[Reader-list] Post graduate Students Call for papers: Frames of Reference- Violence/Erasure/Memory

[Shilpa Phadke]

Apologies for cross posting and please circulate on post-graduate
students/research scholars' networks

CALL FOR PAPERS

Violence/Erasure/Memory

Frames of Reference
National Student Seminar of the School of Media & Cultural Studies,
Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai

December 17-18, 2012

Revised Timeline:
28 October, 2012: Last date for sending abstracts
8 November, 2012: Selection of abstracts and intimation via email
30 November, 2012: Last date for sending paper to the seminar committee

Twenty years after the 1992-1993 communal violence in the  aftermath
of the demolition of the Babri Masjid, Frames of Reference (FoR)
attempts to understand the politics of violence/erasure/memory. What
one chooses not to remember is as important as what one does. FoR
aspires to engage with voices that explore these themes in their
myriad forms spanning various cultural geographies, attempting to
understand memories of violence and the violence of erasure. Violence
based on class, caste, ethnic identity and patriarchy extends well
beyond the concerted efforts of silencing undertaken by both state and
non-state actors.

FoR seeks to look at the legitimisation of violence, at the
construction and consumption of contested terrains of history, and the
creation of marginalised 'others'. These have consequences that shape
contemporary social, political and cultural life worlds. Popular
cultural texts attempt to subvert or play up to the dominant
narratives and perceptions they engender.  These need to be
interrogated.

In today's networked world, the construction of events and memories is
marked by a dynamic interplay of claims and counterclaims by various
constituencies. The circulation of images and texts has begun to play
a decisive role in global political mobilisations and has become a
crucial mode of intervention that needs to be understood. FoR will
also look at questions of the extent to which memory/erasure/violence
can alter access to space, resources, freedom of movement and
expression. In examining such phenomena, the seminar invites the
critical study of alternate accounts and negotiations by various
interest groups towards a more nuanced understanding of the politics
of violence and memory.

The act of remembering takes various forms and resists the violence of
erasure. In the aftermath of the collective forgetting which has
framed events from the Partition to the Gujarat pogrom, from the
Khairlanji caste violence to the Manorama Devi case in Manipur,
citizens' groups, movements and campaigns have taken on institutions
such as the state, the judiciary and the security forces, in an
attempt to seek justice and affirm the human rights of victims and
survivors of this violence. Other acts of remembrance have involved
the use of the media, the rewriting of history books, the creation of
neighbourhood peace initiatives and the use of the arts for dealing
with trauma. FoR hopes to receive papers that deal with all these
aspects.

Papers can be submitted addressing, but not restricted to the themes below.

1) Manifestations of violence and resistance
[pogroms, curtailment of political activity, censorship, violence
based on gender, caste and ethnicity, moral policing and honour
killings, protest movements]

2) The violence of the everyday
[structural violence, silencing of memories, personal v/s collective
memories, childhood and violence]

3) Texts, narratives, sites and violence
[erasures and representations of violence in cinema, performance arts,
literature television and the Internet, erasures and the construction
of violence in research, textbooks and policy documents]

4) Violence, memory and the social order
[alternative accounts of violence, the role of the state and the
judiciary, civil society movements for justice to survivors, citizen
tribunals, inquiry commissions, hate speech, surveillance, digitizing
of identities]

5) Space, violence and memory
[safety, access, migration and spatial segregation, spaces of relief
and rehabilitation, virtual spaces, transgressive spaces]

Please send your abstracts (500 words) by email along with your
contact details (email, phone no, postal address) and current
institutional affiliation to the following email ID:
for.smcs at gmail.com

Details and updates also available on the FoR blog:
http://forsmcs.wordpress.com/

Selected participants will be provided hospitality but will be
required to cover their own travel costs.

As Frames of Reference is a student seminar, we require all
participants to be students at a postgraduate level or above.
Documentary evidence (such as ID card or bonafide certificate from the
institution) is required.

An edited volume is envisaged based on a selection of papers from the
seminar.

Contact Mridula (+91 98333 52634), Shivani (+91 96193 28082) or Sriram
(+91 97699 20049) for further details.