Report on 'Contribution to Contemporary Knowledge Lecture 2013' and 'Doing Ethnography Today' Workshop

Contributions to Contemporary Knowledge

Prof. Gananath Obeyeseekere at the podium, with chair, Prof. Patricia Uberoi (Former Professor of Sociology at Jawaharlal Nehru University and Vice Chairperson, Institute of Chinese Studies, New Delhi), Prof. Sasanka Perera (Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, South Asian University), and Prof. G K Chaddha (President, South Asian University). Photo bySreedeep

Faculty of Social Sciences at South Asian University initiated the annual program, ‘Contribution to Contemporary Knowledge Lecture Series’ to execute the vision of synergetic regional and global scholarship. This program envisages to bring eminent scholars from anywhere in the world with an international reputation with regard to their scholarship. First in the series was a public lecture by Prof. Gananath Obeyesekere, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Princeton University and currently based in Sri Lanka, on 31 January at Teenmurty Auditorium. The enormous scholarship of Prof. Obeyesekere encapsulates themes from mythology, history, culture and religion in the framework of South Asia with a specific focus on Sri Lanka and its historical intersections with India. The stature of Prof. Obeyesekere evokes a certain kind of reverence and awe among scholars of the region. The lecture was attended by many well-known scholars including historian Professor Romila Thapar, amongst other noted social scientists from  leading varsities and think tanks in Delhi.

The title of the lecture was, ‘The Coming of Brahmin Migrants: The Sudra Fate of an Indian Elite in Sri Lanka’, which explored the shared history and mythology of India and Sri Lanka. Prof. Obeyesekere noted the evolution of Sinhala Buddhism as well as social and political structure with reference to ancient texts and showed that Sinhala Buddhism has posterity of fusion of religious and cultural motifs. It emerged from the lecture that the contemporary version of Sinhala Buddhism, which has been a dominant component of Sinhala society and politics, is not necessarily what the Buddha taught in all of its elements, particularly when it comes to practice. It was rather a consequence of syncretism and tolerant acceptance of elements from Brahmanic rituals adopted from Brahmins who came to Sri Lanka in the distant past as well as other elements of Hindu and local religiosity. An exclusivist notion of Sinhala Buddhism is only a political invention to suit the agenda of identity politics and propaganda of politically dominant sections of the polity.

Doing ethnography Today

Doing Ethnography Today: An Interactive Workshop with Prof. Gananath Obeyesekere, chaired by Prof. Sasanka Perera. Photo credit: Nafees Jilani

As the second leg of the program, Faculty of Social Sciences conducted a unique interactive workshop on 1^st February 2013 at Akbar Bhawan Campus of South Asian University in Chanakyapuri, New Delhi. The workshop deliberated on the possibilities of doing ethnographic studies in the context of contemporary South Asia with its multiple crises and complexities. It emerged that ethnographic monographs can offer a mechanism to overcome the identity politics rife in South Asia. Prof. Obeyesekere made it clear that the notion of something being clearly ‘sociological’ is not a virtue in the craft of ethnographic practice. According to him, social and academic dogmatism cannot rule a creative ethnographer. An ethnographer should be aware of his/her ignorance and hence there is a need for conjecture and creative analysis within reasonable limits. No knowledge in ethnographic enterprise can ever be absolute. More importantly, ethnographic knowledge production entails intellectually fruitful fantasies. As noted by Prof Obeyesekere, without those fantasies,  anthropologists’ methods and techniques become inflexible and canons begin to rein the minds of ethnographers. As such, social scientists from South Asia run the risk of suffering from a kind of poverty of imagination as they are consumed by canonical notions of doing research, in the context of which they sacrifice intellectually necessary fantasies.

 Another aspect of the decline in the knowledge production is that market forces, agendas of international funding agencies and the state have become instrumental in research. This amalgamation of forces leaves no room for ethnographers to go beyond the easily available empirical details. Hence what emerges in the form of books often tends to be slightly more than reports. These reports are suitable for policy framing and planning. But they do not yield the necessary insights into the complex manifestations of the social, the cultural and the political. Social reality encapsulates a cobweb of complex meanings, such as the phenomena at Kataragama in Sri Lanka  as mentioned in his celebrated book titled, Medusa’s Hair. Unless that cobweb of meanings is unraveled in coherent, cogent, rational and sometimes poetic fashion, there can be no nuanced knowledge of society. To make knowledge all pervasive, it is instrumental to bring in intuition and fantasies, going beyond the Cartesian claims of scientific rationality, and capture the complex lives of the people.

Responding to questions and observations by teachers and students at South Asian University, Prof. Obeyesekere made it clear that South Asian scholars have to continue with the efforts to break out of the politics of anthropology, which has defined scholarship at the international level. Reflecting upon his own intellectual dispute with anthropologist, Marshal Sahlins, he indicated that there ought to be multiple disputes of this kind in every epoch of history.

 It became evident on both days that Prof. Obeyesekere is one of the most sought after social anthropologists in India as well as the region. The teeming numbers of young and older scholars who attended both events and engaged with him was a clear recognition of his scholarly persona.  

 ‘Contribution to Contemporary Knowledge Lecture Series’ will continue to generate new insights in the knowledge production and transaction at this two-year-old university, which was begun by SAARC in 2010 .

This year, both events were facilitated by the Department of Sociology.