We are organising a panel at the conference 'Modernity Redefined' at Gitam University Bangalore in February 22-23, 2024. This panel looks at ideas of genealogy, memory and family as they refracted through colonial modernity in South Asia. These ideas have been used by various communities for diverse purposes, from imagining a unified political identity, a glorious cultural past and for signifying status differences. A key aspect that lies at the heart of these imaginations is the views of sexual ordering and the reconfiguration of family relationships inaugurated by colonial modernity. Scholars like Kaviraj (2012), Udayakumar (2016) and Arunima (2003) have looked at novels, autobiographies and poetry which acted as discursive accompaniments and great archives of these transformations. Keeping these themes at the background, this panel probes into the ways in which various social groups in colonial South Asia imagined and sought to reformulate their own sense of selves and identities. The panel aims to move into the historical details as well as ethnographic impressions on changes to family histories, memories and genealogies retold from the colonial to post- colonial times in the Vernaculars of South Asia, including both established as well as spoken languages.
Please send a 150 words abstract to P.C. Saidalavi (saidalavi.pc@snu.edu.in) and Shaheen K. (shaheenkt@protonmail.com) by 19 December 2023.
