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CfP: ASA 2012: JNU, New Delhi, 3rd-6th April 2012
"Art and activism in contemporary Dalit and Adivasi movements"
Panel convenors: Prof. David Mosse (SOAS), Dr. Alice Tilche (SOAS), Dr.
Luisa Steur (SOAS).
Short Abstract:
Adivasi and Dalit struggle for dignity and recognition has been accompanied
by an effervescence of cultural production. This panel explores 'art' as a
semiotic and political intervention that refigures existing relations of
exploitation generating new meanings, political identities and connections.
Long Abstract:
The growth and diversification of social movements and civil society
activism for empowerment among those historically marginalised and
subordinated as 'untouchable' (dalits) or 'tribal' (adivasis) has been
accompanied by an effervescence of cultural production.
Visual art, music, dance forms, artefacts, religious or heroic iconography
and mythic representations all connect to a politics of recognition and of
rebellion. Assembling semiotic elements (artefacts, images, dance,
mythologies) in reconfigured settings — special events and new audiences —
specifically decontextualizes them from former relationships of
exploitation and caste or gender subordination. As 'art' these performances
break the nexus of social relationships and ritual structures, generating
new meanings and changing the semiotic process itself in ways that the
panel will explore. Dalit or Adivasi 'art' then becomes a field of meaning,
authorship and political intent.
The processes of cultural production are differently oriented among Adivasi
and Dalit groups and have different social effects, which the panel will
consider. Common to all is the production of 'art' (in the broadest sense)
as a means (intentionally or otherwise) to forge new non-local
relationships, to connect to power through works that travel within
national and increasingly international fields of consumption, as well as
within local social activism.
But if 'art' is a means of forging effective political identities, it is
also implicated in the complex internal group and gender dynamics of Dalit
and Adivasi movements in ways that have been subject to ethnographic
description.
The deadline for paper submission is the 7th of December.
To submit a paper please follow the link to the conference website
http://www.nomadit.co.uk/asa/asa2012/panels.php5?PanelID=1292
Best wishes,
Alice
--
Dr. Alice Tilche
Post-doctoral Research Fellow
Department of Anthropology and Sociology
School of Oriental and African Studies
University of London
+44(0)7963658916
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