The geopolitical significance of South Asia has been a well-known fact in policy and security studies for the last several decades. In academic circles too, the logic of South Asia has become a naturalized reality: its appearance in the area studies departments of many US/western institutions signals acquiescence if not participation in an agenda informed by pursuit of global hegemony. The naturalisation of South Asia as a discourse recalls European precedents of producing knowledge about the ‘other’ in order to foster a morally and epistemologically superior European identity – as witnessed in the historical invention of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.
Papers may address but need not be limited to the following themes:
- Pedagogical practices and frameworks, historical or contemporary
- The relationship between research and funding opportunities
- Comparative tools, methodologies, epistemologies and topics
- The changing nature of development discourse
- Transnational networks of mobility
- Class as a cross-national analytic
- Research on the more ephemeral arts—performance traditions (dance, theatre, storytelling, poetry recitation)
- Film, broadcast media and print media