discourse.
Time of thought, language of dream: some counter-narrative
schemes in Hindi ‘experimental’ prose
Dr Stefania Cavaliere (University of Naples “L’Orientale”)
Some representative counter-narrative schemes in Hindi ‘experimental’
prose epitomize the literary projection of a new identity delineating in
the context of modern society. Structural and stylistic devices reflect
the authors’ critical approach to literature and their own perception of
reality.
Becoming-minor counternarrative: Kuṇāl Siṃh’s Romiyo Jūliyaṭ
aur aṁdherā (Romeo, Juliet and darkness).
Dr Alessandra Consolaro (University of Torino)
The paper analyzes Kuṇāl Siṃh’s Romiyo Jūliyaṭ aur aṁdherā (Romeo,
Juliet, and darkness) through Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of minor
literature, as an example of deterritorialization of language.
The rebellious politics and counter-aesthetics of the Bengali popular
films now
Mr Binayak Bhattacharya (English and Foreign Languages University)
Is the aesthetic pattern of Bengali popular films experiencing changes
now? Are the nascent forms really posing challenges to the dominant
politics of representation? How can it be conceptualized? This
paper tries to address these questions considering the recent popular
movements in West Bengal.
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India at the mid of the 3rd Millennium. A cry against
ultramodernisation
Prof Mariola Offredi (University of Venice)
The paper is based on the Hindi short story A-maanav (“Nonman”,
published in the 2010 collection Mitti ke log, “People of the soil”)
by S.R. Harnot, which focuses on the problem of ultramodernisation,
leading to dehumanisation. Translation of the short story will be
presented for group discussion.
The Tigress Hunts: short story as counter-narrative
Dr Sunny Singh (London Metropolitan University)
The paper shall consider counter-narrative through a prism of the short
story and its reception.
P40
Portuguese orientalism: postcolonial
perspectives
Convenors: Dr Everton V. Machado (University of Lisbon); Dr
Joana Passos (Universidade do Minho); Prof Ana Paula Laborinho
(Universidade de Lisboa)
Fri 27th July, 09:00-10:45, 11:15-13:00, 14:00-15:45
Location: C406
Session 1: In the XVI and XVII centuries, images from Portuguese
travel narratives representing Asiatic societies as possible utopias
invaded Europe. By the end of the XVII century, discourses about Asia
promoting certain ideas and views of Eastern societies were already
relatively current across Europe. This “Oriental Renaissance” would
gain momentum throughout the XVIII and XIX centuries, surviving well
into the first decades of the XX century as an ideological, symbolical
and aesthetic apparatus that accompanied the process of European
colonial expansion. The publication of Edward Said’s Orientalism
(1978) polemically articulated the symbiotic connection between
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Orientalism, as epistemological model, and European expansion.
However, Said’s theories did not deal with the Portuguese empire and
its pioneering status in representing Asiatic societies. In this panel,
it is our purpose to reflect on the possible specificity of a Portuguese
Orientalism, distinct from British, French and American experiences as
a situated case, with its own configurations and tendencies.
Session 2: “Postcolonial Perspectives on Goan Self-representation”
This panel aims to assess Goan self-representation in literature, the
press and other cultural/artistic products as an alternative discourse to
Orientalism. While the latter amounts to a model of knowledge that
translates “otherness” for western eyes, a postcolonial reading of texts
written by Goan authors will rather focus on Goan cultural identity and
self-definition approached from a postcolonial perspective.
Orientalized orientals in the world that the Portuguese created: the
case of some writers of the Goan Christian milieu
Dr Everton V. Machado (University of Lisbon)
The “orientalized oriental” considers that the culture of its origins is a
mirror of the West. It thus provokes in its own community or society a
destabilizing ideological division with social, political and economic
consequences. What interests me in this paper is to look at some authors
from the so-called “Indo-Portuguese” literature and question not only
the purpose of the representation that orientalizes “the Self”, but also the
nature itself of that orientalism.
Orientalism in 16th century Portuguese chronicles
Prof Ana Paula Avelar (Aberta University)
In my presentation I shall analyze the concept of Orientalism in
Portuguese 16th century expansion chronicles. I will pay a specific
focus on the way the Other is represented in Fernão Lopes de
Castanheda’s, João de Barros’ and Gaspar Correia’s texts on India .
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Displaced Orientalism: Portuguese Orientalism between empire and
memory
Dr Duarte Drumond Braga (University of Lisbon)
This paper aims to propose a broad reading, through literature, of
the phenomenon of Portugyese nineteenth and twentyeth century
Orientalism in the way that it is displaced from the Asian Empire,
meaning that it develops as kind of discourse that uses the Orient as a
symbolical center, but not as a economical and political one.
Salazar, Goa and the Goans: imperial images and Goan voices
Dr Joana Passos (Universidade do Minho); Dr Rui Gonçalves Miranda
(Universidade do Minho /University of Nottingham)
Portugal-India, mutual, secular discoveries
Dr Anil Samarth
Colonial, Post Colonial are political terms. In Multi Cultural context
Past merges in Present to make Future. Sanskrit Studies, officially
began in 1877.Vasconcelos Abreu was Founder-Professor,succeeded by
Dalgado, Saldanha, who taught Marathi and Konkani also. Now these
studies, struggle hard to continue to enrich Future .
Francisco João da Costa and the ideas of assimilation and hybridity
Dr Sandra Lobo (Universidade Nova de Lisboa)
The problematic of assimilation and hybridity is nuclear in the thought
of Francisco João da Costa. To enlighten his thought it is useful to
situate Jacob and Dulce in the ensemble of his texts at the newspaper O
Ultramar, namely the Notas a lápis where he first published the novel.
Another India: British travellers in Goa (1870-1920)
Dr Filipa Lowndes Vicente (Instituto de Ciências Sociais-Universidade
de Lisboa)
By analyzing the writings of British men, but also a few women, that
went to Goa between the 1870s and the 1920s I will try to explore the
relationship between British colonialism and Portuguese colonialism
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in India, but also how orientalised discourses could be unsettled by this
confrontation.
Nineteenth-century Portuguese Philosophical Orientalism and the
representation of Hinduism and Buddhism
Dr Rui Lopo (Centro de Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa)
This paper undertakes a panorama of authors that constitute what can
be called “Portuguese Philosophical Orientalism”. The focus of this
paper lies on the way that portuguese philosophical essayists regarded
religious phenomena such as Buddhism and Hinduism.
Catholic orientalism and Portuguese orientalism: connections and
differences
Dr Ângela Barreto Xavier (University of Lisbon)
This paper, which is based on the recovery of lost communities of
knowledge embedded in the heart of the political and social archives
of the Portuguese empire in South Asia in the early modern period,
aims at connecting the early-modern «Catholic Orientalism» with the
«Portuguese Orientalism» of the 19th century.
P42
Relevance of the economy in transformations
from war to peace in South Asia
Convenors: Dr Andrea Iff (swisspeace); Ms Rina Alluri (swisspeace)
Thu 26th July, 16:15-18:00
Location: C408
The economic dimensions in (post)-conflict countries are most relevant
for achieving sustainable and stable peace. South Asia is particularly
relevant as the economies of post-conflict countries are more diversified
than in other regions of the world. We depart from the assumption
that socio‐economic reconstruction in post‐conflict countries is a
“development plus” challenge, meaning that these countries face the
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ABSTRACTS
same challenges as other developing countries, plus the added challenge
of achieving reconciliation and peace. Based on this, case studies from
India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka will be used to illustrate how
addressing economic dimensions of peace and conflict often lead to
varying results.Instead of looking at different (monetary) incentives
how private sector can be promoted after violent conflict (financing,
better insurance coverage, or export credits), this panel looks at how
private sector actually contributes to peacebuilding in post‐conflict
societies. The panel does not seek to identify specific companies or local
businesses, but rather places an emphasis on understanding different
perspectives on the role of private sector. Specifically, the panel seeks
to discuss how the private sector interacts with other economic and
political factors and actors within conflict contexts.
Economic change, state capacity and violent internal conflict in
India
Dr Siddharth Swaminathan (Institute for Social and Economic Change)
This study explores the impact of economic change and state political
capacity on the dynamics of violent intrastate conflict in India. Focusing
on the Naxalite conflict in India the paper argues that state political
capacity plays a critical role in the development of violent intrastate
conflicts. Politically capable governments are able to mitigate violent
state contestation by dissatisfied groups through the reduction of
economic inequalities. Politically weak governments, however, are
unable to foster economic change and emerge as focal points of violent
insurgencies.
Post-conflict reconstruction and economic transformation in Nepal
Mr Safal Ghimire (Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research
(NCCR) North-South, South Asia Office); Dr Bishnu Upreti (NCCR
North-South)
This paper will analyze socio-economic impacts of reconstruction
projects in post-conflict Nepal. The analysis will focus on the projects’
geographic concentration, targeted beneficiaries and impacts on
economic transformation, which was a major agenda of the rebels to
wage the war.
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The legacy of poverty, marginalization and underdevelopment in
Balochistan: historical, political and social factors
Dr Musarrat Jabeen (COMSATS Institute of Information Technology)
The prevalent power legacy in Balochistan composed of traditional
socio-politics effects the economic development and permeates centerprovince conflict.
The role of local public sector in peacebuilding in North-East India
Dr Bishnu Upreti (NCCR North-South)
The paper examines the role of public business enterprises in peace
building in Assam, North-East India. It shows that the promotion of
business in the region through the government is additionally stirring
conflict in the fragile region.
P43
Political parties and change in South Asia
Convenors: Dr James Chiriyankandath (University of London); Dr
Andrew Wyatt (University of Bristol)
Sat 28th July, 09:00-10:45, 11:15-13:00
Location: C402
Political parties, often rooted in movements for independence, have
been a significant feature of the political landscape in the subcontinent
for well over a century. Today every state has a multiparty political
system with parties forming the government as well as operating on the
margins and beyond constitutional electoral politics. They range from
Marxist to religiously-oriented, and ethnic and caste-based parties. Yet
apart from for a time in the 1960s and 1970s they have not received
much scholarly attention. The broad focus of this panel will be how
parties across South Asia have been shaped by – and responded and
contributed to – political, social, cultural and economic changes. The
aim will be to broaden and deepen comparative understanding of the
role of parties in national life. In order to do so contributors may use
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approaches drawn from a range of disciplines – political science, history,
sociology, anthropology and cultural studies.
What happened to “garibi hatao”? The Congress Party and the
politics of poverty
Dr James Chiriyankandath (University of London)
The paper examines the discourse on poverty of India’s ruling Congress
Party, its rhetoric on the issue, and the impact of the policies it has
pursued in government on the mass poverty that persists in the rapidly
expanding Indian economy of the early 21st century.
Bhadralok vanguard and ‘cultural governance’: the biped leftism of
West Bengal
Mr Binayak Bhattacharya (English and Foreign Languages University)
This paper seeks to examine the genesis, growth and breaking down
of leftist rule in West Bengal by revisiting the cultural history. It also
attempts to introduce and theorize the idea of ‘cultural governance’ as a
ruling pattern to explain the durability of the leftist dominance there.
Patronage over party: high politics in Sri Lanka following
independence
Dr Harshan Kumarasingham (University of Potsdam)
This paper examines how executive politics functioned as a personal
and elite game in Sri Lanka in the early years after independence
placing parties and other democratic institutions in an inferior role
Sri Lanka’s soft-authoritarian dispensation
Prof Neil DeVotta (Wake Forest University)
This paper evaluates the mechanisms Sri Lanka’s government is putting
in place to transform the island from an illiberal democracy to a softauthoritarian regime geared to create a political dynasty. It further
explains how domestic and international politics combine to make this
possible.
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Muslim politics in Sri Lanka before and after the emergence of
Muslim political parties
Dr Farzana Haniffa (University of Colombo)
This paper will look at Muslims and politics in Sri Lanka before and
after the emergence of Muslim political parties and trace the significant
changes that have occurred in accessing state services and articulating
rights claims through political representatives.
Political Parties and Populist Politics in Contemporary Tamil Nadu
Dr Andrew Wyatt (University of Bristol)
Two populist styles have been prominent features of party politics in
Tamil Nadu since the 1960s. This paper shows how populism has been
remarkably resilient and has been adapted to new circumstances.
Class, nation and religion: changing nature of Akali Dal politics in
Punjab, India
Dr Pritam Singh (Oxford Brookes University)
This paper tracks the confllicting pressures of class, religion and
nationalism in the way Akali Dal negotiates its politics in Indian
federalism
Political parties and the transformation of a village in Pakistani
Punjab
Dr Shandana Mohmand (Institute of Development Studies)
This paper analyses the impact that political parties have had on the
lives of the residents of one village in Pakistani Punjab over half a
century. In particular it considers the impact that they have had on the
changing relations between different economic and social groups within
the village.
Political turmoil in a megacity: the MQM in Karachi and its
capacity for change
Dr Bettina Robotka (Humboldt University Berlin)
The paper will analyze the political situation in Karachi with special
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ABSTRACTS
attention to the party structure in the city and the competing interests
of the main parties. The role of the MQM will be explored and
conclusions about the political system of Pakistan shall be put forward
for discussion.
P44
Security architecture in South Asia: prospects
and challenges
Convenor: Dr Christian Wagner (German Institute for
International and Security Affairs)
Thu 26th July, 09:00-10:45, 11:15-13:00, 14:00-15:45
Location: C407
South Asia is still characterized by a variety of security challenges
ranging from territorial disputes, religious terrorisms to left wing
extremism and the threat of nuclear warfare. On the one hand, regional
security is still fragile especially with regard to relations between India
and Pakistan. The Mumbai attack of 2008 has shown the fragility of
their bilateral rapprochement. On the other hand, India has intensified
bilateral security cooperation in the region with various neighboring
countries like Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Sri Lanka. But South
Asia’s security architecture is also shaped by countries like China and
the United States. China has increased its political, economic, and
military engagement in the region in recent years. The United States
have a long history of economic and military relations with individual
South Asian countries.
These developments raise the question in how far they have helped to
improve the security situation both on the regional and in individual
countries. In order to evaluate the prospects and challenges of a regional
security architecture the panel will welcome presentations on bilateral
relations and comparative foreign policy analysis of South Asian
countries as well as contributions dealing with the policies of China and
the United States in the region.
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Terrorism at sea: maritime security challenges in South Asia
Dr Hussan Ara (University Of Balochistan)
The Indian ocean has become key strategic maritime route and an
important international sea-lane of communication in the 21st century
. The main purpose of paper is to analyse the security challenges in
Indian ocean ,by applying the geographio -economic and political
approach. The issues of terrorism ,narco-smuggling and hijacking of
ship are frequently taking place. The disruption of international sea-lane
is resulting towards the disastrous global economy. The joint strategy
should be adopted to counteract terrorism in maritime domain.
Energy security of South Asia and the Bay of Bengal
Dr Anasua Basu Ray Chaudhury (Calcutta Research Group)
The question of energy security has slowly but surely occupied the
centre-stage of the national security discourse at the turn of the 21st
century almost in all the countries of the world, but more so, in the
countries aspiring rapid economic growth, like China and India in
the recent times. Therefore, a search for new sources of energy has
happened to be a stark reality on the part of the latter. Getting access
to energy resources in other countries may not always be secure with
competing claims over these resources. In this scenario, the Bay of
Bengal region is likely to be a major area that would witness such
competing claims, and it is needless to say that this region is integral to
South Asia’s regional security.
Management of post 9/11 decision-making structures related to
states at risk: a case study of Pakistan
Dr Musarrat Jabeen (COMSATS Institute of Information Technology);
Ms Rubeena Batool (University of Balochistan,Pakistan)
The making and implementation of components of AFPAK policy
decisions not only differ in composition but also in capacity and support
system.
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Is a liberal security order emerging in South Asia?
Dr Bhumitra Chakma (The University of Hull)
Although South Asia’s security structure is conceived to be realist
oriented, there is growing sign that a liberal security order will replace
it. The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation will play an
important role in restructuring South Asia’s security order.
Smiling Buddha, Shakti, and beyond: India’s nuclear policies at
crossroads
Mr Nikhar Gaikwad (Yale University, USA)
In this paper, I analyze India’s relationship with the United States and
China, along with its relationship with other emerging economies such
as Brazil, Russia, and South Africa to explicate trends in its nuclear
policy objectives.
Security architecture in South Asia: prospects and challenges - a
Pakistani perspective
Ms Amina Khan
The US-led NATO alliance has announced, albeit vaguely, 2014 as the
year of withdrawal from Afghanistan. With the decade-long war coming
to an inconclusive end, Afghanistan presents the greatest challenge
to the international community & South Asian countries, particularly
Pakistan. The coming years will see dynamics & changes for the region
& preparation for this must begin now.
Kashmir problem: conflict and compromise
Dr Tatiana Shaumyan (Institute of Oriental Studies RAS)
The unresolved Kashmir problem deteriorates the situation in South
Asia and the relations between India and Pakistan. The emergence of
India and Pakistan as nuclear states has considerably complicated the
character of their interrelationship and strategic situation in South Asia.
The search for compromise, the development of political and economic
ties between India and Pakistan, the expanding co-operation in different
areas including within the framework of SAARC, will open a way
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towards improving the political and strategic situation in South Asia and
the normalization of relations between India and Pakistan.
Security cooperation in South Asia: old threats, new opportunities
Dr Christian Wagner (German Institute for International and Security
Affairs)
South Asia is characterized by a variety of security challenges from
territorial disputes, religious terrorisms to left wing extremism and
the threat of nuclear warfare. In recent years new security cooperation
between India and her neighbors helped to overcome traditional security
dilemmas.
Rivalry theory and its application for India and China
Dr Shazia Wülbers (University of Hamburg)
This paper will analyse the security situation in South Asia between the
two big rivals- India and China. The assumptions, expecatations and the
workings of the theory propounded by Paul Diehl will be applied to the
two regional gaints
India in South Asia: new avatar or new strategy?
Mr Constantino Xavier (Johns Hopkins University)
This paper evaluates the factors that drove a radical change in India’s
neighborhood policy over the last thirty years. It questions to what
extent this indicates a new Indian self-perception, or merely a new
strategy to achieve regional preponderance.
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P45
Objects of worship in the lived religions of
South Asia: forms, practices and meanings
Convenors: Dr Mikael Aktor (University of Southern Denmark);
Fri 27th July, 09:00-10:45, 11:15-13:00, 14:00-15:45
Location: C408
South Asian religions are known for their strong emphasis on visuality.
Objects of worship may be natural phenomena like trees, mountains or
rivers, or they are man-made artefacts in all kinds of shape and design
– anthropomorphic, theriomorphic or aniconic. Together they may
form patterns in the landscape that are seen as an object of worship in
its own right. Although generally designed in non-verbal visual media,
such objects reflect a long history of religious discourse and give rise
to endless interpretations. Objects of worship have been the focus of
complex theological debates about the nature of God, whether saguna,
nirguna, empty, diverse or exclusively One. They have been causes of
bitter charges of “idolatry” that have been central to the rise of reform
movements and new religions in which letters, words and books became
themselves objects of worship.
Objects of worship are at the centre of religious practices performed
privately or in homes and temples. They protect those who wear
them against all kinds of misfortune like disease, childlessness,
unemployment or demands of paying off one’s debt. They are tools of
meditation and of attaining altered states of consciousness. Some even
guarantee liberation from rebirth.
In essence, objects of worship are at the same time material objects
shaped by traditions of religious aesthetics and conceptual devices
woven into webs of religious and social meaning. The papers of this
panel all contribute to an understanding of the central significance of
these objects in the social life of South Asia.
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The Shiva Linga: what’s in a form?
Dr Mikael Aktor (University of Southern Denmark)
A discussion of the Shiva Linga at the cross lines between form and
formlessness and between fertility oriented popular religion and society
oriented priestly religion.
Sacred images of the ancient sage Kapila in contemporary Hindu
traditions
Although no ancient statue of sage Kapila has been found, in
contemporary Hinduism there are a number of sacred images of this
sage. In this paper I analyze these objects of worship and their ritual
functions.
Yantras as objects of worship in Hindu and Tantric religious
traditions
Dr Xenia Zeiler (University of Bremen)
The paper wants to contribute to an understanding of the diverse
application and interpretation of yantras as objects of worship
in the lived religions of South Asia. It does so by discussing the
Dhumavatiyantra as compared to the Sriyantra in historical textual as
well as recent practiced contexts.
Object of worship as a free choice: Vithoba (god), Dnyaneshvar
(saint), the Dnyaneshvari (book), and even Samadhi (grave)
Prof Irina Glushkova (Institute of Oriental Studies)
The bucolic picture of the Varkari tradition presents the image of the
black and stumpy Vithoba from Pandharpur as an exclusive object of
veneration. This male god is referred to as mauli (‘mother’) and his
image is reduplicated in temples of Vithoba spread over Maharashtra.
The living icon
Mrs Marianne Fibiger (Aarhus University)
Especially in goddess worship (shaktism) we find living icons.
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This paper will elaborate on the similarities and differences between
worshipping a statue and a living icon.
‘Living images’ as objects of worship in Himachal Pradesh, North
India
Dr Brigitte Luchesi (Formerly University of Bremen)
In North India living images, called jhankis, are quite popular. Children,
normally young boys, are dressed up and pose as Hindu deities while
being looked at and worshipped by a devoted public. The paper will
describe the proceedings and focus on the use of jhankis as ‘temporary
images’.
Performing the Puja and the Ziyara at the Grave of a Sultan. The
Ahmad Shah Bahmani Mausoleum between Old-Political and NewReligious Perceptions
Dr Sara Mondini (Ca’ Foscari University, Venezia, Italy)
The paper’s purpose is to analyse the grave of Ahmad Shah Bahmani in
Ashtur (Bidar) tracing how its perception, frequentation and veneration
have changed converting the grave in a shared sacred space, today
worshipped by Muslims and Hindus.
Making the book a living guru: ritual practices among
contemporary Sikhs
Dr Kristina Myrvold (Lund University)
The paper describes and analyses how contemporary Sikhs are
constructing conceptions of their scripture, Guru Granth Sahib, as a
socially living guru with spiritual authority by means of various ritual
practices.
Worshipping the Sword: The Practice of Shastar Puja in the Khalsa
Tradition
Mr Satnam Singh
This paper discusses the early Khalsa practice of Shastar Puja (Worship
of Weapons). The paper begins by tracing the ritual in early Sikh
143
literature, followed by an analysis and discussion on how the puja is
practiced today in the UK and the way it has been re-interpreted to a
new cultural setting.
P46
Christians, cultural interactions, and South
Asia’s religious traditions
Convenors: Dr Richard Young (Princeton Theological Seminary);
Dr Chad Bauman (Butler University)
Fri 27th July, 09:00-10:45, 11:15-13:00, 14:00-15:45
Location: C401
Recognizing that South Asian Christianities are distinct forms of
Christianity and that interaction with South Asia’s cultures and religions
are essential to any characterization of Christianity as South Asian
(Indian, etc.), the panel invites exchange between intercultural studies
scholars, mission studies scholars, and religious studies scholars who
address any of the many phenomena associated with the historical
emergence and contemporary character of South Asian Christianities.
Christians in conflict: Christianity, outcastes and the city in
nineteenth-century South India
Dr Aparna Balachandran (Department of History, University of Delhi)
This paper looks at subaltern notions of Christian belief and practice by
focusing on conflicts that broke out between outcaste worshippers and
European administrators in various Catholic churches in the colonial
port city of Madras in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
South Asian Christianity under scanner: its negotiations and
negations by the Dalits in India
Dr James Ponniah Kulandai Raj (Jnana Deepa Vidyapeeth)
This paper looks at the contemporary character of South Asian
Christianity in India as experienced, negotiated and altered by the Dalit
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ABSTRACTS
Christians through the study of two novels (“Siluvai Raj Sarithiram” and
“Kalacchumai”) written by Raj Gautaman, a Dalit Christian himself.
Saviour against Caesar: Assessing the concept of incarnation in
Indian nationalist theology in late 19th- and early 20th-century
Bengal
Mr Milinda Banerjee (Heidelberg University, Germany)
The paper argues that reformers and nationalists in late nineteenthand early twentieth-century Bengal deployed the Christian concept of
incarnation, and related it to Indic concepts of avatara, in order to create
a powerful legitimating support for emerging Indian nationalism.
Abhishiktananda and mysticism: Some postcolonial
(re)investigations
Mr Xavier Gravend-Tirole (Universities of Lausanne and Montreal)
This paper reinvestigates the writings of Abhishiktananda (Henri Le
Saux) through the lens of postcolonial scholarship. Using his notions
of “mysticism” and “religious experience”, the paper will show that the
French monk was influenced both by orientalist thinking and by his own
Indian experience.
Calvin in Kashi - Kashi in Calvin
Dr Arun Jones (Emory University)
The paper examines the ways that the Rev. Ishwari Dass, a pioneer
19th-century North Indian Presbyterian leader, adapted and presented
Reformed theology in his “Lectures On Theology” for a religious
audience that included both Muslims and Hindus.
Indigenous influences on Christianity in Pakistan
Dr Safdar Shah (National University of Sciences and Technology)
Christians are a small but vibrant religious community in Pakistan. The
paper attempts to trace and identify various facets of indigenization of
Christianity in Pakistan, from church architecture to cultural traditions,
and highlight their impact on society and inter-faith harmony.
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Pentecostals, charismatics, and anti-Christian violence
An analysis of the disproportionate targeting of Pentecostals,
Charismatics, and Independent Christians in the anti-Christian violence
of contemporary India.
The pitfalls, perils, and promise of “Hindu”-”Christian” studies
Dr Kerry San Chirico (UC Santa Barbara)
Drawing upon recent research on the Khrist Bhaktas of Banaras, this
paper explores the wider theoretical and methodical issues involved in
any “Hindu” and “Christian” study, arguing that a concentration on the
particularities of such a comparison are of singular importance.
P47
Of saints, converts, and heroes: hagiographies
and conversion auto/biographies across
religions in South Asia
Convenors: Dr Sipra Mukherjee (West Bengal State University); Dr
Hephzibah Israel (University of Edinburgh)
Thu 26th July, 09:00-10:45, 11:15-13:00, 14:00-15:45
Location: C401
This panel will focus on hagiographies and conversion auto/biographies
across the religions in South Asia. In the South Asian context of
religious plurality, such auto/biographical writings have constructed
narratives of ‘saints’ or acts of religious conversion in specific ways
which offer significant revelations on how both faiths and societies are
envisioned and on how cultural discourses are shaped. The panel will
explore these writings in an interdisciplinary context, as political acts of
self- construction engaging with issues in and beyond the sacred, where
the ‘individual’ subject of these narratives is redefined in relation to
caste, gender, linguistic, regional or national identities.
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ABSTRACTS
A woman at the crossroads: reformist ideals and narrative strategies
in A. Madhaviah’s biographical novel “Clarinda”
Dr Matthias Frenz (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes)
Madhaviah’s biographical novel “Clarinda” narrates the life story of a
women on the threshold between Hindu and Christian traditions, torn
between Indian and European worldviews. The paper analyses the
authors vision for society and individual and how his ideals are woven
into the literary fabric.
Seeing through mirage: Marxist perspectives on Catholicism and
conversion from K. Daniel’s “Kanal” (1983), a Sri Lankan Tamil
Dalit novel
Dr Richard Young (Princeton Theological Seminary); Rt. Rev. Dr
Subramaniam Jebanesan (Christian Institute for the Study of Religion
and Society [Jaffna])
Creating a semi-fictionalized Catholic priest forced to admit defeat in
his attempt at converting the Nalavas of Jaffna, Dalit author K. Daniel
asks what really changes when ‘conversion’ occurs, arguing that a
deeper revolution is needed than the Church’s in order to eradicate the
‘scourge’ of caste.
Mythological biography and the biography of a myth: Guru
Ghasidas, Satnamis, and Christians in colonial Chhattisgarh
In colonial Chhattisgarh, American missionaries working among the
low-caste Satnamis reworked the biography of the Satnamis’ deceased
guru in order to portray him as a forerunner of Christianity and
encourage conversion to the faith. This paper analyzes the history of this
missionary mythologizing.
147
Creating a community, Creating a Tradition: The Politics of Tamil
Srivaisnava Hagiographies and
Dr Bharati Jagannathan (Miranda House, University of Delhi)
The early medieval Tamil Srivaisnava tradition engaged in a creative
project to weave in a diverse community through its hagiographies. A
study of these tales of the Alvars, saints revered by the tradition, reveals
deep social fractures that were sought to be papered over.
In opposition to Brahma and Brahmins: constructing the
hagiography of the Matua Dharma founder
Dr Sipra Mukherjee (West Bengal State University)
This paper looks at the hagiography of a leader from the Dalit
community who lived in early 19th century Bengal. Beginning a
religious sect that has, over two centuries, resulted in a powerful
political movement , the paper explores the dynamics between the
religious and the political as revealed by the hagiography, written in
mid-twentieth century, of the founder Harichand Thakur.
Issues in the writing of missionary biography: James Long of
Bengal, 1814-87
Dr Geoffrey Oddie (University of Sydney)
The purpose of this paper is to raise issues relating to the writing of
biographies of missionaries in India during the colonial period. The
speaker will focus on his own experience of writing a biography of
James Long of Bengal, 1814-87.
Aberration as the norm: representing the Christian converts in
nineteenth century Bengal
Ms Dhrupadi Chattopadhyay (Heidelberg University)
This paper shows how the biographies and autobiographies of first
generation converts came to create normative individuals in a climate of
‘representational excess’ where they were often viewed as ‘aberrations’.
148
ABSTRACTS
Conversion and the language of autobiography: inventing the
protestant self in nineteenth-century India
Dr Hephzibah Israel (University of Edinburgh)
The proposed paper examines Protestant conversion autobiographies
from late nineteenth-century India to analyse how Protestant converts
chose to construct new religious identities rhetorically. I aim to
investigate the textual, rhetorical resolution of ‘religious crises’ through
the autobiography.
P48
Life on the margins: Expressions of agency
among the marginalized in Contemporary
South Asia.
Convenor: Ms Deborah Christina Menezes (University of
Edinburgh)
Thu 26th July, 14:00-15:45
Location: C301
At the backdrop of several socio-political as well as economic changes
taking place in South Asia marginalized groups have come into
focus of research. While much has been written about the processes
through which the ‘economically insignificant’ becomes marginalized,
scant attention has been paid to the ways in which these apparently
subordinate groups articulate emancipatory imaginaries and oppositional
projects. This agency cannot always be usefully understood on a
spectacular sense. Rather it has to be made sense of in everyday lives
of the people, in their personal and mundane decision making, in their
negotiation with the institutions and structures of dominance. Drawing
on fieldwork conducted in different parts of South Asia and spanning
a range of conceptual orientations, this panel explores how agency is
expressed in various ways both active and subtle, by the apparently
subordinated.
149
The language of protest: perception of agency within the women
workers of the tea plantations of North Bengal, India
Ms Supurna Banerjee (University of Edinburgh)
With the use of ethnographic data from two tea plantations in North
Bengal, the paper examines this language of protest of the women
workers and seeks to map their perception of agency. It tries to
explore the whole spectrum of actions which might constitute their
act of agency. From here the paper goes on to examine the different
sociological factors behind these various forms of agency.
Not silent yet: the presentation of identity of older people in care
homes in Goa, India
Ms Deborah Christina Menezes (University of Edinburgh)
This paper examines the articulation of emancipatory imaginaries by
older people in care homes. The paper is rooted in the local construction
of presentation and transformation of self by older people in care homes
yet illuminates a broader location within the phenomenology of ‘agency
and care’.
P50
State-identity interface: explorations in
economic, social and cultural dynamics of
tribal communities
Convenors: Dr Peter B. Andersen (University of Copenhagen); Dr
Amit Prakash (Jawaharlal Nehru University)
Sat 28th July, 09:00-10:45, 11:15-13:00
Location: C408
The modern liberal state, premised as it is on individual rights, has
always struggled to find adequate responses to group claims articulated
by the political process, premised on a variety of socio-cultural
thematics. Without revisiting the myth of ethno-cultural neutrality of the
150
ABSTRACTS
state, most modern states have adopted a variety of policy measures −
from constitutionally mandated socio-cultural rights, through policies of
multiculturalism to policies of assimilation.
In South Asia a number of tribal groups have been recognised; in
some cases, the Constitutions have granted them rights to sustain
their cultural, religious, and linguistic characteristics while not in
others. Besides, even when such formal rights are granted, education,
migration, industrialisation and urbanisation change the conditions for
the tribal groups.
Further, the state creates a policy environment in which a complex
relationship emerges between formal rights, socio-economic change and
political articulation premised on socio-economic distinctiveness. This
process also impacts the premises of articulation of claims by identities,
as also their self definition. Furthermore, this process while framed
by statist processes and structures, is mediated by a variety of actors −
social, economic and political; at various levels.
The proposed panel invites empirical investigations as well as
theoretical approaches to the study of such complex state identity
interface. Papers may address developments in identity and ethnicity
theory, redistributive justice and/versus recognition, the notion of civil
society, NGOs, the politicisation of cultural, religious and linguistic
issues, how the states utilise NGOs in social and cultural development
as well as other relevant themes.
Group rights, distributional conflicts and the making of unequal
identities
Dr Shailaja Fennell (University of Cambridge)
The state view of how law affects group identity and the inequalities
that they have undergone is markedly instrumental in its orientation.
The use of social markers such as ethnicity and class have been
consciously drawn on by independent nation states. The possibility that
group identity could provide a socially acceptable basis for pursuing an
equitable political solution could provide a way forward for remedying
inequalities that persist with regard to tribal community. The ready
151
justice of social equity provides the foundations of such transformative
legal structures. This paper will examine why these approaches have
been so slow in coming forth in relation to the study of South Asian
societies.
Redefining tribal claims in a context of political change in Central
Nepal
Dr Blandine Ripert (CNRS-EHESS)
The paper focuses on a tribal identity redefinition of one of the
recognised « indigenous tribe » of Central Nepal, in the context of the
writing of the new constitution for the country, in which is discussed the
possibility of a federal state based on ethnic recognition.
The performance of indigeneity and the politics of representation:
divergent views
Dr Marine Carrin Tambs-Lyche (Université de Toulouse - II)
The politics of representation staged by indigenous people aim at
suggesting particular representations of culture, sociality and sometimes
territory.I shall question how theAdivasi in Jharkhand and in Orissa
succeed in staging different politics which are able to adress gthe State
while articulating political rights.
“Tribal” consciousness on VideoCD? State, ideas of belonging and
popular Santali films
Dr Markus Schleiter (Frobenius Institute at the Goethe University
Frankfurt am Main)
In the paper I will explore in which ways claims on entitlements and
cultural recognition of Santals, forwarded to and negotiated with the
state, based on being a “tribe”, impact the emerging of VCD circulation
of popular Santali films and thereby, shape connected mediations of a
Santal belonging.
152
ABSTRACTS
Indigenous hunting and the state: claiming rights by emphasizing
tradition
Mrs Lea Schulte-Droesch (Groningen University)
This paper outlines the dynamics of a hunting ritual in Eastern India
– a contested event between the local Santal population and the state.
My paper shall use this ritual to both explore its indigenous meanings
as well as the stage it presents for the negotiation and performance of
tradition vis-à-vis the Indian state.
Politics of transformation: governmentality of participation in
Jharkhand
Dr Amit Prakash (Jawaharlal Nehru University)
Governmentality of participation in the tribal Jharkhand, India will be
analysed in light of continuing politics of recognition and redistribution.
Panchayats as new sites of contestation; transforming the political
economy of conflict will be examined with the help of recent empirical
material.
P51
From the inside looking out… Filmic visions of
South Asia’s tacit “other”
Convenors: Dr Paolo Favero (University Institute of Lisbon ); Ms
Giulia Battaglia (SOAS)
Thu 26th July, 09:00-10:45
Location: Grande Auditório
The relation between film and South Asia has historically been
characterized by a desire to portray the diversity and charms of the
Indian subcontinent. Often reproducing male hegemonic colonial
perspectives this approach is particularly evident for instance in the
tradition of documentary film where India, Pakistan, Nepal, etc. have
conventionally been presented, in a charming blend of love and hatred,
attraction and repulsion (i.e. through the fundamental ingredients of
153
exotica) as places to “look at” rather than to “look from”.
“From the inside looking out” aims to provoke this logic. Taking off
from the experimentations that are taking place particularly in the field
of contemporary digital practices we wish to attract visual projects
which directly or indirectly invert and comment upon conventional
visual representations of the Indian Subcontinent.
We welcome all kinds of visual projects ranging from documentary film,
to interactive documentaries, fiction films, short films, animated films,
online installations and creative visual presentations.
To propose your visual project use the ‘propose a paper’ link below, not
forgetting to include format, runtime and other relevant info (director,
producer, language, media).
Reflecting upon the predicament of digital image-making in South
Asia
Dr Paolo Favero (University Institute of Lisbon ); Ms Giulia Battaglia
(SOAS)
This paper aims to set the field for a number of theoretical reflections
regarding the intersection between digital image-making and film in the
South Asian context. To what extent can the essence of digital images
influence the practices of filming and image-making at large? What are
the politics of this process? How do such aspects reflect themselves
upon the specificities of the South Asian context?
It’s all rheydt: reflecting on German art intervention in Durga Puja
festival in Calcutta
Mr Nilanjan Bhattacharya
In October 2011 something unique happened in Calcutta! The cutting
edge European Art found its place in Durga Puja – the biggest annual
religious carnival of Bengal. For this panel, I intend to present
my experience of filming the process of this artwork – from the
conceptualization to the implementation.
154
ABSTRACTS
You’re on the air. Now what?
Dr Sandra Marques (CRIA-IUL)
You’re on the air. Now what? is the motto to question on the
representations of screen representations. We made a placard sign,
installed it at different public locations around Kolkata (capital of
West Bengal, India) on different times and waited with the equipment
prepared in a fixed shot…
“Numafung”: images of ethnic culture in Nepali cinema
Prof Martin Gaenszle (Institute for South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist
Studies)
The movie “Numafung” (2002) belongs to the growing genre of ethnic
cinema in Nepal. It is the first full feature film on the ethnic minority of
the Limbu, directed by a Limbu and (partly) in Limbu language, and can
be seen as an expression of the new ethnic awareness and pride in post1990 Nepal.
155
Film series: From the inside looking out...filmic
visions of South Asia’s tacit ‘other’
Directed by: Paolo Favero (CRIA, Lisbon, Portugal) and Giulia
Battaglia (SOAS, London, UK)
26th July 2012, 11:15-13:00, 13:45-15:45, 16:15-19:15
Location: Grande Auditório
Taking off from the contemporary experimentation with new
filmmaking practices this screening series aims to invert and comment
upon conventional visual representations of the Indian Subcontinent.
Moving between different genres, such as documentary, fiction,
animation and art film the series shows the complexity of themes and
aesthetics that characterize contemporary filmmaking in and on the
subcontinent. A gazing upon South Asia’s tacit other.
The screening series coordinates with panel P51, From the inside
looking out… Filmic visions of South Asia’s tacit ‘other’ convened by
Paolo and Giulia, on 26th July 09:00-11:00.
Morning session, 11:15- 13:00
Tales from Planet Kolkata
Director: Ruchir Joshi
Genre: new documentary
India, 1993
Running Time: 38 mins
A personal film about a city that may only exist in a film or on tv; a
film about various dreams about Calcutta. It starts with a variation on
the first image of Francis Ford Coppola’s APOCALYPSE NOW and
takes the spectator along through a strange file full of ideas and images
of the city. Some images come from the North - Hollywood films and
European television. The commentators are a local, traditional painter
and an Afro-American video-artist from New York …
156
FILM
The Right Angle
Director: Nilanjan Bhattacharya
India, 2012
In October 2011 cutting-edge German art found its place in Durga Puja,
the great religious carnival of the Bengali Hindus. Gregor Schneider,
an acclaimed German artist, designed a Pandal, one of the temporary
shrines for goddess Durga that are constructed and installed by local
artisans. Set in the backdrop of the everyday city and prompted by
a curious case of ‘art collaboration’, The Right Angle is a visual
journey that records the consequences of an unprecedented confluence
between two distinctive visual cultures. The film also examines the
artistic idiosyncrasies of the west and east, questions the very act of
art intervention and searches for the missing links to successful art
amalgamation.
12:15 Q&A with Nilanjan Bhattacharya
First afternoon session, 13:45-15:45
So Heddan So Hoddan
Director: Anjeli Monteiro and K.P. Jayasankar
India, 1993
Mustafa Jatt sings Bheths, narratives of longing, sung by the Jatts,
pastoral Muslim communities that live on the edge of the Great Rann of
Kutch, in Gujarat, separating India and Pakistan. The Film is a journey
into the music and everyday life of these communities, set against
the backdrop of the Rann and the pastoral Banni grass lands. These
marginal visions of negotiating difference in creative affirmative ways
resist tight notions of the nation - state and national culture and open up
the windows of our national imaginary.
157
365 without 377
Director: Adele Tulli
Genre: Documentary
Italy, 2011
Running Time: 53 min
Imposed under the British colonial rule in 1860, Section 377 of the
Indian Penal Code criminalized any sexual acts between consenting
adults of the same sex, stigmatizing them as “against the order of
nature”. On 2nd July 2009 the Delhi High Court passed a landmark
judgment repealing this clause, thus fulfilling the most basic demand of
the Indian LGBTQ community, which had been fighting this law for the
past 10 years. The film documents the diverse lives of three members of
Mumbai’s LGBT community, Beena, Pallav and Abheena, who travel
through the city heading to the celebrations for the first anniversary of
the historic verdict.
Through the personal stories and struggles of the three protagonists
the film explores the reality of living a queer identity in today’s India,
between tradition and change. ‘365 without 377’ is the story of their
journey towards freedom.
Second afternoon session, 16:15-19:15
Sita Sings the Blues
Director: Nina Paley
Genre: Animation
USA/India, 2008
Running Time: 82 minutes
Sita is a goddess separated from her beloved Lord and husband Rama.
Nina is an animator whose husband moves to India, then dumps her by
email. Three hilarious shadow puppets narrate both ancient tragedy and
modern comedy in this beautifully animated interpretation of the Indian
epic Ramayana. Set to the 1920’s jazz vocals of Annette Hanshaw, Sita
Sings the Blues earns its tagline as “the Greatest Break-Up Story Ever
Told.”
158
FILM
Harud (Autumn)
Director: Aamir Bashir
Genre: Fiction
India, 2010
Running Time: 99 min
Rafiq and his family are struggling to come to terms with the loss of his
older brother Tauqir, a tourist photographer, who is one of the thousands
of young men who have disappeared since the onset of the militant
insurgency in Kashmir. After an unsuccessful attempt to cross the border
into Pakistan, to become a militant, Rafiq returns home to an aimless
existence. Until one day, he accidentally finds his brother’s old camera.
159
List of participants, alphabetical by surname, giving
panel number
Ahmad, Mujeeb (International Islamic University, Islamabad) -- P24
Akter Satu, Shammi (The University of Hong Kong) -- P35
Aktor, Mikael (University of Southern Denmark) -- P45
Alder, Ketan (Manchester University) -- P09
Alessandrini, Nunziatella (Centro de História de além mar) -- P19
Alluri, Rina (swisspeace) -- P42
Almeida, Ana (University of Aveiro - INET-MD)
Andersen, Peter B. (University of Copenhagen) -- P50
Annamalai, E (Universitiy of Chicago) -- P36
Ansaldo, Umberto (The University of Hong Kong) -- P36
Ansari, Sarah (Royal Holloway, University of London) -- P24
Ara, Hussan (University Of Balochistan) -- P03, P44
Aranguren, Martin (EHESS Paris)
Armstrong, James (University of London)
Avelar, Ana Paula (Aberta University) -- P40
Axelby, Richard (SOAS)
Bagchi, Barnita (Utrecht University) -- P15
Bajwa, Sadia (Humboldt Univeristy)
Bal, Ellen (VU University Amsterdam) -- P35
Balachandran, Aparna (Department of History, University of Delhi) -- P46
Banerjee, Milinda (Heidelberg University, Germany) -- P28, P46
Banerjee, Supurna (University of Edinburgh) -- P48
Banerjee, Sutanuka (Universidad de Malaga)
Barreto Xavier, Ângela (University of Lisbon) -- P40
Bastos, Cristiana (University of Lisbon) -- P07
Basu, Helene (Westfälische-Wilhelms-Universität) -- P03
Basu Ray Chaudhury, Anasua (Calcutta Research Group) -- P44
Battaglia, Giulia (SOAS) -- P51
Baujard, Julie (Centre for South Asian Studies (CNRS - EHESS)) -- P11
Bauman, Chad (Butler University) -- P46, P47
Benteler, Miriam (State Museums of Berlin) -- P01
Bevilacqua, Daniela
Bhatia, Mohita (University of Cambridge) -- P08
160
LIST OF PARTICIPANTS
Bhattacharya, Binayak (English and Foreign Languages University) -- P39, P43
Bhattacharya, Nilanjan -- P51
Bhattacharya, Sanjoy (University of York) -- P07
Bhatti, Feyza (University of Edinburgh)
Bindi, Serena (Université Paris 5 Descartes) -- P31
Bingle, Richard (British Library)
Bishokarma, Miriam (University of Zurich) -- P09
Blell, Mwenza (Durham University) -- P07
Blom, Amélie (Institut d’études de l’Islam et des Sociétés du Monde Musulman
(IISMM-EHESS)) -- P26
Bloomer, Kristin (Carleton College) -- P01
Bochkovskaya, Anna (Institute of Asian and African Studies, Lomonosov Moscow State
University) -- P08
Bon, Massimo (Università degli Studi di Roma La Sapienza)
Bouillier, Veronique (CNRS France) -- P23
Brandt, Carmen (Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg) -- P36
Breman, Jan
Brueckner, Heidrun (University of Wuerzburg)
Byrne, Sarah (University of Zurich) -- P06
Cachado, Rita (ISCTE-IUL, University Institute of Lisbon ) -- P18
Cardoso, Hugo (Universidade de Coimbra) -- P36
Carrin Tambs-Lyche, Marine (Université de Toulouse - II) -- P04, P50
Carvalho, Edzia (University of Amsterdam) -- P12
Castaing, Anne (Cerlom (Inalco)) -- P39
Cavaliere, Stefania (University of Naples L’Orientale»») -- P39
Cerulli, Anthony (Hobart & William Smith Colleges) -- P01
Chakma, Bhumitra (The University of Hull) -- P44
Chanchani, Devanshi (University of East Anglia)
Chatterjee, Nandini (University of Plymouth) -- P33
Chattha, Ilyas -- P24
Chattopadhyay, Dhrupadi (Heidelberg University) -- P47
Chaturvedula, Nandini (FCSH-UNL) -- P19
Chaudhuri, Nupur (Texas Southern University) -- P17
Chiriyankandath, James (University of London) -- P43
Ciotti, Manuela (Aarhus University) -- P08
Claquin, Timour (Centre de Recherches et d’Études Anthropologiques (CREA), Faculté
d’Anthropologie et de Sociologie, Université Lumière Lyon2) -- P06
161
Clark, Matthew (SOAS (affiliate)) -- P23
Condos, Mark (Wolfson, University of Cambridge) -- P14
Consolaro, Alessandra (University of Torino) -- P37, P39
Copland, Ian (Monash UIniversity) -- P13
Damodaran, Vinita (University of Sussex) -- P04
Das Gupta, Sanjukta (Sapienza University of Rome) -- P04
Datta, Anjali B (Trinity College, University of Cambridge) -- P09
Dayeh, Islam (Free University Berlin) -- P21
de Bruijn, Thomas -- P37, P39
De Neve, Geert (Sussex University) -- P28
de Silva, Jani (Centre for Studies in Gender & Post-Conflict Development) -- P12
Delacy, Richard (Harvard University) -- P37
Delvoye, Françoise ‘Nalini’ (EPHE (Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes)) -- P23
Denault, Leigh (Churchill College, Cambridge) -- P15
DeVotta, Neil (Wake Forest University) -- P43
Dhanda, Meena (University of Wolverhampton) -- P08
Dharampal-Frick, Gita (South Asia Institute, Heidelberg University)
Dhubert, Thibaut (University of Chicago) -- P23
Dimitrova, Diana (Michigan State University) -- P39
Donner, Henrike (Oxford Brookes University) -- P28
Drumond Braga, Duarte (University of Lisbon) -- P40
Dupont, Véronique (Institute of Research for Development) -- P11
Eickelbeck, Felix
Eklund, Lars (Lund University)
Elliott, Derek (Peterhouse, University of Cambridge) -- P14
Esteves Reis, Mónica -- P19
Faridi, Kamal
Favero, Paolo (University Institute of Lisbon ) -- P51
Fennell, Shailaja (University of Cambridge) -- P50
Fernandes, Jason Keith (ISCTE) -- P05
Fibiger, Marianne (Aarhus University) -- P45
Freier, Monika (Max Planck Institute for Human Development) -- P15
Frenz, Margret (University of Leicester)
Frenz, Matthias (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes) -- P47
Frese, Heiko (Heidelberg University) -- P38
Fuller, Chris (London School of Economics)
Gaenszle, Martin (Institute for South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies) -- P51
162
Gaikwad, Nikhar (Yale University, USA) -- P44
Gama, Fabiene (UFRJ / EHESS) -- P35
Gazieva, Indira (Russian State University for the Humanities) -- P18
Geiser, Urs (University of Zurich) -- P10
George, Joppan (Princeton University) -- P27
George, Rosemary (The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies)
Ghimire, Safal (Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) NorthSouth, South Asia Office) -- P42
Ghosh-Schellhorn, Martina (Saarland University)
Glushkova, Irina (Institute of Oriental Studies) -- P45
Gomes, Luís (ISCTE-IUL)
Gonçalves Miranda, Rui (Universidade do Minho /University of Nottingham) -- P40
Gooptu, Nandini (University of Oxford) -- P02
Gould, William (University of Leeds) -- P13
Govinda, Radhika (Ambedkar University, Delhi) -- P11
Graner, Elvira (BRAC University) -- P09
Gravend-Tirole, Xavier (Universities of Lausanne and Montreal) -- P46
Grunebaum, Jason (University of Chicago) -- P37
Gupta, Pamila (University of the Witwatersrand) -- P05
Gust, Anna (Five Colleges, Massachusetts) -- P20
Guzy, Lidia (University College Cork (UCC)) -- P04
Halliburton, Murphy (Queens College, CUNY) -- P03
Hameed, Abdul (Pakistan International Human Rights Organization (PIHRO))
Haniffa, Farzana (University of Colombo) -- P43
Harder, Hans (SAI Heidelberg, Germany) -- P39
Harriss, John (Simon Fraser University)
Hawley, Jack (Barnard College, Columbia University) -- P23
Headley, Zoe (CNRS-CEIAS)
Henn, Alexander (Arizona State University) -- P05
Hiralal, Kalpana (University of Kwazulu/Natal) -- P18
Hollenbach, Pia (University of Zurich) -- P09
Homm, Sebastian (Bonn University) -- P09
Huesken, Ute (University of Oslo) -- P01
Iff, Andrea (swisspeace) -- P42
Ikhlef, Hakim (European University Institute) -- P19
Iqtidar, Humeira (King’s College London) -- P10
Israel, Hephzibah (University of Edinburgh) -- P47
163
Jabeen, Musarrat (COMSATS Institute of Information Technology) -- P42, P44
Jacobsen, Knut Axel (University of Bergen) -- P01, P45
Jagannathan, Bharati (Miranda House, University of Delhi) -- P47
Jandu, Gurbachan (Royal Anthropological Institute) -- P18
Janeja, Manpreet (University of Copenhagen/Cambridge) -- P35
Jaoul, Nicolas (CNRS) -- P34
Jasani, Rubina (University of Manchester) -- P03
Javid, Hassan -- P10, P24
Jeffery, Patricia (University of Edinburgh) -- P30
Jeffery, Roger (University of Edinburgh) -- P07
Jones, Arun (Emory University) -- P46
Jones, Justin (University of Exeter) -- P33
Jullien, Clémence (Univeristé Paris Ouest Nanterre) -- P07
Kalyanpur, Maya (Ministry of Education) -- P31
Kanungo, Pralay (Jawaharlal Nehru University) -- P04
Kato, Mariko (Seinan Gakuin University) -- P08
Kaur, Ravinder (Indian Institute of Technology Delhi) -- P32
Kc, Diwas (University of Michigan) -- P16
Kersenboom, Saskia (University Of Amsterdam) -- P29
Keshavmurthy, Prashant (McGill University) -- P21
Keune, Jon (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen) -- P23
Khan, Amina -- P44
Khan, Razak (Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures & Societies (BGSMCS)) -- P15
Khandeparkar, Sammit (Arizona State University) -- P05
Khanna, Akshay (Institute of Development Studies) -- P28
Khatri, Rekha (Social Science Baha) -- P07
Khera, Dipti (Columbia University) -- P25
Khokhlova, Liudmila (Institute of Asian and African Studies, Moscow State University)
-- P36
Kim, Hanna (Adelphi University) -- P18
Kim, Helen -- P27
Kirmani, Nida (Lahore University of Management Sciences) -- P12, P32
Klem, Bart (University of Zurich) -- P06
Klöber, Rafael (South Asia Institute, Heidelberg)
Kocho-Williams, Alastair (University of the West of England, Bristol) -- P16
Krajnc, Rita (Universitaet Zuerich)
Kramb, Miguel
164
Kulandai Raj, James Ponniah (Jnana Deepa Vidyapeeth) -- P46
Kumarasingham, Harshan (University of Potsdam) -- P43
Lacmane, Dinashavari (Comunidade Hindu de Portugal)
Lama, Rinzi (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB)) -- P03
Landy, Frederic (University of Paris Ouest-Nanterre) -- P09
Lang, Claudia (Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich) -- P03
Leonard, Karen (UC Irvine) -- P25
Leucci, Tiziana (EHESS-CNRS, Paris) -- P29
Lim, Lisa (The University of Hong Kong) -- P36
Lindberg, Anna (Lund University) -- P32
Lobo, Sandra (Universidade Nova de Lisboa) -- P40
Long, Roger (Eastern Michigan University) -- P24
Lopo, Rui (Centro de Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa) -- P40
Loureiro, Miguel (Lahore University of Management Sciences / University of Sussex)
-- P32
Lourenço, Inês (CRIA-ISCTE/IUL) -- P18
Louro , Michele (Salem State University) -- P16
Luchesi, Brigitte (Formerly University of Bremen) -- P45
Ludwig, Manju (South Asia Institute)
Machado, Everton V. (University of Lisbon) -- P40
Macwan, Mrugesh Daniel (Social Action)
Maksimenko, Irina (”Voice of Russia” (Russian International Broadcasting Company))
-- P18
Mallinson, James (Institute of Classical Studies, Lavasa) -- P23
Manandhar, Prabin (Kathmandu University) -- P10
Mann, Michael (Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin) -- P14
Mapril, José (CRIA-IUL) -- P35
Marques, Sandra (CRIA-IUL) -- P51
Marrewa Karwoski, Christine (Columbia University)
Martin, Nicolas (London School of Economics and Political Science) -- P28
Mateus, Miguel
Mattausch, John (Royal Holloway College) -- P18
Mayer, Adrian (SOAS Univ. of London)
Menezes, Deborah Christina (University of Edinburgh) -- P48
Mestroni, Simone (University of Messina) -- P06
Michelutti, Lucia (University College London) -- P34
Mirza, Maryam
165
Mohammad-Arif, Aminah (CEIAS (CNRS-EHESS)) -- P26
Mohanty, Aditya (UCL and IIT Kanpur) -- P11
Mohmand, Shandana (Institute of Development Studies) -- P12, P43
Mohomed, Carimo (Universidade Nova de Lisboa) -- P33
Mondini, Sara (Ca’ Foscari University, Venezia, Italy) -- P45
Moran, Arik (University of Haifa)
Morey, Stephen (La Trobe University) -- P36
Moritz, Maria -- P15
Mosse, David (SOAS) -- P08
Mufti, Mariam (University of Oklahoma) -- P24
Mukherjee, Madhuja (Jadavpur University) -- P27
Mukherjee, Sipra (West Bengal State University) -- P47
Müller-Böker, Ulrike (University of Zurich)
Murphy, Anne (University of British Columbia) -- P23
Myrvold, Kristina (Lund University) -- P45
Nakamizo, Kazuya (Kyoto University)
Nardi, Carlo (University of Northampton) -- P27
Newman, Robert -- P05
Nuckolls, Charles (Brigham Young University) -- P26
Oddie, Geoffrey (University of Sydney) -- P47
Oecknick, Linda (Ambedkar University) -- P11
Oesterheld, Christina (South Asia Institute Heidelberg) -- P15
Oesterheld, Joachim (Humboldt Universitaet zu Berlin) -- P18
Offredi, Mariola (University of Venice) -- P39
Oonk, Gijsbert (Erasmus School of History Culture and Communication) -- P18
Orsini, Francesca (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London) -- P37
Osella, Filippo (School of Social Sciences and Cultural Studies) -- P28
Palriwala, Rajni (University of Delhi) -- P32
Pande, Ishita (Queen’s University) -- P17
Parobo, Parag (Goa University) -- P05
Parry, Jonathan (London School of Economics)
Passos, Joana (Universidade do Minho) -- P40
Patel, Simin (University of Oxford) -- P20
Pauwels, Heidi (University of Washington) -- P23
Pereira, Cláudia (ISCTE - University Institute of Lisbon) -- P05
Perez, Rosa Maria (ISCTE-University Institute of Lisbon ) -- P05
Peterson, Indira (Mount Holyoke College) -- P29
166
Philippon, Alix -- P24
Polit, Karin (University of Heidelberg) -- P01
Pombo, Pedro (ISCTE-IUL)
Powell, Avril (SOAS (University of London)) -- P15
Pozza, Nicola (University of Lausanne)
Prakash, Amit (Jawaharlal Nehru University) -- P50
Purewal, Navtej (University of Manchester) -- P24
Ramasubramonian, Ramakumar (Tata Institute of Social Sciences) -- P10
Ranganathan, Shubha (Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad) -- P03
Rao, Anupama (Barnard College, Columbia University) -- P34
Rao, Shridevi (The College of New Jersey) -- P31
Rao, V. Narayana (Emory University) -- P38
Ravindran, Deapica (Center for Studies in Ethics and Rights, Mumbai) -- P07
Raza, Ali -- P16
Reetz, Dietrich (Zentrum Moderner Orient) -- P26
Rest, Matthäus (University of Zürich) -- P09
Ripert, Blandine (CNRS-EHESS) -- P50
Robotka, Bettina (Humboldt University Berlin) -- P43
Rousseleau, Raphael (University of Lausanne) -- P04
Roy, Indrajit (St Antony’s College, University of Oxford) -- P34
Ruestau, Hiltrud (Humboldt University retired)
Said, Maurice (Durham University) -- P09
Samad, Yunas (University of Bradford) -- P24
Samarth, Anil -- P40
San Chirico, Kerry (UC Santa Barbara) -- P46
Sanchez, Andrew (London School of Economics and Political Science) -- P02
Sancho, David (University of Sussex) -- P28
Sardesai, Madhavi (Goa University) -- P05
Sariola, Salla (Durham University) -- P07
Sarkar, Tanika (Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi)
Sax, William (South Asia Institute, Heidlberg) -- P03
Saxena, Swati (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine) -- P07
Schleiter, Markus (Frobenius Institute at the Goethe University Frankfurt am Main)
-- P50
Schleyer, Maritta (Max Planck Institute for Human Development) -- P26
Schulte-Droesch, Lea (Groningen University) -- P09, P50
Sen, Uditi (Hampshire College) -- P34
167
Servan-Schreiber, Catherine -- P23
Shah, Alpa (Goldsmiths College, University of London) -- P34
Shah, Safdar (National University of Sciences and Technology) -- P46
Shani, Ornit (University of Haifa) -- P13
Shaumyan, Tatiana (Institute of Oriental Studies RAS) -- P44
Sheikh, Samira (Vanderbilt University) -- P25
Shrot, Gaelle
Shulman, David (Hebrew University) -- P38
Sidharth, Juhi (University of Cambridge) -- P32
Simpson, Edward (SOAS) -- P30
Simpson, Robert (Durham University) -- P07
Singal, Nidhi (University of Cambridge) -- P31
Singh, Gurharpal (SOAS) -- P24
Singh, Harpreet (Centre for Theology and Religious Studies)
Singh, Pritam (Oxford Brookes University) -- P43
Singh, Satnam -- P45
Siqueira, Antonio Alito (Goa University) -- P05
Sitapati, Vinay (Princeton University) -- P10
Skoda, Uwe (Aarhus University) -- P04
Smith, Frederick (University of Iowa) -- P03
Soneji, Davesh (McGill University) -- P29
Stark, Ulrike (University of Chicago) -- P37
Steur, Luisa (University of Copenhagen/SOAS) -- P02, P08, P34
Stolte, Carolien (Leiden University) -- P16
Strulik, Stefanie (University of Zurich) -- P09
Strümpell, Christian (Heidelberg University) -- P02, P04
Suthren Hirst, Jacqueline (University of Manchester) -- P23
Suykens, Bert (Ghent University) -- P06
Swaminathan, Siddharth (Institute for Social and Economic Change) -- P42
Talib, Adam (University of Oxford) -- P21
Tambe, Ashwini (University of Maryland) -- P17
Tambs-Lyche, Harald (Université de Picardie, Jules Verne, Amiens)
Taneja Johansson, Shruti (University of Gothenburg) -- P31
Tawa Lama-Rewal, Stéphanie (CEIAS (Centre for South Asian Studies, Paris)) -- P26
Titzmann, Fritzi-Marie (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin) -- P32
Topdar, Sudipa (Illinois State University) -- P17
Tschurenev, Jana (ETH Zürich) -- P15
168
Udalagama, Tharindi (University of Colombo) -- P07
Upreti, Bishnu (NCCR North-South) -- P42
Valdinoci, Mauro (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) -- P23
Vandekerckhove, Nel (University of Amsterdam) -- P06
Vicente, Filipa Lowndes (Instituto de Ciências Sociais-Universidade de Lisboa) -- P40
Vidyarthee, Kaushal (University of Oxford) -- P08
Viitamäki, Mikko (University of Helsinki - Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (EPHE))
-- P23
Viola, Antonella (FCSH, UAç and Universidade Nova) -- P19
Virdee, Pippa (De Montfort University) -- P24
Vittorini, Simona (SOAS University of London) -- P18
Voix, Raphaël (Center for South Asian Studies) -- P33
von Lengerke, Hans Jurgen
Wagner, Christian (German Institute for International and Security Affairs) -- P44
Wald, Erica (London School of Economics and Political Science) -- P20
Washbrook, David (Trinity College, Cambridge University)
Webb, Martin (University of Sussex) -- P28
Wessler, Heinz Werner (University of Uppsala, Dept for Linguistics and Philology)
-- P39
Wilkinson, Steven (Yale University) -- P13
Williams, Tyler (Columbia University) -- P23
Wiśniewska-Singh, Justyna (University of Warsaw) -- P32
Wülbers, Shazia (University of Hamburg) -- P44
Wyatt, Andrew (University of Bristol) -- P43
Young, Richard (Princeton Theological Seminary) -- P46, P47
Zaman, Faridah (Corpus Christi, University of Cambridge) -- P14
Zavos, John (University of Manchester) -- P18
Zeiler, Xenia (University of Bremen) -- P45
Zeitlyn, Benjamin (University of Sussex) -- P35
169
BII - Building II (Edificio II)
Who’s behind the ECSAS conference, and its
website, online forms and numerous emails?
That’s NomadIT: a freelance team that combines
approachability with technical knowledge, years
of experience with purpose-built software, and an
ethical stance with low prices.
Conference organisation
Our online conference software takes panel/paper proposals,
registrations and funding applications; we design and produce
conference websites and books; we draw up budgets, run conference
finances and facilitate online payment; we liaise with institutional
conference offices and caterers; and we manage events attended by
between 50 and 1200 delegates.
Association administration
We administer academic
associations ranging in size
from 200 to 1700 members (e.g.
SIEF, ASA and EASA), running
association websites,
journals, email lists, finances,
online surveys/elections and
online membership directories.
Website design
We also set up affordable
websites for individual
academics or projects not
assisted by an institution.
We design and host Open
Access online journals.
Ethos
We provide a high level of service at an affordable price, while trying not
to compromise our principles about quality of life and the environment.
We use a green web host and an ecological printer, and we reuse
conference badges and advise clients against the ubiquitous ‘conference
bag’ - not a fight we always win! If you are interested in who we are,
what we do, and how we might help you, please visit our website, email
us, or come and talk to Megan, Triinu or Rohan at the NomadIT desk
near reception.
E: [email protected]
W: www.nomadit.co.uk
UTO UNIVE
RS
TIT
NS
E 1972 - 2012
CT
I
IS
IO DE LISBO
ÁR
A
IT

ecsas 2012

Transcription

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