*DESIGN HISTORY SOCIETY** **ANNUAL CONFERENCE - 2013***

*TOWARDS GLOBAL HISTORIES OF DESIGN: POSTCOLONIAL PERSPECTIVES*

*National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, INDIA** *

*5-8 September, 2013*

*
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*
*Convenors:* Suchitra Balasubrahmanyan, Ambedkar University, New Delhi
and Tanishka
Kachru, National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad*
Organiser*: National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, INDIA*
Website: *www.dhs-nid2013.in*
Language of Conference: *English

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*Towards Global Histories of Design: Postcolonial Perspectives*

Enquiries into design history, so far, have largely privileged European and
North American cultural spheres, offering rich insights into design as both
product and process and the contexts shaping both. Equally, studies in
design history from other geographies are in a nascent stage and scholarly
voices have been faint and the insights sparse.

These less-explored geographies share much in common. All of them have
design traditions, often enduring over millennia.. More importantly for
this conference, many regions within these geographies share a colonial
past with important cultural dimensions for all the regions drawn into the
vortex of the colonial order.

Among many possible ways of looking at this ongoing experience, the
conference has chosen the lens of postcolonial perspectives.
Postcolonialism has come to be a vexed term with different tonalities for
different disciplines. But what could it mean for design and design history
in all the regions brought together by the complex socio-economic,
political and cultural order of the colonial project? This is what this
conference seeks to explore. It hopes to provide a setting to amplify
postcolonial design histories from global geographies. It is particularly
keen to provide a forum for hitherto faint voices from the global south.

*The conference conveners invite proposals for papers and full panels (of 3
chaired papers) on the sample themes below and other relevant themes:*

Design and identity in colonial and postcolonial contexts

Design and material culture of independence and de-colononisation

Design and material culture and the imperial ambitions in the context of
the Cold War

Craft and Design in colonial and postcolonial networks

Design and modernism in postcolonial contexts

Role of design in national reconstruction in postcolonial societies

Design for development/ grassroots movements

Design exchanges in the colonial period and after through exhibitions and
trade fairs

Design, State and Market

Intersection of traditional and modern design pedagogies

Design Education in colonial and postcolonial contexts?

Design discourses in diverse postcolonial geographies

Views from specialisations within design - industrial design, visual
communication, textiles and fashion, ceramics and others.

*Call for papers*

The conveners of the 2013 Design History Society international conference
invite contributions from design history and related academics and
scholars, design practitioners, design educators, museum professionals and
students, which would illuminate postcolonial perspectives on design
history. The Design History Society offers bursaries for successful student
speakers who are members of the Society; so the conveners do encourage and
welcome submissions from post graduate scholars. Papers are expected to
make an original contribution to the field of design history that address
the conference theme *‘Towards Global Histories of Design: Postcolonial
Perspectives’*

Papers/panel proposals could respond to the broad themes mentioned above or
propose others ways and lenses of examining the conference theme.

If you would like to propose a paper or a panel, please submit an abstract
for refereeing. Paper/panel proposals must follow the rules of submission
below:

   1. *Proposal for 25 minute papers must be submitted as below,*

*Page 1:*

Author’s(s’) full name(s), (indicate gender (M/F), in brackets),

Title – Position – Institution

Address for correspondence

Telephone – Fax – E-mail

Theme of the paper

Title of the paper

Five keywords

* *

*Page 2:*

Abstract of the paper

(Maximum 300 words, Microsoft Word document, double-spaced on A4, in 11pt
Arial)

Languages:  The abstract should be written in English.



   1. *Proposal for a full panel of 3 x 25 minute papers:* include
   convener’s name, panel title, an abstract of no more than 150 words for the
   full panel clearly outlining its thematic interrogation, titles and 300
   word abstracts for each paper clearly communicating structure and argument,
   and 50-100 word biography of each speaker with full
   professional/institutional affiliation and contact email or address.



*Please send proposals to:  *[log in to unmask]

Proposals will be double blind reviewed and selected by the Conference
Academic Committee whose members will be drawn from the diverse geographies
that the conference theme seeks to focus upon, to cover a range of
historical moments, geographical locations and discursive fields.



*Key dates*

15 January 2013                      Deadline for abstracts

1 April 2013                             Notification of acceptance

30 June 2013                           Publication of Conference Programme

5-8 September 2013                 Conference


*Conference venue*

The National Institute of Design (NID) was the first modern design
institute in India, set up in 1961 by the Government of India under the
Ministry of Commerce and Industry as an autonomous national institution for
design, education, training, service and research. NID has gained
international recognition as one of the foremost institutions in the field
of design and as a catalyst for design in Indian industry. The Institute’s
graduates are active in all sectors of the Indian economy and many have
distinguished themselves in diverse fields such as textiles, product
design, craft design and promotion, advertising, development communication
and education.

Ahmedabad is a 600 year-old city in western India and one of the first
industrial cities of nineteenth-century India. After independence in 1947,
it was one of the first cities to incubate modern design, thus making it a
fitting backdrop for this conference.


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