'Society and Culture in South Asia' will get off ground in January 2015

Issue 1, Volume 1 of Society and Culture in South Asia (SCiSA) co-published by the Department of Sociology, South Asian University and Sage India will be out in January 2015. It will be published twice year (two issues per volume).

The disciplinary dimensions to which the journal responds to covers sociology and social anthropology in the main, and sociology of education, sociology of medicine, arts and aesthetics, cultural studies, sociology of mass media, sociology of law, urban studies and so on. However it will be open to contributions from other disciplines in the wider domains of social sciences and humanities in so far as they inform the disciplinary dimensions identified above.

The journal possesses an international character in two senses: regional internalism and trans-regional internationalism. On one level, it focuses on readership and contributions from the scholars of South Asian countries (SAARC countries) and on the other it will appeal to scholars beyond South Asia who exhibit intellectual interest in the discourses on and from South Asia. 

For more information, click here. 

Tentative Contents of Society and Culture in South Asia, Vol. 1; Issue No. 1:

Preface Vol 1; Issue 1

Papers

Gananath Obeyesekere
The coming of Brahmin migrants: the śudra fate of an Indian elite in Sri Lanka

Ravi Nandan Singh
Modes of Processing the Dead: Ethnography of Crematoria

Benu Verma
Plenitude Of The Singular: Draupadi In Literature And Life

Review Essay

Sheena Jain
Pierre Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice. Polity Press, Cambridge, 1990, pp. 333, ISBN: 0-7456-0597-4,

Opinion/Debate

Thongkholal Haokip
The Politics of Scheduled Tribe Status in Manipur

Photo Essay

Jagath Dheerasekara
Manuwangku Under the Nuclear Cloud

Book Reviews

Susan Visvanathan
Roland Lardinois. 2013. Scholars and Prophets: Sociology of India from France, 19th-20th Centuries. New Delhi: Social Science Press. Pp. 564, price: Rs. 795. ISBN 978-81-87358-70-1

Renny Thomas
Jeffrey C. Alexander, Trauma: A Social Theory. Cambridge: Polity Press, June 2012, 180 pp. Notes, Bibliography, Index. ISBN 9780745649115 and 9122. US $22.95

Ruchika Wason Singh
Navina. Performing Heritage: Art of Exhibit Walks, Sage, New Delhi. 2012. pp. 216, ISBN 978-81-321-0699-9

Editorial Board

Editor in Chief: Sasanka Perera (South Asian University, Department of Sociology)
Associate Editor: Ravi Kumar (South Asian University, Department of Sociology)
Reviews Editor: Dev Pathak (South Asian University, Department of Sociology)
Ankur Datta (South Asian University, Department of Sociology)
Kumud Bhansali (Editorial Assistant, South Asian University, Department of Sociology)

International Editorial Advisory Board

Gananath Obeysekere (Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, Princeton University, New Jersey)
Roma Chatterji (Delhi School of Economics, New Delhi)
Radhika Chopra (Delhi School of Economics, New Delhi)
Maitrayee Chaudhuri (Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi)
N. Jayaram (Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai)
Chaitanya Mishra (Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu)
Siddharth Malavarappu (South Asian University, New Delhi)
Sujata Patel (Hyderabad Central University, Hyderabad)
Tariq Jazeel (University College London, London)
Salima Hashmi (Beacon House National University, Lahore)
Jagath Weerasinghe (Post Graduate Institute of Archeology, Colombo)
Yoshiko Ashiwa (Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo)
Bob Simpson (Durham University, Durham)
R.L. Stirrat (University of Sussex, Brighton)

Thee Years of South Asian University: Experiences and Expectations

This is what the recently published book, Pathways to Power: The Domestic Politics of South Asia edited by Arjun Gunaratne and Anita M Weiss (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2014) says about South Asian University in its introduction:

“When India has professed a priority, it seems that SAARC takes it up and the result is generally in India’s favor. Take, for example, SAARC’s initiative to create a South Asian University. For many years, the idea was bandied about in conferences, meetings and high-level summits. It was envisioned as an opportunity for SAARC to bring together the greatest minds of the sub-continent while also providing an outstanding higher education opportunity for students from every South Asian country. But what was the final result? SAARC’s South Asian University abuts Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, and its faculty consists mostly of JNU graduates. There is nothing particularly distinctive about the SAARC South Asian University except its focus on political economy; in essence, it is Indian University with apolitical economic focus. Indeed, other SAARC proposals have shared similar fates: those that India wished to ignore dissipated, and those that India supported have essentially become Indian initiatives. India has been able to proceed with its own economic and political agenda without the need to collaborate with other states in the region. Until such time that India can be a partner rather than seek to be the regional chief executive, SAARC’s prospects to promote economic and social collaborations within the region will remain problematic” ('Introduction: Situating Domestic Politics in South Asia', p. 17).

Whatever the merits of this brief opinion, SAU has been and will continue to be in South Asia's public domain. It has and will continue to generate ideas both positive and not so positive about the very idea of the university as well as its being. Do you have any ideas? Any comments? Any anxieties? And suggestions? Come join the exchange of views about our presence on September 19th at SAU's FSI Hall:

Invitation to Book Reviewers

Greetings from the Department of Sociology, South Asian University, New Delhi! We are writing to invite academics from South Asia and beyond to become part of the pool of reviewers for our journal, Society and Culture in South Asia co-published by the Department of Sociology, SAU and Sage India.

Guidelines

It would be useful to consider the following basic instructions and guidelines when writing a review:

• Kindly send an email to the Reviews Editor to join the pool of reviewers. In that email please outline the nature of your academic training, areas of expertise and interest, contact details and institutional afflictions. 

• The journal solicits reviews of recently published books (post 2012) that you may have read recently. The journal provides a reviewer with a book, matching the research interests of the reviewers. The author is entitled to keep the book after submitting the review, unless a return of the book is required by the journal in exceptional circumstances. 

• The review should be 1000 words or less in length. Any significant variation from the limit will be subject to editing based on the discretion of the Reviews Editor. 

• If you were to write a longer review essay, putting together two or more books, the length would be 5000 words. This would however be based on editorial discretion taking into account the thematic veracity of the review essay and the specific them of any given issue of the journal. 

• In general, the review could be critical and searching, based on a clear idea of the book’s contents. In doing so, reviewers need to respond to the book itself by engaging with its ideas and issues. 

• More specifically, the review ought to discuss the merits or otherwise of the book’s ideas and arguments, its organisation and clarity, while commenting on the standard of writing and possible readership for the book. 

• Critical comments should analyse the book’s success or otherwise in meeting its objectives, before extending the discussion into areas which may have been missed or misunderstood. 

• While it is essential to be assertive, it is also essential to be just and sensitive. Reviews in Society and Culture in South Asia should not be a forum to publicise one’s own scholarship. 

• Reviews should reach the Reviews Editor within eight weeks from the date of the receipt of the book. 

• Reviews should be submitted to the Reviews Editor electronically, as a Microsoft Word email attachment using the font Calibri point 11; it should be double-spaced. 

• Footnotes should be avoided in reviews and personal identification (name, affiliation, postal address and email id) of the reviewer ought to be displayed at the end of the review. 

• Please set out the bibliographical details of the book under review at the top of the document in the following format: Cathrine Brun and Tariq Jazeel (Eds.,), Spatialising Politics: Culture and Geography in Postcolonial Sri Lanka. Sage, New Delhi, 2009, pp. 238, ISBN: 078-81-7829-929-7. INR. 695.00. 

• Your name should be placed above your institutional affiliation at the end of the review. If you are not 
affiliated with an institution, please include your town or city of residence. 

• Please return the book in case you are unable to review. 

For more information, Please contact the Reviews Editor, Dr Dev N Pathak @ Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, South Asian University, New Delhi 110021.

Email: dev@soc.sau.ac.in 


Currently Available Books for Review 

Ravi Kumar & Savyasaachi, (ed.), Social Movements: Transformative Shifts & Turning Points. Routledge, Delhi, 2013, pp. 380, ISBN: 978-0-415-71736-6. INR. 850.00.

Krishna Kumar, Politics of Education in Colonial India. Routledge, Delhi, 2013, pp. 248, ISBN: 978-0-415-72879-9. INR. 695.00.

Assa Doron & Alex Broom, (ed.), Gender and Masculinities. Routledge, Delhi, 2013, ISBN: 978-81-89643-36-2, INR. 695.00.

Tanvi Bajaj & Swasti S. Vohra, Performing Arts and Therapeutic Implications. Routledge, Delhi, 2013, pp. 196, ISBN: 978-0-415-71011-4, INR. 695.00.

Eva Pfost, (ed.), Between Ethics and Politics: Gandhi Today. Routledge, Delhi, 2013, ISBN: 978-0-415-71064-0, INR. 595.00.

Mukulika Banerjee, Why India Votes?. Routledge, Delhi, 2013, pp. 286, ISBN: 978-1-138-01971-3, INR. 495.00.

Himanshu P. Ray, The Return of the Buddha: Ancient Symbols for a New Nation. Routledge, Delhi, 2014, pp. 300, ISBN: 978-0-415-71115-9, INR. 795.00.

Ranbir Samadar & S. K. Sen. (ed.), New Subjects and New Governance in India. Routledge, Delhi, 2012, pp. 405, ISBN: 978-0-415-52290-8, INR. 895.00.

Govind Kelkar & Maithreyi Krishnaraj, (ed.), Women, Land and Power in Asia, Routledge, Delhi, 2013,  pp. 388, ISBN: 978-0-415-66214-7, INR. 995.00.

Sujata Patel & Tina Uys, (ed.), Contemporary India and South Africa: Legacies, Identities and Dilemmas. Routledge, Delhi, 2012, pp. 330, ISBN: 978-0-415-52299-1.

Sarah Beth Hunt, Hindi Dalit Literature and the Politics of Representation, Routledge, Delhi, 2014, pp. 264, ISBN: 978-0-415-73629-9, INR. 695.00.

Beatrix Hauser, Promising Rituals: Gender and Performativity in Eastern India. Routledge, Delhi, 2012, pp. 277, ISBN: 978-0-415-71115-9, INR. 795.00.

Radha Chakravarty. Novelist Tagore: Gender and Modernity in Selected Texts. Routledge, Delhi, 2013, pp. 160, ISBN: 978-0-415-84043-9, INR. 595.

Vibha Arora & N. Jayaram, (ed.), Routeing Democracy in the Himalayas: Experiments and Experiences. Routledge, Delhi, 2013, pp. 303, ISBN: 978-0-415-81199-6, INR. 795.00.

Arindam Chakrabarti & Sibaji Bandyopadhyay, (ed.). Mahabharata Now: Narration, Aesthetics and Ethics. Routledge, Delhi, 2013, pp. 292, ISBN: 978-0-415-71055-8, INR. 895.00.

A. Raghuramraju, (ed.). Ramachandra Gandhi: The Man and his Philosophy. Routledge, Delhi, 2013, pp. 355, ISBN: 978-0-415-82435-4, INR. 895.00

Ranbir Samaddar and Suhit K. Sen, (ed.), Political Transition and Development Imperatives in India. Routledge, Delhi, 2012, pp. 296, ISBN: 978-0-415-52289-2, INR. 795.

Neera Chandhoke and Sanjay K Agrawal, (ed.), Social Protection Policies in South Asia. Routledge, Delhi, 2013, pp. 268, ISBN: 978-0-415-81214-6, INR. 750.00.

Renu Addlakha, (ed.), Disability studies in India: Global Discourses and Local Realities. Routledge, Delhi, 2013, pp. 441, ISBN: 978-0-415-81212-2, INR. 895.00.

Ghanshaym Shah, (ed.), Re-reading Hind Swaraj: Modernity and Subalterns. Routledge, Delhi, 2013, pp. 248, ISBN: 978-0-415-66210-9, INR. 795.00.

Tanveer Fazal, (ed.), Minority Nationalisms in South Asia. Routledge, Delhi, 2012, pp. 257, ISBN: 978-81-89643-33-1, INR. 650.00.

Sarmistha Dutta Gupta, Identities & Histories: Women’s Writing and Politics in Bengal. Stree, Calcutta, 2010, pp. 294, ISBN: 978-81-906760-3-8, INR. 700.00.

Sociology Seminar Series, 2014-2015 (Monsoon Semester) - Madrasas and the Question of Reforms

Madrasas and the Question of Reforms

By Dr. Arshad Alam

Centre for the Study of Social Systems

Jawaharlal Nehru University

Abstract: Principal actors involved in the debate on reforms of Indian madrasas are the state and the ulama. Both operate with very different perspectives on what constitutes reform. For the state, it has largely meant making the madrasa system relevant to the needs of occupational structure; for the ulama, it has always involved the moral question of how best to socialize a Muslim child. Operating at such cross purposes, it is not very difficult to see why madrasa reforms have very nearly failed. The location and articulation of contemporary madrasas cannot be understood without a historical reading of the institution. Over time, the institution has undergone changes in terms of its contents, aims and methods. Appreciating this historical shift is central in understanding its position on madrasa reforms today.

About the Speaker: Arshad Alam is Assistant Professor, Centre for the Study of Social Systems, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He has previously taught at the Jamia Millia University, New Delhi and was an International Ford Fellow at the University of Erfurt, Germany. He has published in the area of Muslim identity and education, low caste political articulations, Indian Muslims and the question of diversity within Indian Islam. He was Assistant Editor with the journal History and Sociology of South Asia during 2006-2012. Arshad Alam has an MA from CSSS/JNU and an MPhil and PhD from ZHCES/JNU. He is the author of Inside a Madrasa: Knowledge, Power and Islamic Identity in India (New Delhi and London: Routledge)

Date: 

17 September 2014, Wednesday

Time: 

02.30 PM

@

FSI HALL, South Asian University, 

Akbar Bhawan, Chanakyapuri,

New Delhi 110021

ALL ARE CORDIALLY INVITED

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