Call for Papers!!

Karvan-e-Fikr, the Subject Association,

Department of Sociology, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi

Invites you to contribute papers for a

Students’ Seminar

On

The Coming of Consumer Society

as part of the Sociology Academic Fair, Karvan-e-Fikr 2011-12.

Tentative Dates of Students’ Seminar: 14^th & 15^th March, 2012

Last Date for Submission of Papers: 1st March, 2012

(Word Limit: 5000)

Last Date for Submission of Abstracts: 24^th February, 2012 (extended from 15th February)

(Word Limit: 300)

Send your entries to: karvanefikr@gmail.com

Concept Note for the Seminar

The transition from industrialism to consumerism over the last century cannot be called a simple change in technologies and relations of production but signifies a far deeper shift in the very manner we conceive and understand our societies today. There is no doubt that our material ‘needs’ are very different from that of the preceding generations. But this change in our material worlds is not simply about the nature of our needs or the way we fulfill them but about a whole new way we imagine ourselves as ‘species beings’. It represents the onset of another form of social organization that shakes the very roots of who we think we are, or the way we think of ourselves in relation to others. The earlier intellectual language has been replaced by a new lexicon of consumerism, signaling that the consumer society has finally arrived and come into its ‘own' .

This has been accompanied by a simultaneous shift in the focus on the class analysis embedded in production relations to those defined by consumption. Much of the burgeoning interest in the this new consumer society remains influenced by the classic Marxian ideas about commodity fetishism, false needs and the relationship between use value and exchange value – be it in its favor or against. A host of other theoretical perspectives, nuanced by postmodernism, cultural studies, and feminism have equally enriched and modified our understandings of the underpinnings between capitalism and consumerism. In fact, ‘consumerism’, together with terms like ‘postmodernism’ is one of the most important terms to have populated theoretical debates about the socio-political nature of late capitalist society, its identity politics, the so-called “new world order”, the mass media and representation, and about that slippery concept of “culture”. Consumerism in its current form is the single greatest symbol of the all-encompassing scope of capitalism. Some would even argue that the phenomenological truth grounding all these concepts is the fact of consumerism itself. Whether one attacks it or celebrates it, its significance is accepted by all.

So is consumerism then simply the act of going to the supermarket and buying what you evidently do not ‘need’? Or is it a state of mind, where alienation has reached such a point that any sustained and productive engagement within our social worlds has become impossible? Is there a need to resist it? Or has resistance itself become an object of consumption, up for sale in the media created spectacle society?

In the present scenario, consumption is not so much about needs (eating, clothing, transportation, entertainment) but rather a statement of ‘lifestyle’, ‘status consciousness’, and ‘distinction’. The global restructuring of commodity production since the 1970’s has led many cities to adopt ambitious consumption based economic development in their downtowns and waterfronts. This raises a gamut of questions for observers and students of society. The ‘collective consumption’ and the ‘leisure class’ of earlier historical epochs is supplanted by the growing ‘felt’ need for individualization and differentiation leading us to ponder over the very fundamentals of socio-political and economic organization of contemporary societies. The corridors that consumer society throngs are the new media, the world of advertisements and the virtual superhighways. So do shopping malls, supermarkets and entertainment parks, the infrastructure of this consumer world, enshrine a new ‘sociality’ instead of ‘community’?

This student seminar is meant to bring together the many themes of consumer society which may be philosophical, abstract and theoretical. We especially welcome papers with critical inputs informed by empirical insights. It is open to students from all streams at graduate, post-graduate and research levels.

Some of the suggested themes are:

1. Theorizing consumption by engaging in classic and contemporary intellectual debates

2. The role of media, the popular culture and the middle classes

3. Symbolic economies with emphasis on globalization, new world economic order

4. Spaces of consumption and their impact on cities

5. Gender and consumption; body and sexuality

6. Role of public policies such as economic reforms

The above themes are only indicative and papers on other related and relevant themes would also be considered. We regret that no TA/ DA will be paid to the participants due to paucity of funds.

Rules and Guidelines:

i. The seminar is open to all Bachelors, Masters, M.Phil., Ph.D students from any discipline.

ii. The paper must be original.

iii. Please refer to the Concept Note for an explanation of the theme.

iv. Submissions are to be sent to karvanefikr@gmail.com

v. The papers will be selected on the basis of the abstract as well as the final paper (see below), and the selection of the papers will be done by an expert panel consisting of the faculty of the Department of Sociology, JMI.

vi. Paper Presentation – Time limit: 15 min

vii. Submissions after the stipulated deadlines will not be entertained.

viii. Abstract –

The abstract that one submits must represent the proposed paper in what is under study, why it is important, and how the author plans to approach the issue. The author must briefly describe the theoretical underpinnings as well as the empirical substantiation of their formulations.

ix. Paper –

The papers should have a strong grounding in theory and literature about the issue they take up. A sound understanding of the debates surrounding the choice of topic is integral to making a significant contribution to the issue in question. The work must also have a strong referent in social reality. Papers based on empirical work will be preferred.

For further details, contact: Bhumika - 9810928194, Shahzad Ali - 9810833981, Qadeem – 9990926883, Ajaz – 9015732723

Final Schedule for 27th and 28th January, 2010

Subject Association, Department of Sociology

Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi

Seminar on

Conceptualising Resistance

Date: 27-28 January, 2011

Venue: Mir Anees Hall, Near Vice-Chancellor’s Office, Jamia Millia Islamia

DAY 1

9:30-10.00 a.m- Registration
10.00-10.10 a.m- Welcome (Ipshita Roy, Vice-President, Subject Association)
10.10-10.20 a.m- Inaugural Remarks by the Head of the Department (Prof. Sheena Jain)
10.20-10.50 a.m- Keynote Address By Gautam Navlakha
10.50-11.05 a.m- Tea
11.05-12.10 p.m- Session I

• Resisting the Seductions of the Text: Rethinking the Role of the Word
  Karthick Ram Manoharan, JNU
• Resistance and the Working Class: The Subject-Structure Relation in Historical Materialism
  Bhumika Chauhan, JMI

Discussant: Paresh Chandra, DU

12.10-1.15 p.m- Session II

• Body, Sex and Revolution in the Swinging Sixties
  Shaheen Salma Ahmed, JNU
• Revisiting the Sixties: Return of the ‘Ultimately Determining Instance’?
  Soheb Niazi, JNU

Discussant: Dave Ferri, DU

1.15-2.15 p.m- Lunch
2.15 – 3:45 p.m- Session III

• Internalising Resistance - The Case of the Bangla Band and the Patuas of Bengal
  Shayeari Dutta
• Singing Resistance: the art of commerciality or true spirit?
  Ipshita Roy, JMI

Discussant: Soheb Niazi, JNU

Book Release and Innaugural Address (Vice-Chancellor, Mr. Najib Jung)

3.45-4.00 p.m- Tea
4.00-5.05- Session IV

• The Return of Resistance in Latin America
  Alok A. Oak, JNU
• Civil and Armed resistance in Manipur
  Seram Rojesh, DU

Discussant: Adityan, DU

DAY 2

10.00-11.30: Session V

• Representing the Veil: The (Un)Covering of Identity Politics
  Yasser Shams Khan, DU
• Empowering the Domestic: Resistance and History in Late Colonial Bengal
  Priyasha Mukhopadhyay, DU
• Caste, Gender and Community Violence
  Namrata Daniel, JMI

Discussant: Yukti Choudhary, Faculty of Law, DU
11.30 – 11:45 a.m- Tea
11.45-12.50- Session VI

• Resisting the “Normal”: Kindergarten Universe as site of Resistance in the works of African American Women Artists
  Shaweta Nanda
• Resistance, Politics and Aesthetics: The Brechtian Alternative
  Paresh Chandra, DU

Discussant: Ashwin Bajaj, DU
12.25-12.35- Vote of Thanks

Karvan-e-Fikr

Subject Association,

Department of Sociology, Jamia Millia Islamia

Invites your contributions for the

Students’ Seminar

On

Conceptualising Resistance

on the

27^th & 28^th January, 2011

Paper Presentations

Last Date for Submission of Papers: 10^th January, 2011 (Word Limit: 6000)

Photography Competition

Last Date for Submission of Photographs: 20th January, 2011*

Send your entries to: karvanefikr@gmail.com

For the Concept Note see below.

*Rules for Photography Competition

1. The theme of the photographs is Conceptualizing Resistance.

2. Maximum number of entries per person is 3.

3. The prints should be 8 inches x 10 inches and mounted on a card-board sheet.

4. Photoshop Special effects are not allowed.

5. The entries should have a caption and camera/exposure details on the front and name of photographer on the back.

6. The soft copy should be sent by 20^th January, 2011 for registration.

7. The hard copies should be submitted by 24^th January, 2011 at the following address:

Dr. Ravi Kumar

Dept. of Sociology, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi - 110025

For further details contact:

Ipshita - 9911489505,

Antaranga - 9968724596,

Bhumika – 9810928194

Email – karvanefikr@gmail.com

Concept Note: Conceptualising Resistance:

Over the centuries the term “resistance” has changed its meaning repeatedly to include an ever expanding gamut of social phenomena, from protest movements to forms of cultural expression to practices of everyday life and so on. What remains constant is the clause of refusal, opposition or negation. Popular usage, however, usually limits the meaning of the term to the socio-political domain, as in the phrase “the masses resisted the government’s decision to go to war”. In the natural sciences “resistance” is used in the denotation of inverse relations, as in the case of electrical conductivity in physics, or immunity and self-defense in biology.

In the social sciences it usually leads one to think of social movements – collective action with some amount of planning, in opposition to some perceived injustice. But is that it? What about the child’s tantrum every other morning before leaving for school, the maid who occasionally ‘forgets’ to clean one of the rooms, the patient who falls sick right before an appointment with her psychotherapist? What about ‘insanity’ or ‘anti-social’ behaviour? What about dragging one’s feet or being plain lazy? Can these be called forms of resistance? Is resistance an action? Or can the lack of action be called resistance as well? Does it have to be intentional? Does it have to be collective? Is it progressive or can it also be regressive? Does it include only opposition, or can removing oneself from the system also be called resistance? What of transcendence? And finally what makes for successful resistance?

The above are some questions which arise when one begins to talk of resistance as a concept. An answer of any significant meaning to these questions, as this seminar hopes to formulate, will have to traverse through the apparent and discreet meanings that create social reality, through time and space, through the past and the present, through ideas and the actions, and finally through both macro and micro structures of life.

This seminar is envisaged to be about all that “resistance” implies. The following, therefore, are not themes by any means stipulated, but mere suggested lines of enquiry that one might choose to follow (or to resist).

1. Conceptualising resistance – reviewing the existing body of work/theorisation

2. Revisiting the idea of resistance – individuated resistance and collective resistance

3. Resistance - opposition as alternative

4. Postmodernism, idea of individuated resistance and denial of the systemic forms

A meaningful conceptualization of resistance, it would seem, necessitates a resistance to the construction of disciplinary prison houses. We, therefore, invite students of all disciplines to explore resistance as it gets translated in everyday life and at moments of societal rupture, in the culture, institutions and spaces of a society.

Day 1
Date: 27th January, 2010, Wednesday

Event
Seminar - 10: 30 Hrs- 12:00 Hrs
"Contesting Development: Identity, Displacement and Violence"
Lunch 12:00 Hrs- 13:00 Hrs
Seminar Continued

Day 2
Date: 28th January, 2010, Thursday

Event
Quiz - 10: 30 Hrs- 11:30 Hrs
"Current Events and General Sociological awareness"
Debate 11:30 Hrs- 12:30 Hrs
“Development is more a disabling process than an enabling one.”
Lunch 12:30 Hrs- 13:30 Hrs
Poster Making - 13: 30 Hrs- 14:00 Hrs
"Development Breeds Violence"
Movie screening 14:00 Hrs

For Details:
IPSHITA: 9911489505
MUBASSIR: 9953020387

CONCEPT NOTE

Contesting Development: Identity, Displacement and Violence
Students Seminar organized
By
Department of Sociology, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi

Indian freedom movement threw up a wide array of discourses and imaginations of how would an independent India look like. For instance, this diversity was evident in the ideas and actions of Mahatma Gandhi, Bhagat Singh and Jawaharlal Nehru. Deliberations on the idea of equality and social justice were extensively made by the intellectuals and leaders. The post-independent India, after more than half a decade, reveals that the promises of equality and justice are still a far fetched dream. There are symptoms of strong discontent surging everywhere- in form of identitarian mobilizations (dalits, tribal, women, minority groups, etc., are raising voices against injustice meted out to them) as well as modulated forms of class struggles.
The ‘development’ as a concept has been altered, modified or defined and re-defined has raised renewed interest among students to explore and examine the trajectory of the concept as well as its practice. The predominance of the Nehruvian paradigm of development in the post-independent phase and marginalization of other paradigms such as the Gandhian imagination of a free India and now the subtle yet very visible transition from the Nehruvian agenda itself from 1970s onwards has left us with certain pertinent questions about where are we heading in terms of ‘development’ of the nation.
It is being argued that the Indian state no longer stands for its people, rather for a handful of economic interests. The developments over last one and half decades leading to massive displacement have been questioned by many activists. The Indian state has been, however, reiterating that in order to push up the economic growth and provide facilities to its people some sacrifices will have to be made. And the obvious questions which have been asked are what kind of sacrifices and who makes the sacrifice? History has moved beyond the state sponsored ‘development’ to an increasing argument to involve the ‘private sector’ as a stakeholder in development. How would one explain this transition? And what have been its repercussions?
While debates are raising at one level regarding what to consider as the determinant of development- the economic growth, status of human capital or social development- there are other issues as well which have become vital for young social scientists to answer- for instance, how would one understand the increasing trends of communal and gendered violence in the new era of development (’developed’ regions showing declining sex ratio or becoming victims of communitarian violence)? These are only some of many questions that need engagement. Within this scenario, the students of Department of Sociology, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi are organizing a students seminar on ‘Contesting Development: Identity, Displacement and Violence’. We invite papers for the seminar from students on the following tentative sub-themes:

 Understanding the trajectory of development discourse in India
 Theoretical underpinnings of the contemporary development paradigm
 Economic growth and communitarian violence
 Dalits, Tribal and the contemporary development paradigm
 Equality, justice and economic growth- what we have achieved in post independent India
 Gendered violence and the development paradigm
 Displacement and development- can it be avoided?
The interested students will have to send their papers by 15th January 2010. Also they are requested to send the abstract of their paper by 7th January. The shortlisted students will be intimated and will present their papers in the students’ seminar organized by the Department of Sociology, JMI on 27-28th January, 2010. The best paper to be decided by a Jury will be suitably rewarded. Also the selected papers will be published in a volume. For any further details please contact us at karvanefikr@gmail.com.
Mobile-Mubassir- 9953020387,Ipshita- 9911489505, Khabir- 9990495167,Ramjit- 9350610427

Invitation for Paper Presentation in Students' Seminar

Call for Papers!!
Subject Association,
Department of Sociology, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi
Invites you to contribute papers
To
Students’ Seminar
On
Contesting Development: Identity, Displacement and Violence

Tentative Themes:
 Understanding the trajectory of development discourse in India
 Theoretical underpinnings of the contemporary development paradigm
 Economic growth and communitarian violence
 Dalits, Tribal and the contemporary development paradigm
 Equality, justice and economic growth- what we have achieved in post independent India
 Gendered violence and the development paradigm
 Displacement and development- can it be avoided?

Date of Students’ Seminar: 27th & 28th January
Last Date for Abstracts: 07th January
Last Date for Submission of Papers: 15th January
Contact: Mubassir- 9953020387, Ipshita: 9911489505, Khabir: 9990495167, Ramjit- 9350610427, for details.
Email: karvanefikr@gmail.com

(Note: Selected papers will be published in a volume)