Conference Theme

This conference explores the ways in which material structures and processes simultaneously emerge from and feed dominant academic narratives on diverse social themes. In the context of the ‘developing’ world the roots of ‘theory’ in larger political and economic logics, both national and supranational, are increasingly obscured. Today we seem to understand quite well how the broad rubrics of our scholarship– “decolonising”, “post-colonial”, “globalisation”, “subaltern” etc.--are passed down to us, almost fully formed. However, as scholars in the Global South, we are constantly engaging with the continued, real-time reconfiguring of these academic agenda due to fluctuations within the economic and political fields that encompass academia. We are interested in frameworks that refuse to see contemporary academic discourses in purely self-referential terms. In concrete terms, we intend to question especially the established positions on the making of the ‘nation’ and the sequestering of its select aspects as ‘heritage’, the redefinition of ‘citizenship’ in simultaneously more defined and mystical terms, the historical mission ascribed to the ‘working classes’ and the supposed reasons for its failure, the grand teleologies of urban ‘development’ and its actual impression on the everyday lives and collective psyche of citizens, among other themes. The panels in this conference share a commitment to shedding light on the interface between popular discourse, academic theory, experience, and agency. We invite scholars to share work that is empirically grounded, focused and self-reflective, in order to critique fundamental thrusts of distinct subfields within their disciplines.