This workshop was organized by CAPSTRANS Senior Visiting Fellow Dr Lakshmi Subramaniam (Senior Fellow in History, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkata, India). The increasing visibility of the South Asian diaspora, especially in the United Kingdom and the United States testifies to the growth of one of the most economically successful immigrant groups and has generated considerable academic interest that has tended to straddle diverse disciplines ranging from history to culture studies and public policy. The pre-history of Indian diasporic formations, the configuring of the south Asian diaspora in the twentieth century especially in the aftermath of decolonization, and the modalities of its construction of the self and collectivity, have begun to emerge as key issues in a series of studies on identity politics and its negotiations with nationalism and globalization.
This workshop is an attempt to draw on some of these issues with a sharper emphasis on cultural practices, their consumption and circulation and to explore their implications for the construction of a specific South Asian diasporic identity. A more specific concern of the conference was to look at cultural practices in circulation historically – within a clearly defined temporal framework – and to examine the complex possibilities these have for the consuming and participating diasporic subject. It focused on the ways in which South Asians especially privilege performance as a mode of establishing their presence in diasporic space. Our understanding of performance embraces the rich artistic heritage of music and dance as well as public celebration of ritual, enactments of political drama, and the articulation of a public through print and electronic media.
workshop program
1000-1030
Morning tea, Welcome and Introduction
1030-1230
SESSION CHAIR: Dr Tim Scrase (Deputy Director, CAPSTRANS)
Session 1 (The Nation and The Diaspora)
1. Dr Jim Masselos: “Identifying the Nation”
2. A/Prof Heather Goodall: “Behind the Back of Empire: Untracked movements of people and ideas across the conduits opened by the British empire”
1200-1300
Lunch
1300-1430
SESSION CHAIR: Dr Ruchira Ganguly-Scrase
(Sociology & CAPSTRANS)
Session 2 (New Visual and Performance Spaces: Consumption and performance in the Diaspora)
1. Dr Kalpana Ram: “Phantom Limbs: South Indian dance and Immigrant Reifications of the Female Body”.
2. Dr Adrian Athique: “The Diasporic Audience for Indian Films: Addressing and Consuming Non-Resident Subjects”
1430-1500
Afternoon Tea
1500-1630
Session 3 (Diaspora in Cyberspace)
1. Dr Urmila Goel: “Classical dance, Bollywood, Indernet and the Cultural practices among Indians of the second generation in Germany”.
2. Dr Devleena Ghosh: “India@oz”
1630-1700
Dr Lakshmi Subramaniam: Wrap Up (and some general comments on possible collaboration for the future)
