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Conference Announcement Theme: Indian Cosmopolitanism and its Paradoxes Type: International Workshop Institution: Tata Institute of Social Sciences Department of Social Anthropology, University of Bergen Location: Mumbai (India) Date: 8.–9.9.2011 __________________________________________________ A voluminous body of research has been devoted to social conflicts in India. From interreligious tension through the persisting discrimination of Dalits, Adivasis and the poor to ongoing gender struggles, these studies have been crucial in pinpointing the divisive aspects of India’s exceptional heterogeneity. Despite the merits of each individual study, however, their sheer volume appear to have exaggerated the impression of the social tensions that mark everyday life in India’s many towns and villages. Thus other scholars have rather chosen to turn their attention to places and social contexts in which people of different backgrounds share social space in an amiable way. Whether analysed in terms of fuzziness, composite culture, civility, hybridity, creolisation, everyday multiculturalism, charity, tolerance or more recently cosmopolitanism, these studies may easily fall into the opposite pitfall of overemphasizing harmony and altruism. The deliberate selection of places and settings in which amiability entirely overshadows resource competition, exclusion and disagreement inevitably results in disproportionately optimistic portrayals of the realities on the ground. In this workshop we hope to stimulate discussions that reflect the tension between these research orientations in order to rethink the last decade’s marked emphasis on cosmopolitanism in political philosophy and social anthropology from an Indian regional context. Originally Greek for “citizen of the world” (from ‘cosmos’, world, and ‘polites’, citizen), the term “cosmopolitanism” usually refers to global orientations, openness to heterogeneity and a willingness to engage with those perceived as the “Other”, as in the works of Kwame Anthony Appiah, Martha Nussbaum, Ulrich Beck and Pratap Bhanu Mehta. Several forms o Indian “vernacular cosmopolitanism” – as Pnina Werbner termed it in “Anthropology and the New Cosmopolitanism” (2008) – have already been described, and more are on their way. In order to contribute to this emergent scholarship while avoiding its romanticizing pitfalls, this workshop invites to discuss questions such as - How do cosmopolitan and conflicting forces contradict one another? For instance, how is the ‘centralising’ sense of common nationhood promoted by schools, international cricket matches, commercial movies and markets counterworked by the ‘decentralising’ group affiliation promoted by many religious practices and socio-political movements? - What do we make of social practices, values or legislations that are cosmopolitan in one sense but exacerbate social cleavages in another? For example, in what way can the proscription of expressions that wound religious sentiments or social dignity have marked integrating effects at the same time as it reinforces social cleavages in another sense? - In what ways can explicit claims of cosmopolitan altruism mask exclusionary practices? For instance, how can openness to people of other religious denominations go hand in hand with active distancing from people hailing from social segments held to be inferior? - What are the limits of religious cosmopolitanism? Whether understood in terms of fuzziness (Kaviraj), polytropy (Carrithers) or chauraste/crossroads (Flueckiger), the tendency of showing respect to, and seeking assistance from, religious specialists of other denominations than one’s own is clearly not unlimited – but where does the limit go, and why? This workshop will offer the opportunity to take stock of the contradictory social forces of cosmopolitanism and conflict, revisit some of the academic debates on these issues over the past decades, and present fresh empirical material that reflects the tension between these contradictory orientations. Contact: Virginius Xaxa Email: [email protected] Kathinka Froystad Email: [email protected] __________________________________________________ InterPhil List Administration: http://interphil.polylog.org Intercultural Philosophy Calendar: http://cal.polylog.org __________________________________________________
