Panels

This panel examines the intersections of family and democracy through the lens of law in postcolonial South Asia. We are interested in how the debates around religion and law which have remained largely tied to the issue of uniform civil code in India can be expanded and discussed in comparison with personal law debates in Pakistan and Bangladesh, and in the context of a global transformation and redefinition of the family, (non-)marital, and parent-child relations. The panel explores the larger terrain of family law including marriage, divorce, child custody, shared parenting, maintenance and inheritance. We want to examine the history of legal change alongside processes of democratization and authoritarianism in South Asia. The panel hopes to create new conversations between historians of family, law and democracy in South Asia to develop a comparative model of analysis of processes of democratisation and de-democratisation of the family in modern South Asia. We invite papers from the field of Women’s and LGBTQ Studies and legal history in particular to understand the structures, mechanisms and actors involved in processes of legal change. To explore the wider social history of law making and change, we are interested in papers looking at a wide range of actors, including lawmakers in parliament, litigants, lawyers, and judges in courts, as well as religious associations, caste organisations, women’s, LGBTQ and children’s rights groups, and other civil society organisations. The panel seeks to initiate new research conversations around personal law, live-in partners, same-sex couples, single parents, and co-parenting discourse and legislation in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, in the context of the global transformation of the family.

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Recent years have seen a burgeoning of important scholarship on sensory history that argues for the importance of understanding the senses not as a physiological phenomenon alone, but as shaped by historical, cultural and political contexts. As the anthropologist of the senses, Constance Classen has pointed out, sensory perception is a cultural as well as a physical act. In particular, these scholars argue against an understanding of vision as hegemonic in modern life, and argue that modernity is a multi-sensory phenomenon. As hubs of the modern, scholars have found that cities are particularly fruitful sites to explore the complex relationship between the senses and the urban experience. While much of this literature has largely focused on North America and Europe there have been recent important interventions like Ziad Fahmy on Egypt that have provided us insights into the sensory histories of the urban spaces in the non-western world. This panel will consider the challenges and possibilities of using “sensory archives” to explore the social histories of cities in South Asia. We invite scholars who are interested in exploring histories of cities in colonial and post-colonial India through material that highlights the senses, either individually or collectively. We particularly welcome papers that make creative use of a variety of source materials in their research, either in terms of re-reading familiar archives or finding new materials for their research.

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The comprehensive workings of Indo-Islamic cultural expression have been customarily studied by positing them as emergent from self-contained regional domains. This panel seeks to reexamine and redress this approach through a core argument that such regional domains/ sultanates have to be assessed in light of their contemporary geographical relationships. For instance, despite being in distinct geographic and geopolitical zones, the contiguous regions of western India from Sindh to Malwa constitute a cultural continuum when seen through the prism of architectural production. During the 15th and 16th centuries, following the rapid weakening of the Delhi Sultanate after its sacking in 1398, the regional sultanates of Sindh, Gujarat, Khandesh and Malwa were witness to considerable artistic exchanges registered in their architecture – mosques, funerary structures, stepwells, stone-carved cenotaphs and so on. Consequently, the architectural repertoire of these four sultanates, in the frame of their geopolitical and cultural continuum, has the potential of yielding rich insights into the nature of its regional continuities as well as the composite connections that are mirrored in its formation. The nominally related papers in this proposed panel, thus, will engage with the artistic and architectural expressions of the four connected regions – Malwa, Khandesh, Gujarat, and Sindh – to explore their regional, historical, and cultural formations through the lens of the deep-rooted connections between them. To that end, the four papers of the panel shall aim to suggest fresh ways of making scholarly forays into the dynamic of Indo-Islamic cultural expression to understand a regional formation.

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This panel proposes to examine how printing technologies transformed modes of instruction in early modern and colonial South Asia. Prior to the rise of European-styled printing presses in South Asia, instruction in academic, religious and other social settings was undertaken with the aid of a range of oral and inscribed materials. In what ways did new printing technologies continue and/or transform the means and scope of instruction among dedicated pupils and lay communities? Were didactic and pedagogical genres reimagined in light of the new printing technologies? Did print give rise to new genres that would fulfill the instructional and educational needs of specific communities? How were printing technologies, in turn, reliant upon and transformed by the preexisting cultures of instruction? Although recent scholarship has substantially improved our understanding of the transition from predominantly handcrafted manuscript cultures to technologically sophisticated print cultures, the realm of instruction strangely remains severely underexplored. It is generally assumed that the growth of print media and literacy were concurrent and mutually reinforcing. Precisely how do printing technologies give impetus to instructional, didactic and pedagogical methods so as to enhance the state of literacy and knowledge production remains to be examined. Our panelists grapple with this issue by exploring the transregional and interconnected history of print and instructional materials in diverse communities of South Asia. Their research seeks to make original contributions to multiple disciplines; most notably, history, religious studies, and area studies, among others.

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Over the last decade, the study of “conspiracy theories” has received renewed scholarly interest worldwide. Populist campaigns, the establishment of national authoritarian governments, and, more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic have contributed to an atmosphere allegedly replete with conspiracy theories and fake news. In this panel, we will focus on case studies from trans-local South Asia to understand the transcultural movement of conspiracy theories, their seductive powers, and their utilization in people’s day-to-day lives. Since investigating conspiracy theories necessitates an interdisciplinary approach, we invite papers dealing with at least one of these three critical areas promising innovations to the studies of conspiracy theories: a.) In-depth anthropological fieldwork among communities frequently targeted by conspiracy theories, such as religious, ethnic, and gender minorities. This ethnographic focus will help us demonstrate the wide range and often ambivalent real-life effects of conspiratorial tropes on the lives of South Asia’s marginalized communities. b.) Computational and media anthropology research on digital platforms such as TikTok, Facebook, and X to add vernacular discourses in South Asian languages and digital content to contribute to a field predominantly focused on anglophone material. c.) Studies in vernacular discourses in political journals, literature, and newspaper articles (from the 1947 partition until today) in various South Asian languages to analyze the discourse around local concepts for conspiracies such as sazish (Urdu سازش Hindi साजिश ) or shadyantra (Hindi षड्यंत्र Bengali ষড়যন্ত্র). The Kauns?-spiracies panel will initiate a long-overdue re-reading of theories of conspiracy theories through a focus on case studies and examples from digital and non-digital South Asian media environments.

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Adaptation Studies has long moved away from the fetish of the original, preferring to think instead of the lives and afterlives of adaptations as itineraries that are shaped by, and in turn shape their political, cultural, artistic contexts (B. Venkat Mani 2007, 2016; Aamir Mufti 2016; Francesca Orsini 2023). This panel invites papers that investigate the lives and afterlives of adaptations in and from South Asia conjecturally, investing in a close reading and analysis of both text and context. The panel is interested in questions like— a) What are the political and aesthetic choices that go into the creating adaptations? b) What is chosen and what gets left behind? How does this further add (or take away) from aesthetic pleasures? c) Why are some source texts more popular than others at a particular point in time? d) How can we think about and through contexts when we think about adaptations, their lives, and their afterlives? e) What is the impact of the politics of canon-formation on deciding what gets adapted? f) What are the sites of adaptation? g) What are the ethics of adaptation? How do they impact production as well as circulation/reception/legacy? Paper submissions are encouraged from across different time period, locales and milieux as long as they are either situated in South Asia, are from South Asian literary cultures or circulate in South Asian diaspora. It could be particularly productive to think through papers that engage with vastly differing material histories of the pre-modern and modern, colonial and postcolonial, nation and diaspora etc. Ideally, the panel will be a staging ground into more programmatic forays into thinking about adaptations in World Literature, with South Asian Literatures and Cultures as the point of entry.

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As global networks, diasporas, populism, political theology, and legal regimes take center stage in South Asian Studies, this panel gathers contributions that point out the salience of Muslim communities in South Asia for investigating such themes. The aim is to highlight approaches actively breaking down established area studies barriers which far too often associate “relevant” and “normative” Islam only with the Middle East. Instead, we are interested in contributions that both show how Islam in South Asia is perceptive of and open to global Islamic trends but also, crucially, how South Asian thinkers and movements have made premodern and modern Islam. Over the last decade, a rise in Indian Ocean Studies has demonstrated, for instance, how Muslim groups and Islamic law have shaped the Western Indian Ocean in terms of legal frameworks and trade. Similarly, attempts have been made to consider Deobandi Islam not only as an Indian and Pakistani phenomenon but to investigate how it has established itself in places such as South Africa, the UK, and Iran. Abu l-A‘la Maududi and his Jamaat-e-Islami are increasingly understood not simply as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood but become recognized for having established essential frameworks for Islamist thought worldwide. One should also mention studies that have identified South Asian Shi‘i scholars as towering interlocutors in modern negotiations of the faith. Yet, despite these encouraging signs in scholarship, there is limited effort to bundle these and other conversations into one single forum to make a convincing case for the centrality of South Asian Muslim approaches to global Islam beyond the Subcontinent. This ECSAS panel provides such an innovative angle and is also attentive, despite its focus on Islam, not to lose sight of broader conversations in South Asian Studies.

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As South Asia grapples with accelerating environmental crises, from severe air pollution to catastrophic climate events, the region also faces a surge in authoritarian governance. This panel explores the intricate dynamics of environmental activism in South Asia, examining how activists navigate the tightening political spaces, state repression, and socio-economic inequalities. We aim to highlight the strategies, innovations, and resilience of grassroots movements in South Asian countries, offering a comprehensive understanding of how local communities are striving to protect their environment against corporate encroachments (often mediated by political actors) and discuss the implications of these struggles for global environmental justice. Possible contributions include, but are not limited to, the following topics: • Authoritarian governments' manipulation of environmental policies for political gain and suppression of dissent • Innovative tactics utilised by activists to navigate and resist authoritarian restrictions in environmental advocacy • Threats faced by environmental activists in authoritarian contexts • Impact of civic space restrictions on environmental movements in South Asia • Disproportionate effects of authoritarian policies on marginalized groups • Case studies demonstrating environmental degradation as both a cause /effect of authoritarian policies • Exploring the intersections of environmental justice with social and cultural issues such as poverty, caste, gender, ethnicity • Showcasing successful campaigns and movements achieving environmental justice despite authoritarian challenges • Strategies for international organizations and regional alliances to support environmental justice movements in South Asia • Roles of international solidarity and digital advocacy in bolstering global environmental movements under authoritarian regimes

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This panel draws on ethnographies of education in religious minority institutions to focus on the creation of gendered subjectivities. It includes diverse educational settings across South Asia – education of Hindu minorities in Bangladesh, Sikhs girls in Sikh religious minority schools in India and Muslim students in all-girls madrasas in India. While scholarship on gender and education has established the relevance of complex structures and ideologies that impact young women’s experiences in educational settings, we do not know enough of gender’s complex interaction with heterogeneities of class, religion, region, and location in educational spaces. The understanding of women as transmitters of religion and culture deeply impacts the experience of knowledge in educational institutions associated with religious minorities. Papers in this panel illustrate how gender intersects with different notions of community identity that shape religious educational institutions and inform the dynamics of interaction with the state in which they are embedded. It zooms into the educational experiences of girls and young women to expand the understanding of gendered agency. The papers go beyond the binaries of active resistance and passive conformity to highlight the subtle ways in which girls challenge the prescriptive processes of schools that seek to restrict them to community and/or state sanctioned gendered roles. The panel brings out the context-specific challenges, ambiguities, negotiations of being a girl student in religious minority institutions. It also reflects on the larger politics of belonging to religious minority communities across South Asia today. The interplay between religion, education and state politics, and lived experiences of girl students is the focus of this panel.

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For much of the 20th century, ethnic conflict has shaped the history of Lanka, finally resulting in the civil war of 1983-2009. Central to these conflicts was the recognition and political exploitation of several officially recognized ethnic categories, especially those of the ‘Sinhalese’, ‘Sri Lankan Tamils’, and ‘Sri Lankan Moors’. The genealogy of these categories has often been traced back to the British colonial period, when political representation became linked to recognition of the ‘racial’ difference of a specific group. Deconstructing such colonial categories and the tensions produced by their reification has been an important contribution of scholarship against the often-violent effects of ethnic categorization in Lanka. Yet the history of ethnic categorization and ethnogenesis on the island cannot simply be reduced to a moment of colonial restructuring of social relations. The genealogies of the various categories that went into the making of the officially recognized ethnic groups of Sri Lanka can be traced deeper into the past and far beyond the island’s shores. This panel aims at bringing together scholars studying ethnic categorization in Lanka in the longue durée across different European empires – Portuguese, Dutch, British – and local polities, connecting ethnic categories and imaginaires with specific administrative practices, labor and property regimes, gender relations, or experiences of violence. We particularly invite contributions that work against the ‘islanding’ (Sykes 2018) of Lankan history by considering the island’s location in the wider Indian Ocean world.

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