Sundarban Delta: Picturing Voices From the Margins

 

Sundarban Delta:
Picturing Voices From the Margins
An Exhibition of Photographs

 

By Dr Debojyoti Das

Birkbeck, University of London

25-26 August 2014, Gallery Space, Main Lobby

South Asian University

New Delhi

Sundarban etymologically means “beautiful forest” has historically captivated attention of colonials (British Empire), Portuguese sea pirates, Mog bandits of the Arakan highlands and of late environmentalist, conservationist and nature lovers for its resplendent mangrove forest and the threatened Royal Bengal Tiger. It is a ‘hybrid landscape’ where the waters of two mighty rivers the Ganges and the Brahmaputra meet to form a bird-footed delta. Consequently, in the pre-colonial literature the delta seaboard has been referred to as the land of eighteen tides- atharo bhatir desh. In this water based artisan economy, the riverine communities are socially connected through dispersed village settlements and weekly markets (locally known as hut bazar). The rivers are not just channels of water; they carry a thriving trade, transporting people, goods and ideas from one part of the delta to another. A lot has been written and visually illustrates its flora and fauna. Still there is hardly any significant visual work that captures the lives of communities who struggle routinely to live with the fear of man-eating tigers, alligators, venomous reptiles and natural calamities like cyclones and tropical storms. The stories of people who inhabit the delta seaboard are heart-rending. They belong to the marginalised lower stratum of society and their livelihoods (fishing, seafaring, honey collection, wood cutting) are closely attached to the sea and the mangrove forest. Their life and struggle with nature can be best illustrated through pictures. The photo exhibition will try to address the absence of these communities in the contemporary literature on the Bay of Bengal through visual displays of their everyday life in villages, at sea and inside the forest. They occupy the liminal spaces of aquatic and terrestrial world and are placed at the ‘coastal frontiers’ where the state exercises panoptic control through maritime border patrol over its territorial waters and the Tiger Reserve with camouflaged infrared cameras.

 

 In the past decades the lives of communities living in the coastal belt has been radically challenged by transnational development. The powerful ship breaking industry in Chittagong is creating a massive livelihood crisis in Bangladesh’s Sitakund coastal seaboard, among the traditional fishing community, as toxic litter from breaking ships and land grabbing by power land mafia pollutes the coastal water depleting fish catch. Conversely in India the Sundarbans has been opened up for eco-tourism. This has allowed unregulated entry of engine boats that cause oil spills and pollutes the pristine backwaters. Similarly the tourist flow has put up the demand for guesthouses and hotels in the delicate delta milieu. Also shrimp farming once a thriving business in the coast has significantly damaged the mangrove forest that act as a windbreak to tropical storms and cyclones. Both in India and Bangladesh human intervention and changing state policies in favour of neo-liberalization and globalizations have adversely affected coastal environment.

 

The photographs will bring to light the littoral community’s everyday struggle with the environment, their aspirations for improvement, local beliefs, customs, festivals, folk tradition, drama, theatre and syncretic religious practices of the Hindus and Muslims. The author took these photographs during his yearlong ethnographic field research in India and Bangladesh (2012-13). While the national and western audience has been introduced to a number of literatures on the delta illustrating its flora and fauna, this visuals deliberation of human societies will be a first of its kind. The photographs aim to highlight the social, political and economic life of the delta undermined in popular ecological and environmental discourses dominated by the Bengal tiger.

 

The photo exhibition is the brainchild of the author in association with the Faculty of Social Sciences, South Asian University (SAU). The exhibition comes out of the project entitled “Coastal Frontiers: Water, Power and Boundaries in South Asia” supported by the European Research Commission with Dr Sunil Amrith as the PI in Birkbeck College, University of London.

 

About the Photographer

Dr. Debojyoti Das is an Anthropologist and Photographer, interested social, cultural and historical anthropology of frontier and marginal communities occupying South Asia’s littoral, highland and forest scape. He is a currently based as a Research Associate at the Dept. of History, Classics and Archaeology at Birkbek, University of London.

 

The photo exhibition will run during 25-26 of August 2014

at the in the Gallery Space
Main Lobby, South Asian University
Akbar Bhavan, Chanakyapuri
New Delhi 110021 

 

 

A reception will be held at South Asian University in the Lobby in front of the FSI Hall on 25 August, 2.15pm

 

 All are warmly invited to attend the event and reception.

Invitation: A Conversation with Professor Parul Mukherji

A Conversation with Professor Parul Mukherji

Rickshaw: A Students’ Collective @ Department of Sociology, South Asian University presents

'A Conversation with Professor Parul Mukherji.'

From 02.00 – 05.00 pm, 29th August 2014; FSI Hall, South Asian University, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi.

Those keen on participating can send a question not exceeding fifty (50) words on any of the following themes with reference to Professor Mukherji’s work: 

art history, visual culture, politics of culture, erotica, Shakunthala, gender and art, globalization and culture.

Please send your questions with your name and institutional affiliation to: rickshaweditors@gmail.com before 20^th of August 2014.

ALL ARE INVITED!

Please keep your mobile phones switched off during the conversation.

Reimagining Visuality

Department of Sociology 

Faculty of Social Sciences 

South Asian University

Reimagining Visuality: 

Exploring Possibilities in Photography,
Theory and Practice
 
Call for Abstracts

The social history of photography in South Asia for the most part has been associated with the need to capture and document images in order to serve the colonial agenda. Further, its shift from then to the present context through the vagaries of post-coloniality is marked by two main developments among many. The first has to do with the evolution of photographic technologies in the 21st century while the second relates to the accessibility of photographic devices in the form of digital cameras and ubiquitous camera-phones making this once elite practice a very democratic one in terms of access. These developments accompanied by increased interactions through alternative means such as the social media and the internet more generally have led to the proliferation of images around us and a radical transformation in the practice of photography.

By the 1980s, the new sub-disciplines of visual sociology and anthropology had emerged in Europe and North America with a concerted focus on imagery as a central occupation in their analytical approach. These developments nevertheless had no discernable impact on the practice of sociology and social anthropology in South Asia on one hand, and on mainstream sociology and anthropology more generally and globally. This meant that only a handful of scholars working in the mainstream of these disciplines have historically used photographs in their work as part of a conscious methodological framework for research or analytical approach for interpretation. With very few exceptions, even when photographs are used, the purpose has often been to illustrate or act as evidence. Thus, photographs are used not as part of a distinct theoretically informed methodological apparatus but to substantiate claims made by the written word. Moreover, this feeble attempt to incorporate pictures combined with the lacuna in the theory and interpretation of photography has made its use vacuous to a large extent. This inconsistent use, often lacking in rigor has further resulted in photography’s inability to claim a serious space for itself within the realm of methodological practices of these disciplines.

So if a picture is worth a thousand words then why does the written word still predominate the practice of sociology and social anthropology in particular and social sciences more generally?

The Department of Sociology at South Asian University calls for a conscious and rigorous engagement with this question by looking at photography as a method with a focus on the practice of sociology and anthropology in South Asia. The primary intent of the proposed workshop is to seriously explore the potentiality of photographs and photography as a methodological tool that could be used in conjunction with other methods in the practice of sociology and social anthropology as well as in other realms of social sciences which might inform the practice of these two disciplines in contemporary times. To do this, we believe it is necessary to bring together scholars from various disciplinary contexts to discuss and engage with the possibilities and challenges involved in the attempt to create a methodology around theory, interpretation and practice of photography within social sciences.

It is expected that selected papers from among those presented will contribute to a special volume on photography in the practice of sociology/anthropology in South Asia.

We invite abstracts not exceeding 500 words from interested scholars on any theme within the areas of interest outlined above.

Workshop date and venue:

Saturday 28th February 2015 @ South Asian University, Akbar Bhawan, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi 110021.

Co-conveners:

Sasanka Perera, Kumud Bhansali and Krishna Pandey, Department of Sociology, South Asian University, New Delhi

Deadlines and contact details:

Abstracts should be received by the conveners by 15th September 2014. Decisions will be communicated to potential paper presenters by 15th October 2014. Complete papers are expected to reach SAU by 1st January 2015. All communications regarding the conference as well as abstracts should be directed to: kumud.bhansali@gmail.com