1MODERN MATTERS: NEGOTIATING THE FUTURE OF EVERYDAY LIFE IN SOUTH ASIA

Modern Matters: Negotiating the Future of Everyday Life in South AsiaPROGRAMME | 20-22 SEPTEMBER 2016 | ARRANGED BY SASNET

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Welcome to Lund!Lund University was founded in 1666 and is regularly ranked as one of the world’s top 100 institutions of higher education. The University has 41 000 students and 7 500 staff based in Lund, Helsingborg and Malmö. We are united in our efforts to understand, explain and improve our world and the human condition.

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Funding of more than SEK 5 billion a year goes to research at eight faculties, which gives us one of Sweden’s strongest and widest spectrum of research activity. Over 30 of our research fields are world leaders, according to independent evaluations.

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Conference speakers

Dipesh Chakrabarty, Professor, Department of History, University of Chicago

LECTURE: MODERNITY AND THE NON-HUMAN IN SOUTH ASIA

On Tuesday 20 September 13.15-14.30 Dipesh Chakrabarty, professor in the Depart-ment of History, University of Chicago, will hold a lecture entitled: ”Modernity and the Non-human in South Asia”. This lecture will try to place existing debates on modernity and pre-modernity in South Asia in the context of a larger discussion by drawing on the contemporary literature on climate change and other planet-wide environmental crises that face humanity as a whole today.

Sumi Madhok, Associate Professor, Gender Institute, London School of Economics

LECTURE: IS A NON-HEGEMONIC HUMAN RIGHTS TALK POSSIBLE?

On Wednesday 21 September 14.00-15.00 Sumi Madhok, Associate Professor in the Gender Institute, London School of Economics (LSE), will hold a lecture entitled: ”Is a Non-Hegemonic Human Rights Talk Possible?”.

At least two things are self evident: Human rights have become the predominant conceptual language of modernity, and around the globe, one is witnessing multitudi-nous struggles over rights and human rights, including in South Asia. But how useful is the human rights framework and ‘global human rights’ scholarship for thinking about the stakes and struggles over rights and human rights in South Asia? More importantly, how do we conceptually capture these rights struggles in what Partha Chatterjee has called ‘most of the world’?

Through ethnographically tracking ‘vernacular rights cultures’ mobilised around grassroots citizen movements in South Asia, I will argue that this is a key epistemic and political question in thinking about political modernity in the region, and one consisting of a two-fold challenge: to produce scholarship that will bring about a shift in the epistemic centre of human rights, and to generate conceptual work supportive of those involved in challenging complex inequalities and the intersectional nature of oppression at the frontline.

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Sasanka Perera, Professor, Department of Sociology, South Asian UniversityLECTURE: SOUTH ASIA AS AN IDEA AND A PROBLEM OF MODERNITY

On Thursday 22 September 11.30-12.30 Professor Sasanka Perera, Department of So-ciology, South Asian University, will hold a lecture entitled: “South Asia as an Idea and a Problem of Modernity”.

South Asia is often seen as a concrete reality imagined in geo-physical or carto-graphic terms. This is more clearly visible in contemporary political science and inter-national relations scholarship, even though other disciplines in social sciences such as sociology are not very different in this endeavor. This is mostly due to the inability to transgress what might be called ‘nationalized’ domains of knowledge production, which hinders the possibility of comprehending the region across both disciplinary and national borders. In this general context, the presentation will look at the region as an incomplete idea and problem of modernity that still needs to be explored and worked out.

In doing so, it will revisit recent debates on what South Asia means, both as a product of modernity and as a specific kind of lived reality. The presentation will also briefly place in context how academic rituals of knowledge production look at South Asia and pose the question whether it might be possible to re-imagine the region through more nuanced forms of cultural and knowledge production.

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ProgrammeDAY 1: 20 SEPTEMBER (TUESDAY)11.00 - 13.00 Registration and tea/coffee at AF Borgen, first floor outside Nya Festsalen, Sandgatan 2, Lund

13.00 - 13.15 Welcome by the SASNET organisers

13:15 - 14:30 Keynote lecture by Professor Dipesh Chakrabarty,Department of History, University of Chicago: “Modernity and the Non-Human in South Asia”Venue: Nya Festsalen, AF Borgen

14.30 - 16.30 Session 1 (panels 1, 3, 5, 6, 7 and 8. See separate schedule)

16.30 Free time 17.00 Optional Lund City guided tour with Lars Lundberg

Meeting point: Outside main gate to Lund Cathedral, Kyrkogatan 4, Lund

DAY 2: 21 SEPTEMBER (WEDNESDAY)10.00 - 12.00 Session 2 (panels 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8. See separate schedule)

12.00 - 14.00 Lunch (not included)

14.00 - 15.00 Plenary session by Dr. Sumi Madhok, Associate ProfessorGender Institute, London School of Economics: “Is a Non-Hegemonic Human Rights Talk Possible?”

15.00 - 15.30 Tea/coffee

15.30 - 17.30 Session 3 (panels 3, 5, 6, 7 and 8. See separate schedule)

19.00 Conference dinner at Tegners Matsalar in AF Borgen.

DAY 3: 22 SEPTEMBER (THURSDAY)9.00 - 11.00: Session 4 (panels 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 and 8. See separate schedule)

11.00 - 11.30 Tea/coffee

11:30 - 12:30 Plenary session by Professor Sasanka Perera, Department of Sociology, South Asian University: “South Asia as an Idea and a Problem of Modernity”

12.30 - 12.45 Closing words

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ScheduleRead all conference abstracts on SASNET’s website: www.sasnet.lu.se.

DAY 1: 20 SEPTEMBER (TUESDAY) 14.30 - 16.30 SESSION 1

Panel 1: Religion and Modernity in South Asia (Venue: Kerstins Rum)Chair: Clemens CavallinClemens Cavallin: ”Religious Studies in India: an alternative modernity”Åke Sander: ”Academic study of Religion in India”Sudha Sitharaman: ”Religion in the Campus: Views on Religion/Secular in Centres of Higher Educa-tion”

Panel 3: Beyond the Desirable: Critical Perspectives on Media-Modernity (Venue: Edilrummet)Chairs: Britta Ohm, Per Ståhlberg and Vibodh ParthasarathiAnanda Mitra: ”The Emerging Role of Digital Networks in India: Voices”Kazimuddin Ahmed: ”Mediating Identity and Conflict: Private Commercial News Television in Assam”Shaheen S. Ahmed: ”The mutilated body of the mobile phone camera and the citizen in India”

Panel 5: The Transformation of Caste (Venue: Nya Festsalen)Chairs: Staffan Lindberg and Neil WebsterShivan Bhawna: ”Stigmatized versus assertive identity of dalits in contemporary India”Gopika Jadeja: ”You call me ‘dher’: Naming and the Negotiation of Dalit identities in Gujarat”Niloshree Bhattacharya: ”Caste identities in the university space: Understanding discursive practices”

Panel 6: Youthful Modernities: Negotiating the Past, Present and Future (Venue: Konsertsalen)Chairs: Ravinder Kaur, Rajni Palriwala and Sonalde DesaiAkanksha Awal: ”Enjoying redundancy: Educated youth, gender and value in western UP”Maria Tonini: ”Circumscribed recognition: creating a space for young queer people in Delhi”Swati Mantri: ”Contested meanings of modernity: narratives around inter-generational conflict in the Marwari community of Kolkata”

Panel 7: Women and Gender in South Asian Modernity: Vulnerabilities and Violence (Venue: Tornrummet)Chairs: Ulrika Andersson, Anna Lindberg and Nishi Mitra vom BergSoibam Haripriya: ”Married to Death: The Widow, the Sati, the Martyr”Rachna Chaudhary: ”From Prostitute to Sex Worker: Rehabilitating the ‘Deviant’ and the Nation”E. Dawson Varughese: ”Pre-millennial and Post-millennial Paro: Charting Modernity through the Book Cover designs of Gokhale’s Female Protagonist”Lalita Kaundinya Bashyal: ”Modernity in Nepal: A Gender Perspective”

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Panel 8: Open Panel (Venue: Sångsalen)Chairs: Henrik Chetan Aspengren and J R JishnuMohammad Tareq Hasan: ”Becoming Garment Workers: Social Reproduction in Neoliberal Labour Regime of Bangladesh”Arunima Ghoshal: ”The Anomaly of Boi Para, College Street”Sreetama Bhattacharya: ”Ethnic wear in Contemporary India: A Case Study of Fabindia”

DAY 2: 21 SEPTEMBER (WEDNESDAY) 10.00 - 12.00 SESSION 2

Panel 1: Religion and Modernity in South Asia (Venue: Kerstins Rum)Ruben Elsinga: ”Leadership succession and Institutional Development at the Mazar Shrine Institution, Haripur, Pakistan”Daniela Bevilacqua: ”The trade of religious titles in contemporary India and the consequent growth of religious leaders in a society that still needs them”Manoj Parameswaran: ”Understanding Religion and Development: A Case Study of Mata Amritanan-damayi Math, Kerala.”

Panel 2: Mapping Subaltern Modernities in Neoliberal India (Venue: Ombudsmannarummet)Chairs: Alf Gunvald Nilsen, Kenneth Bo Nielsen and Anand VaidyaTripta Chandola: ”The Subaltern as a Political Voyeur? The landscape of shifting political allegiances in an Indian slum – An Ethnographic Account”Tone Sissener: ”Live and let die: The morality of land rights in the Indian ’City of Joy’”Indrajit Roy: ”Agonistic imaginations: Modernity, democracy and the politics of the poor in contem-porary Bihar”Kenneth Bo Nielsen: ”Growth Infrastructures, Land Use and Resistance in Goa”

Panel 3: Beyond the Desirable: Critical Perspectives on Media-Modernity (Venue: Edilrummet)Ravinder Kaur: ”The Second Liberation. Spectacular Capital and the Making of the Common Man”Sunitha Chitrapu: ”Should you listen to your wife? Tamil language television debates on modernity”Britta Ohm: ”Communicating Exclusion: Media Engagement, Ambivalence, Avoidance and Resistance among Muslims and Dalits in North India”

Panel 4: Staging Marriage and Modernity among the Middle Classes in South Asia (Venue: VD-rummet)Chairs: Anindita Datta and Ajay BaileyLovitoli Jimo: ”Staging Love or Power? Materiality of Weddings in India’s North East Region”Bashabi Gupta: ”Images and livelihoods-Constructing the Bengali marriage rituals and practices in India”Swagata Basu: ”Consuming Marriage-Women’s engagement with Modernity, Marriage and Law in Metropolitan India”

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Panel 5: The Transformation of Caste (Venue: Nya Festsalen)Guro W. Samuelsen: ”Caste as Political Qualifier: The Organizing Principles of the Bahujan Samaj Party”Neha Singh: ”Modernity and the Changing Margins of the Bhangi Community”Neil Webster: ”Social protection and caste in Nepal: a new social contract or and old political settle-ment?”

Panel 6: Youthful Modernities: Negotiating the Past, Present and Future (Venue: Konsertsalen)Anna Juhos: ”Between Modernity and Nationalism - Idea(l)s from Within and Outside”Kotta Saidalavi Hakim: ”The Youth and the Left Movement in Kerala: Shifting Paradigms?”Nisha Dhawan: ”Driving Change: Female chauffeurs in India; breaking moulds, transforming selves”

Panel 7: Women and Gender in South Asian Modernity: Vulnerabilities and Violence (Venue: Tornrummet)Jillet Sarah Sam: ”Counting Caste through Gender on the Cyber Thiyyars of Malabar”Lauren Wilks: ”Negotiating Domestic Work: Gender, Domestic Labour, and Commuting in West Bengal, India”Sunita Dhal, Nilima Srivastava and Linda Lane: ”Becoming Modern? Clean Energy Technology and Gender Empowerment in Rural Odisha”Seema Arora-Jonsson: ”Valentine, Love and Pubs: Contested Freedoms, Obscenities and Conflicted Identities .Some Thoughts on Gender and Culture in Globalised India”

Panel 8: Open Panel (Venue: Sångsalen)Chona Echavez and Leah Wildreda Pilongo: ”Traditional Masculinities amidst Modernization Era: The Afghanistan case”Anisur Rahman. ”Issues of Identity and Integration of South Asian Immigrants in Europe”Ankita Banerjee: ”The Politics of Gendered Identities: Analysing Rabindranath Tagore’s Bimala”Debadrita Chakraborty: ”Religion and Modernity in South Asia”

DAY 2: 21 SEPTEMBER (WEDNESDAY) 15.30 - 17.30 SESSION 3

Panel 3: Beyond the Desirable: Critical Perspectives on Media-Modernity (Venue: Edilrummet)Vibodh Parthasarathi: ”Diversity on Mute? The Shifting Presence of Media Diversity in Press Policy, ca 1947-1990”Musab Iqbal: ”Rationalization of cyclical violence: The role of Urdu and English newspapers in creating semantic fields to mediate and communicate memory”Tabbasum Ruhi Khan: ”Beyond Hybridity and Fundamentalism: Indian Muslim Youth’s “Convoluted Modernities”Ankita Deb: ”Bombay Cinema’s Modern Marriages: 1970s and Couple Romance”

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Panel 5: The Transformation of Caste (Venue: Nya Festsalen)Subhadeepta Ray: ”Unsettling the Science of Caste”Karthikeyan Damodaran: ”Traversing between the Plough and the Sword, the Pallar re-imagination as the erstwhile rulers of Tamil Land: Reinventions and Fissures in Dalit Identity Politics in Tamil Nadu”Radhika Kumar: ”Fluid identities, Contested Categories: Elites and the demand for reservation in India”

Panel 6: Youthful Modernities: Negotiating the Past, Present and Future (Venue: Konsertsalen)Sonalde Desai: ”Extending Childhood or Entry into Adulthood? Contours of Adolescent Experiences in Contemporary India”Arjun Shankar: ”Urban-Rural Linkage / Divide: Constructing Bangalore from the Village”

Panel 7: Women and Gender in South Asian Modernity: Vulnerabilities and Violence (Venue: Tornrummet)Mirna Guha: ”She’s almost like my daughter, but not quite’: Power, Violence, and Conflict in Rela-tionships between Madams and Female Sex Workers in Eastern India”Sheba Saeed. ”Hijra Identities and Vulnerabilities in Contemporary India”Manasi Sinha: ”Geography of Fear: Interfacing Sexual Violence, Gender Justice and Politics of Spatial Exclusions of Women in Contemporary India”Nishi Mitra vom Berg: ”Valentine, Love and Pubs: Contested Freedoms, Obscenities and Conflicted Identities. Some Thoughts on Gender and Culture in Globalized India”

Panel 8: Open Panel (Venue: Sångsalen)Part I. Comparative and Transitional Modernities Henrik Chetan Aspengren: ”Thinking Through Modernity: The Anticipatory Commentary of BS Jambhekar” Shahnawaz Ali Raihan: ”Regionalization and Secular Modernity”Part II. Borders and Conflicts Rishav Kumar Thakur: ”Reconstituting Everyday Life and Imagining a Common Future, Assam”Syed Hussain Shaheed Soherwordi: ”Counter Insurgency in Afghanistan: A Modern Pak-Afghan Border Perspective”Bipasa Rosy Lakra: ”Modern Rebellions of the Primitive: Examining Tribal Narratives of Naxalbari Movement in West Bengal, 1967-72”

DAY 3: 22 SEPTEMBER (THURSDAY) 9.00 - 11.00: SESSION 4

Panel 1: Religion and Modernity in South Asia (Venue: Kerstins Rum)Ferdinando Sardella: ”Modern Hinduism in the Colonial Period”Nirmita Roychowdhury: ”Dharmathakur: A Modern Religion from Ancient Times”Raza Naeem: ”The Strange Case of Saadat Hasan Manto (1912-1955): A Muslim Cosmopolitan in ‘Muslim Zion’?”

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Panel 2: Mapping Subaltern Modernities in Neoliberal India (Venue: Ombudsmannarummet)Dhiren Borisa: ”Bargaining for a Place: Queering Modern Imaginations of India”Chetna Sharma: ”Conflict in Bodoland and Politics of belonging in the intricate world of categories”Anasua Chatterjee: ”Negotiated Modernities: Everyday Life of Muslims in a South Asian City”

Panel 4: Staging Marriage and Modernity among the Middle Classes in South Asia (Venue: VD-rummet)Shinjini Bhattacharjee: ”Beyond boundaries, beyond binaries: Exploring agency and modernity in contemporary Indian marriages”Shalini Grover: ”Marriage, Divorce and Modernization from 1970 to Present-Day India”Rashmi Singla and Sujata Sriram: ”Indian Danish intermarriage: Motivational Dynamics in context of Modernity”

Panel 5: The Transformation of Caste (Venue: Nya Festsalen)Staffan Lindberg: ”Some Unity in Diversity: Analysing Inequality, Change, and Mobility in Rural South India”Aftab Alam: ”The Transformation of Caste: Modernity, Ambedkarite Politics and Hindu Right”

Panel 6: Youthful Modernities: Negotiating the Past, Present and Future (Venue: Konsertsalen)Round table discussion

Panel 8: Open Panel (Venue: Sångsalen)Prakruti Ramesh: ”The Image of Goa in Media”Sarunas Paunksnis: ”Cinema and Neoliberal India” J.R. Jishnu: ”Media Modernity and its Influence on Religiously Divergent Nations”

All venue rooms are located in AF Borgen, Sandgatan 2, Lund.

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LUND UNIVERSITY

SASNET

Box 117

221 00 Lund

Tel +46 46 222 00 00

www.lu.se

www.sasnet.lu.se

Lund University | Sw

edish South Asian Studies N

etowkr (SA

SNET)

SASNET is an inter-disciplinary platform that promotes education, research, and informa-tion about the countries of South Asia.

It promotes multidisciplinary academic studies of South Asia at all levels at Lund University. SASNET is also a national open network resource connecting researchers and academics working on projects related to South Asia at universities throughout Sweden and the Nordic countries.

Its aim is to initiate, encourage, and support collaboration with South Asian partners, and to promote the exchange of students and researchers between Sweden and South Asia.

Read more on SASNET’s website: www.sasnet.lu.se

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