[Reader-list] Sarai-CSDS fellowships

[Vivek Narayanan]

CALL FOR PROPOSALS – SARAI-CSDS INDEPENDENT FELLOWSHIPS, 2004-05

Applications Invited for Independent Research Fellowships
The Sarai Programme, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi

Sarai is a public initiative of media practitioners and scholars looking 
at media cultures and urban life. Sarai's interests are in the field of 
old and new media, information and communication technologies, free 
software, cinema, and urban space --its politics, built form, ecology, 
culture and history--with a strong commitment to making knowledge 
available in the public domain. Sarai is a programme of the Centre for 
the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi. (For more information, visit 
_www.sarai.net_ <http://www.sarai.net/>)

*Who Can Apply? *
Sarai invites independent researchers, media practitioners, software 
designers and programmers, urbanists, architects, artists and writers, 
as well as students (postgraduate level and above) and 
university/college faculty to apply for support with regard to 
research-driven projects. We support projects from all over India, and 
have an established track record of supporting deserving project 
proposals that originate outside the metropolitan centres of Delhi, 
Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Bangalore. We would like to see the focus 
of our fellowship programme expand to support more research in smaller 
towns and non-urban areas.


The duration of the fellowship is six months, beginning from 1 January 
2005. The final presentation of the research project will be made in 
Delhi in August 2005.

*Why Research ? What Do We Mean by Research? *
Sarai is committed to generating public knowledge and creativity through 
research. By research we mean both archival and field research, 
practice-based research and forays into theoretical work, as well as any 
process or activity of an experimental or creative nature--in the 
audiovisual media, for instance, as well as in journalism, the 
humanities and social sciences, computing and architecture.

We are especially interested in supporting projects that formulate 
precise and cogent intellectual questions, reflect on modes of 
understanding that implicate knowledge production within a critical 
social framework, foreground processes of gathering information and of 
creating links between bodies of information. We also encourage research 
that is based on a strong engagement with archival materials and 
imaginative ways of tackling the question of the public rendition of 
research activity.

**The Experience of Previous Years**
This is the fourth year in which Sarai is calling for proposals for such 
fellowships. We would like to describe how the process has worked in 
previous years, as an indication of what applicants should expect.

We have so far supported a hundred research projects over the past three 
years, including work in the areas of popular culture, literature, urban 
ethnography, architecture, geography, creative writing, graphic arts, 
new media, cinema studies, FLOSS software, histories of media forms and 
practices, sexuality, studies of technology and culture, and oral history.

Successful applicants have included freelance researchers, academics, 
media practitioners, writers, journalists and activists. (For a detailed 
overview of successful proposals from the previous years, see 
_http://www.sarai.net/community/fellow.htm_)

The project proposals, postings and reports were submitted in English, 
Hindi or a combination of the two languages. We have seen that projects 
which set important but practical and modest goals were usually 
successful, whereas those that may have been conceptually sound but 
lacked sufficient motivation to actually approach a research objective 
in the field usually did not sustain themselves beyond the interim stage.

Sarai interacts closely with the researchers over the period of the 
fellowship, and the independent fellows make a public presentation of 
their work at Sarai at the end of their fellowship period. During the 
term of their fellowship each fellow is required to make a posting to 
the Sarai Reader List every month, reporting on the development of their 
work. These postings, which are archived, are an important means by 
which the research process reaches a wider discursive community. They 
also help us to trace the progress of work during the grant period, and 
understand how the research interfaces with a larger public. Fellows 
also receive structured but informal feedback from Sarai in stages 
during the course of their work. Submissions by fellows include written 
reports and essays, photographs, tape recordings, pamphlets, maps, 
drawings and html presentations. On occasion, fellows have also 
incorporated performance into their final presentations.

**What Happens to the Research Projects?**
The annual research projects add to our now substantial archival 
collections on urban space and media culture. These are proving to be 
very significant value additions to the availability of knowledge 
resources in the public domain. Researchers are free to publish or 
render any part or all of their projects in any forms, independently of 
Sarai (but with due acknowledgment of the support that they have 
received from Sarai). Sarai Independent Research Fellows have gone on to 
publish articles in journals, work towards the making of films, 
exhibitions, websites, multimedia works and performances, and the 
creation of graphic novels, soundworks and books. We actively encourage 
all such efforts.

**What We Are Looking For**
Like previous years, this year too we are looking for proposals that are 
imaginatively articulated, experimental and methodologically innovative, 
but pragmatic and backed up by a well argued work plan which sets out a 
timetable for the project, as well as suggests how the support from 
Sarai will help in generating/providing specific resources (human and 
material) that the project needs.

Suggested Themes:
Sarai's interests lie in the city, and in media. Broadly speaking, any 
proposal that looks at the urban condition or at media, is eligible. 
More specifically, themes may be as diverse as habitation, sexuality, 
labour, migration, surveillance, intellectual property, social/digital 
interfaces, urban violence, street life, technologies of urban control, 
health and the city, the political economy of media forms, digital art 
and culture, or anything that the applicants feel will resonate with the 
philosophy and interests that motivate Sarai's work.

We are particularly interested in supporting work that delves into what 
we are beginning to call 'Histories of the New'. This can include 
excavating the histories of different forms of media practice (early 
photography, cinema, print, radio, the music industry), as well as the 
histories of urban spaces and phenomena, neighbourhoods in cities, the 
evolution of utilities, transport and communications networks 
(electricity, telegraphy, telephony, the early Internet in India, 
railways, roads, urban public transport), labour, histories (including 
oral histories and biographical research) of dissident political 
movements, milieus and cultures and people associated with them.

Again, Sarai supports innovative and inventive modes of rendering work 
into the public domain. Proposals which pay attention to this principle 
will be particularly valued.

Also, proposals that include the collection of materials for our archive 
will be appreciated: in the past, fellows have submitted photographs, 
recordings, printed matter, maps, multimedia and posters related to the 
subject of their study to this archive.

Preferred Approaches:
We especially welcome the articulation, within the text of the proposal, 
of innovative and interdisciplinary methodologies that gesture towards 
how research, practice, and delivery or rendition methods will dovetail 
into each other in the project.

**Conditions**
Applicants should be resident in India, and should have an account in 
any bank operating in India.

The research fellowship would be available for up to six months and for 
a maximum amount of Rs 60,000.

The fellowships do not require the fellows to be present at Sarai. 
Fellowship holders will be free to pursue their primary occupations, if 
any.

**What Do You Need To Send?**

There are no application forms. Simply post your:
- Proposal (not more than 1000 words)
- A clear work plan (not more than one page)
- An updated CV (not more than two pages)
- Work samples (maximum two)
- Envelopes should be marked - "Attention: Short Term Independent Research
Fellowship" (Email proposals will not be considered). Proposals may be 
sent in English or Hindi.

Mail these to: Independent Fellowship Programme, Sarai, Centre for the 
Study of Developing Societies, 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110054, India.
Inquiries: vivek at sarai.net
Last date for submission: October 30, 2004
The list of successful proposals for 2004-2005 will be notified on the 
Sarai website by 15 December 2004

Note: Proposals from teams, partnerships, collectives and faculty are 
welcome, as long as the grant amount is administered by a single 
individual, and the funds are deposited in a single bank account in the 
name of an individual, partnership, registered body or institutional 
entity.

Applicants who apply to other institutions for support for the same 
project will not be disqualified, provided they inform Sarai that 
support is being sought (or has been obtained) from another institution. 
The applicants should inform Sarai about the identity of the other 
institution.