Photography Workshop and Walk

An initiative of ‘Rickshaw: A Students Collective’ @ Department of Sociology

Karen Exell Talk Concluded

The talk by Karen Exell on 6th August 2016 at 6.30 pm at IIC, Delhi on the theme, ‘Museums and the Present: Issues of Community, Locality and Contextual Relevance’ was conclude successfully. The talk was organised by the Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences at South Asian University in collaboration with IIC.

The basic argument of the presentation was that “Museums were developed in many parts of the world during the colonial period to ‘visualise and objectify’ the colonised people and country for the coloniser, as Shaila Bhatti has argued in relation to the Lahore Museum, or to collect and display archaeological material that supported western interests. Following decolonisation the perception has remained amongst local communities that these ‘colonial’ museums are irrelevant to their contemporary concerns. This contrasts with museological approaches in some northern European countries, where museums have become central to social policy agendas of community support, or the focus of grass-roots cultural initiatives. Using models from a variety of countries, this lecture argues that museums in post-colonial countries such as India have the opportunity to significantly enrich the lives of their local communities through creative interventions, and to realign these museums with contemporary socio-political concerns.”

The speaker, Karen Excel teaches Museum Studies, and is Programme Director of the MA program in Museum and Gallery Practice at University College London’s Qatar campus. Her research interests include the social and political role of museums and the impact of museums on cultural identity, with a focus on non-western societies. Her recent publications include the co-edited volume, Heritage Debates in the Arabian Peninsula published in 2014, and the forthcoming monograph, Museums in the Arabian Peninsula: Globalisation and the Politics of Representation scheduled to be published by Routledge in 2016.

In intruding the speaker and SAU Sociology department’s involvement in its organization, the Chair, Sasanka Perera made the following observations: 

I want to take a little bit of time to explain how it was possible for an academic program such as sociology to imagine a theme like this, given the fact that our discipline is generally supposed to deal with the present. Besides, we are a relatively unheard of entity as both a Department and as a University. I am sure most of you do not know what or where South Asian University is. It does not really matter. I am sure you will soon enough. 

But for me, that lack of an institutional tradition or heritage is an asset when we are in the process of building something from scratch. A tradition can sometimes be a burden for well established universities in the context of which they have to constantly measure what they do. Creative transgression would be unthinkable. At the moment at least, this is not a consideration for us. 

Clearly, we deal with issues such as migration, gender, violence, law, the city, class and so on as do other sociologists. But because we are in the process of defining our own presence and perspective as well as our collective intellectual future in Delhi and in South Asia, some of us are also interested in things and objects that many sociologists would not take too seriously. These include visual arts, film and performance, photography and in understanding the ways in which the past is an ensuring presence in our present. In other words, we would like to establish our practice slightly differently if given the option.

In that sense, the interest in this theme came very naturally. It is also in that same context that we organised a very unique and engaged conversation with Professor Romila Thapar in 2013 focused on the theme ‘debating the past and the present’. These proceedings have since been published in our ongoing series, ‘Conversations on/for South Asia.’

Though we have inherited the idea of museums as part of our colonial experience, they are now very much part of our collective existence playing out our own politics and intrigue. Not too long ago, in a single day the National Museum of Maldives was vandalised twice, and the Buddhist artefacts there destroyed. In Colombo, over a decade ago, some artefacts in the National Museum were taken to the President’s house, not as part of any specific program, but simply because he liked them. He also wanted the throne of the last king of Lanka to be taken to his residence to sit on when receiving foreign dignitaries. 

The appointment of Directors to important museums in the region and clearly in Delhi is an important political act. It is a matter of how the past might be represented in a way that would make sense to political dispensations of today. 

So clearly, the past as packaged in museums, the past as we popularly understand it, and the past as it is officially handled is very much a matter of the present. And that itself makes it relevant for us as sociologists not too keen to be imprisoned by the conventions of our discipline.

I am sure Dr Exell will deal with in detail how museums become an integral part of the discursive practices of the present in her talk.

Sociology Seminar Series 2015-16 - Monsoon Semester

Seminar Schedule for the Monsoon Semester

Date	Title	Presenter
19 August 2015	Wield the Brooom ! Curative Democracy and the Promise of "New Politics" in India	Dr. Srirupa Roy, University of Göttingen
16 September 2015	TBA	Dr. Deepak Mehta, Delhi School of Economics/Shiv Nader University
23 September 2015	Poverty and the Quest for Life: Spiritual and Material Striving in Rural India	Dr. Bhrighupati Singh, Brown University
07 October 2015	Imagining the Indian Nation: The Design of Gandhi’s Dandi March and Nehru’s Republic Day Parade	Dr. Suchitra Balasubrahmanyan, Ambedkar University
28 October 2015	Property, Body and Women: Legal Pluralism, Social Location and Gender Inequality in Nepal	Dr. Rajendra Pradhan, Nepa School of Social Sciences and Humanities
4 November 2015	Against planetary urbanisation: Exploring the dynamics of small towns in India.	Dr. Marie-Helene Zerah, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement

Time:
02.30 PM 

Venue:

FSI Hall, Ground Floor, South Asian University, 

Akbar Bhawan, Chanakyapuri,

New Delhi 110021
and Administration

ALL ARE CORDIALLY INVITED!

Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences,  Akbar Bhawan, South Asian University, Chankayapuri, New Delhi 110021

Phone: 24122512; 24122513; 24122514

Webpage: http://www.southasianuniversity.org/Faculties/FSS/FSS.html

Official Departmental Blog: http://sociology-sau.blogspot.in/

                        Sociology Students’ Blog: https://sausociology.wordpress.com/

Society and Culture in South Asia, Vol 1, Issue 2 (July 2015) Released

Society and Culture

in South Asia

Volume I Issue 2 July 2015

_________________________________________________________________________________

Contents

Editorial	Vii
Articles The Politics of Indigenous Social Science: Invoking a Lucknow Sociologist Manish Thakur	109
Comic Gags and the Mahabharata War Roma Chatterji	127
Who Am I? Theorising Self(s) and Identity(s) in an Attempt to Self-explore Surangama Guha	147
History and Autobiography: Investigating the Multiple Identities of the Self from the Text ‘Ardhakathanak’ Aniket Tathagata Chhetry	164
Review Essay Reconciliation without Introspection? On Post-war Sri Lanka Priya Naik	182
Opinions/Debates Whose Body is Legitimatized for Sterilization After All? Asima Jena and Madhumita Biswal	195
Photo Essay Resurrecting and Reenacting Gandhi Anoli Perera and B.S. Sivaraju (Cop Shiva)	200
Book Reviews Roma Chatterji, Speaking with Pictures: Folk Art and the Narrative Traditions in India Reviewed by  Ravi Nandan Singh	208
Tom Boellstroff, Bonnie Nardi, Celia Pearce and T.L. Taylor, Ethnography and Virtual Worlds – A Handbook of Method Reviewed by Mitoo Das	210
Abha Sur, Dispersed Radiance: Caste, Gender and Modern Science in India Reviewed by Jyoti Sinha	213
Samita Sen, Ranjita  Biswas and Nandita Dhawan (eds), Intimate Others: Marriage and Sexualities in India Reviewed by Paro Mishra	215
Kavita Panjabi and Paromita Chakravati (eds), Women Contesting Culture: Changing Frames of Gender Politics in India Reviewed by Madhumita Das	218

Museums and the Present: Issues of Community, Locality and Contextual Relevance

Department of Sociology
Faculty of Social Sciences
South Asian University

and

India International Centre

present

Museums and the Present:
Issues of Community, Locality and 

Contextual Relevance

By

Karen Exell
University College London - Qatar Campus

Synopsis of Lecture

National Museum, Colombo

Museums were developed in many parts of the world during the colonial period to ‘visualise and objectify’ the colonised people and country for the coloniser, as Shaila Bhatti has argued in relation to the Lahore Museum, or to collect and display archaeological material that supported western interests. 

Lahore Museum

Following decolonisation a certain perception has remained amongst some local communities that these ‘colonial’ museums are irrelevant to their contemporary concerns. This contrasts with museological approaches in some northern European countries, where museums have become central to social policy agendas of community support, or the focus of grass-roots cultural initiatives. 

National Museum, Delhi

Using models from a variety of countries, Dr Exell argues that museums in post-colonial countries such as India have the opportunity to significantly enrich the lives of their local communities through creative interventions, and to realign these museums with contemporary socio-political concerns.

Biographical Note on the Speaker

Dr Karen Exell is Lecturer in Museum Studies and Programme Director of the MA in Museum and Gallery Practice at University College London, Qatar campus. Her research interests include the social and political role of museums and the impact of museums on cultural identity, within the context of non-western societies. Her recent publications include the co-edited volume, Heritage Debates in the Arabian Peninsula (Ashgate, 2014), and the forthcoming monograph, Museums in the Arabian Peninsula: globalisation and the politics of representation (working title) (Routledge, 2016). For more information on her work, please visit: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/qatar/people/academic-staff/karen-exell

Time and date 

06.00 pm to 07.30 pm, o6th August 2o15

At Seminar Halls, 1,2 and 3,
Kamala Devi Complex

India International Centre

New Delhi

Conversations on/for South Asia

A new publication series, Conversations on/for South Asia has been launched by the Department of Sociology at South Asian University in association with Aakar Books, New Delhi. The first instalment in the series is: ‘Debating the Ancient and Present: A Conversation with Romila Thapar.’ The new series is an effort on the part of the Department of Sociology to create a platform of critical knowledge on issues that have been vital to South Asia.

As a series, Conversations on/for South Asia intends to keep itself open-ended, more so keeping in mind the necessity of inventing and re-inventing scholarship in and around South Asian societies. The series would not only publish conversations with South Asian scholars on vital issues of concern but would also be open to publishing other kinds of texts that contribute to a critical understanding of the region whose definition, intellectually, is mired in numerous debates and anxieties. It is one of the textual tools through which the Department of Sociology hopes to expand its thinking to the wider public domain in South Asia and the world in addition to its journal, Society and Culture in South Asia.

Each instalment in the series will be published under the editorial responsibility of one of the series editors. At present, the series editors are: Sasanka Perera, Ravi Kumra and Dev Pathak.

The next two issues in the series are:

• A Conversation with Parul Dave-Mukerji: Art and its Politics (tentative title) 
• A Conversation with Imtiaz Ahmed: The Question of South Asia - Reflections, Rhetoric and the Idea of a University (tentative title)

Depicting Hope and Despair in Photography: Refugees in India

Pictorial record of the opening of the exhibition of photographs by Raghu Rai, 'Depicting Hope and Despair in Photography: Refugees in India,' 28th April 2015 at the South Asian University Gallery. 

The exhibition is presented by Department of Sociology at South Asian University In association with UNHCR Delhi Office and the photographer as part of the MA optional course, ‘Diaspora and Transnationalism’ taught by Sebnem Koser Ackapar. The exhibition will be on until 11th May 2015.