[Reader-list] Sarai Reader 05: Bare Acts

[Monica Narula]

Dear All,

We are happy to announce the print and web 
publication of Sarai Reader 05 : 'Bare Acts' . 
Please find more details about the book below.

We would welcome responses, reviews and critiques 
of the publication, and discussions based on its 
contents. If you would like to write a review of 
the book, and wish to obtain a review copy, do 
write to publications at sarai.net, mentioning 
details of the publication where the review will 
appear, and when it is likely to be published. 
The contents of the book may also be translated 
into other languages, and published elsewhere. 
We, and the authors, would like to be informed.

Looking forward to your responses

The Editorial Collective, Sarai Reader Series
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Sarai READER 05: BARE ACTS

Editors: Monica Narula, Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Jeebesh Bagchi + Geert Lovink
Guest Editor: Lawrence Liang

Sarai Reader Series Editorial Collective: Monica 
Narula, Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Ravi Sundaram, 
Ravi S. Vasudevan, Awadhendra Sharan, Jeebesh 
Bagchi + Geert Lovink

Published by the Sarai Programme, Centre for the Study of Developing
Societies, Delhi, 2005 [cc]
Produced and Designed at the Sarai Media Lab, Delhi

ISBN 81-901429-5-X
584 pages, 14.5cm X 21cm
Paperback: Rs. 350, US$ 20, Euro 20

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Bare Acts

This year, the Sarai Reader looks at 'Acts' as 
instruments of legislation, at things within and 
outside the law, and at 'acts' as different ways 
of 'doing' things in society and culture. Several 
texts and image-essays echo and complement themes 
that have emerged in earlier readers. Piracy, 
borders, surveillance, claims to authority and 
entitlement, the language of expertise, the legal 
regulation of sexual behaviour and trespasses of 
various kinds have featured prominently in 
previous Readers. This collection foregrounds 
these issues in a way that hopes to continue to 
provoke rigorous engagement and reflection.

The 'Bare Act' is an expression used to specify 
the content of law, bereft of any interpretative 
gloss. In legal libraries in India and many parts 
of the English-speaking world, a Bare Act is a 
document that simply codifies a law without 
annotation or commentary. The 'Bare Act' is 
legality pared down to its textual essence. It 
expresses only what the law does, and what it can 
do.

The enactment of law, however, is less a matter 
of reading the letter of the law, and more a 
matter of augmenting or eroding the textual 
foundation through the acts of interpretation, 
negotiation, disputation and witnessing. The law 
and practices within and outside stand in 
relation to a meta legal domain that can be said 
to embrace acts and actions in all their depth, 
intensity and substantive generality. This too is 
a stage set for the performance of 'bare acts', 
of what we might call 'naked deeds' - actions 
shorn of everything other than what is contained 
in a verb.

The 'Bare Act' that encrypts the letter of the 
law, the wire frame structure that demands the 
fleshing out of interpretation, and the 'bare 
act' that expresses and contains the stripped 
down kernel of an act, of something that is done, 
are both expressions that face each other in a 
relationship of tense reflection and intimate 
alterity. Bare Acts generate bare acts, and vice 
versa. 'Bare Acts', the fifth Sarai Reader, 
proposes to be a considered examination of this 
troubled mirror image.

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See below for the complete table of contents. The 
complete text of 'Bare Acts', like the entire 
contents of previous readers, is available for 
free browsing and download as pdf files at 
http://www.sarai.net/journal/reader5.html

For Purchase, Distribution and Other Enquiries, mail to -
publications at sarai.net

or, contact -
Publications
Sarai, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies
29, Rajpur Road, Delhi 110054, India
Tel : (+91) 11 2396 0040
http://www.sarai.net
E mail : dak at sarai.net

Distributors: Seagull Books, Delhi & Kolkata (in 
India) and Autonomedia, New York (USA)

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TABLE OF CONTENTS OF SARAI READER 05 : BARE ACTS

PREFACE - vi

ARGUMENTS - 1
Invitation - Sarai Reader Editorial Collective - 2
Porous Legalities and Avenues of Participation - Lawrence Liang - 6
"ŠBolti Band (SILENCED)!" - Clifton D' Rozario - 18
Lepers, Witches and Infidels & It's a Bug's Life - Francesca da Rimini - 26
Rested - Colette Mazabrard - 39

DISPUTATIONS - 45
Of Butchers and Policemen: Law, Justice and Economies of Anxiety -
Gunalan Nadarajan - 46
Down by Law: A Critique for the 21st Century - Alexander Karschnia - 57
'New' Delhi: Fashioning an Urban Environment through Science and Law -
Awadhendra Sharan - 69
Improbablevoices.net: An Improbable Monument to 
Witnessing and the Ethics of Trespass -
Sharon Daniel - 78

TRESPASSES - 95
The Discovery of the Fifth World: Stealth Countries and Logo Nations -
Daniel van der Velden, Tina Clausmeyer, Vinca Kruk, Adriaan Mellegers
(Meta Haven Project) - 96
Transcoding Sovereignty: Naked Bandit/Here, Not 
Here/White Sovereign - KR + CF - 111
SMS to Passport - Vishwajyoti Ghosh - 115
The Strange Case of Qays Al Kareem - Tripta Wahi - 123
Marginalia - Kai Friese - 129
On Smugglers, Pirates and Aroma Makers - Ursula Biemann - 145
Sponge Borders - Guido Cimadomo + Pilar Martínez Ponce - 150
Notes on the Disappeared: Towards a Visual Language of Resistance -
Chitra Ganesh + Mariam Ghani - 154
Dreams and Disguises, As Usual - Raqs Media Collective - 162

HACKS - 176
Trespasses of the State: Ministering to 
Theological Dilemmas through the 
Copyright/Trademark - Naveeda Khan - 178
Harmony or Discord? TRIPS, China, and Overlapping 
Sovereignties - Shujen Wang - 189
Innovating Piracy: The Bare Act of Stealing, and 
Shaping the Future - Menso Heus - 202
Is Hacking Illegal? - Yuwei Lin + David Beer - 205
Three Proposals for a Real Democracy: Information-Sharing to a Different Tune -
Brian Holmes - 215
Roots Culture: Free Software Vibrations "inna Babylon" - Armin Medosch - 222

ENCROACHMENTS - 241
Touts, Pirates and Ghosts - Solomon Benjamin - 242
Daily Journey - Satyajit Pande - 255
Complicating the City: Media Itineraries - Media Researchers @ Sarai - 258
Begum Samru and the Security Guard - Anand Vivek Taneja - 287
My Driving Master: A Story of Everyday Trespasses - Zainab Bawa - 297
Naye Qanoon (New Laws) - 301

ANNOTATIONS - 305
Vis-à-Visage - I. Helen Jilavu - 306
Cybermohalla Logs/Acts/Texts - CM Labs @ LNJP-DP-NM - 308

NEGOTIATIONS - 323
The Act of Leisure - Iram Ghufran + Taha Mehmood - 325
Surveillance, Performance, Self-Surveillance: Interview with Jill Magid -
Geert Lovink - 339
Living Between Laws - Ninad Pandit - 348
Negotiating Territory - Ateya Khorakiwala - 354

RECORDS - 359
Tis Hazari Diaries - Chander Nigam - 360
Bare Acts and Collective Explorations: The MKSS 
Experience with the Right to Information - Preeti 
Sampat + Nikhil Dey - 385

TRIALS - 397
Zimbabwe's 'New Clothes': Identity and Power 
Among Displaced Farm Workers - Amy R. West + 
Blair Rutherford - 398
Standardised, Packaged, Ready for Consumption - Ravi Agarwal - 412
The Act of Instruction - Jan Ritsema - 420

VIOLATIONS - 427
Womanhood Laid Bare: How Katherine Mayo and 
Manoda Devi Challenged Indian Public Morality - 
Alice Albinia - 428
Literature and the Limits of Law: Crime, Guilt 
and Agency in Premchand's Ghaban -
Ulka S. Anjaria - 437
The Honourable Murder: The Trial of Kawas 
Maneckshaw Nanavati - Aarti Sethi - 444
Judicial Extract - 454
Representing a Woman's Story: Explicit Film and 
the Efficacy of Censorship in Japan - Hikari Hori 
- 457
The Queer Case of Section 377 - Siddharth Narrain - 466

ASSAULTS - 471
"For God's Sake, Be Objective!" - Somnath Batabyal - 472
Another 9/11, Another Act of Terror: The 'Embedded Disorder' of the AFSPA -
A. Bimol Akoijam - 481
Warporn Warpunk! Autonomous Videopoesis in Wartime - Matteo Pasquinelli - 492
'First, Do No Harm...': Ensuring Humanitarian Military Interventions -
Bikram Jeet Batra - 500
War Cake - Linda F. Beekman - 511

DISSENSIONS - 515
The Law of the Mother: Soldiers' Mothers and the Post-Soviet Army -
Irina Aristarkhova - 516
Naked Protest and the Politics of Personalism - Isaac Souweine - 526
Analytical World Statistics Wall Chart, 2003 - Louise Kolff - 537
A Comparative Anatomy of Post-Mortem Acts - Smriti Vohra - 540

ALT/OPTION - 551
The Accidental Activist - Fredrik Svensk + Kristoffer Gansing - 552
'Our'chitecture - Jayson Claude - 559
Sex Workers' Manifesto - Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee, Kolkata - 564
Bare Wiring - Sophea Lerner - 572

Notes on Contributors - 574
Image and Photo Credits - 581
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--
Monica Narula [Raqs Media Collective]
Sarai-CSDS
29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054
www.raqsmediacollective.net
www.sarai.net