Aktuelles & Termine

Guest researcher, Ahsan Kamal (Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad) in collaboration with Philipp Zehmisch (Department of Anthropology) invite for a roundtable on Friday, 20 October from 10 a.m.-12.30 p.m. in Room: 400.00.02, Karl-Jaspers-Center, ground floor (EG) on the theme of “Southern Theorising for South Asia”. The roundtable is calling for a fresh round of introspection on the role of theory and theorising from different locations. While calls for decentring Eurocentric theory and Orientalist lenses have long been influential, current decolonial approaches move beyond merely criticizing imperial or colonial foundations of hegemonic knowledge production. They not only call for conducting ethical research but for an epistemic shift in the very practice of theorising. Here, the idea of “Southern Theorising” is an emergent conversation that centers on the potential for developing theory from alternative, subaltern and indigenous epistemological vantage points, calling for a radical shift of focus and attention towards knowledge from the many Souths. The roundtable is open for both students and faculty. Roundtable participants are: Kama Maclean, William Sax, Hans Harder, Antony Pattathu, Sona Prabhakaran, Kush Depala, and Ashwani Sharma

Eine Gruppe von Studierenden des Südasieninstituts der Universität Heidelberg besuchte in Begleitung von Dr. Philipp Zehmisch die Lahore University of Management Sciences in Pakistan für ein zweiwöchiges Forschungsseminar. Das internationale Forschungsseminar “Heritage Conservation in Postcolonial Pakistan“ hatte das Ziel, dem Erbe des postkolonialen Pakistan nachzugehen.

Professor Sax’s book Dancing the Self: Personhood and Performance in the Pandav Lila of Garhwal (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002 ) has been chosen as one of a selection of 100 books published about the sub-continent from the year 2000 onwards, that will be curated by Pramod Kumar at the Serendipity Arts Festival in Goa, this coming December.

Die Abteilung Ethnologie heißt Dr. Dhammika Herath als neue Postdoc-Forschungsstipendiat der Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung willkommen.

Webinar zur Buchvorstellung von „Tides of Life”, herausgegeben von Dr. Aditya Ghosh.

Die Abteilung Ethnologie heißt Dr. Philipp Zehmisch als neue Assistenz der Professur willkommen.

Die Abteilung Ethnologie heißt Dr. Pallabi Roy als neue MAHASSA-Koordinatorin neben Heribert Beckmann, M.A. willkommen.

On Friday, 27 June, Prof. Sax gave an invited talk on “Jinns and Exorcism from an Anthropological Point of View” at the Hounslow Jamia Masjid, one of Great Britain’s largest mosques. The talk was pre-recorded, and played to the congregation as a supplement to the main speaker of the day, Mr. Walid Zamzam. It can be seen here.

On Friday, 25 June, Prof. Sax gave a talk (in Hindi) entitled मानवशास्त्रीय दृष्टिकोण से घुमन्तू समुदाय (Nomadic communities from an anthropological point of view). The talk was part of a Webinar 'घुमन्तू समुदाय को जानों' (Get to know nomadic communities) in which various nomadic groups presented themselves to the wider public. It was organized by the “Centre for Dialogue” based in Rajasthan.

11. November 2020: Webinar zur Buchvorstellung von „Tides of Life” [Infos]

26.06.2022 : (with Srishtee Sethi) “Contentious Borderlands? Reflections on Co-existence, Belonging, and Shared Histories at the India-Pakistan Border“, Borderland Futures: Technologies, Zones, Co-existences, Asian Borderlands Research Network, Seoul,26.06.2022

09.06.22 : “’We have been cut off from Rajasthan!’ Borders as contested metaphors of belonging among Pakistani Hindus,” Summer Symposium, Frobenius-Institute for Cultural Anthropological Reseach, Frankfurt am Main.09.06.22

08.06.22 :“Borderland Ethics and Borderland Communities in Cholistan”, International Webinar, Department of Anthropology, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Pakistan.08.06.22

28.04.22 (with Srishtee Sethi) “Contentious Borderlands? Reflections on Co-existence, Belonging, and Shared Histories at the India Pakistan Border“, Panel „Belonging, Citizenship, and Conflict in South Asian Borderlands”, Annual South Asia Conference, Ireland India Institute, Dublin.28.04.22

11.02.22: “The ‘Long Partition’ of Baltistan: On the Intersection of Morality and Nation-Building“, Conference Placing Pakistan: Space, Time, and the Everyday, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 11.02.22

25.10.21: “In Search of ‘the Indigenous’ in Pakistan: Reflections on the tension between decolonization, modernization, and sustainable conservation”, Panel State Formation and Identity in Conversation: Exploring the Relation, Conference “Anthropology and Conservation”, Royal Anthropological Institute, London, 25.10.21

30.09.21: “Making Sense of a Pandemic: Religion and COVID-19”, Panel Convener (with Natalie Lang), Conference of the German Anthropological Association Worlds, Zones, Atmospheres: Seismographies of the Anthropocene, University of Bremen, 30.09.21

27.07.2021: “Between the mainland and the deep blue sea: Transformation and Continuity in South Asian Islands and Littorals”, Discussant of Panel 05, European Conference of South Asian Studies (ECSAS), University of Vienna, 27.07.21

20.07.2021: “Borderland Ethics in Postcolonial Pakistan”, Colloquium, Department of Anthropology, Heidelberg University, 20.07.21

08.07.2021: “Partitioned Borderlands: Ethics of Collaboration and Resistance in Baltistan”, Conference Society and Morality in Eurasia: from Prehistory to the Present Day, Max-Planck-Institute for Social Anthropology, 08.07.21

15.05.2021: “The Politics of Artistic Identity”, Panel discussion, Exhibition Peepal and Banyan, Berlin 15.05.2021

30.11.2020: “Pluralist Ethics versus Communalist Politics in the Andaman Islands: Secular Nostalgia or a Model for India?“, Lecture Series Hindu-Muslim Encounters, South Asia Institute, Heidelberg University, 30.11.2020

07.11.2020: (with Srishtee Sethi) “Contentious Borderlands? Reflections on Co-existence, Belonging, and Shared Histories at the India-Pakistan Border“, Online Conference Borderlands Futures: Technologies, Zones, Co-existences, Asian Borderlands Research Network, 07.11.2020

16.09.2020: (with Srishtee Sethi) "A partitioned past: The shared history of refugees at the Western borderlands of India and Pakistan", Royal Anthropological Institute, Conference Anthropology and Geography: Dialogues Past, Present, and Future

06.07.2020: “Between Public and Private: Ethical dilemmas of coping with COVID-19 in Pakistan”, International Webinar Social Impact of Covid 19: Challenges and Prospects, Sangyartham Research Foundation

2021 The Movement for Global Mental Health: Critical Views from South and Southeast Asia. (Edited with Claudia Lang). Amsterdam University Press.

2021 The Movement for Global Mental Health: Critical Voices from South Asia and Beyond, pp. 7-36 in Sax, Willam S. and Claudia Lang, eds., The Movement for Global Mental Health: Critical Views from South and Southeast Asia. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

2021 Global Mental Therapy. pp. 271-299 in Sax, Willam S. and Claudia Lang, eds., The Movement for Global Mental Health: Critical Views from South and Southeast Asia. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

2021 Divine Kingdoms and Border Politics in the Western Himalaya. In Diana Lange, Jarmila Ptáčková, Marion Wettstein und Mareike Wulff (eds.) Crossing Boundaries. Tibetan Studies Unlimited. Prague: Academia Publishing House.

Bevorstehend. Review of Chetan Singh, Himalayan Histories (SUNY Press). European Bulletin of Himalayan Research 56

Bevorstehend. Transculturalism Beyond Dualism: in memory of Rudolph Wagner. ed. Monica Juneja.

“Neither here nor there: The betwixt and between Religious Imaginary of Lāldās” In Routledge Handbook of South Asian Religions Jacobsen, Knut A. (Ed.), Routledge, 2020, pp. 242-261.

Competition and Contestation at a Hindu-Muslim Shrine: The Case of the Sant Laldas in Mewat, north India” In Sacred Sites and Sacred Stories Across Cultures: Transmission of Oral Tradition, Myth, and Religiosity, Kim, David W. (Ed.), Palgrave Macmillan, 2020, pp. 226-262.

2022: “Can migrants be indigenous? Affirmative action, space and belonging in the Andaman Islands.” Modern Asian Studies 56, Special Issue 5 “Multiple Worlds of the Adivasi”. 1489–1514. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0026749X2100038X

2022: “Bringing Subalterns into Speech? Investigating Anarchic Resistance to Hegemonic Modernity” Revista de Antropología y Sociología: Virajes, 24(2). 110–131.

2022: “Bengali Hindu Refugees in the Andaman Islands.”, in: Irudaya Rajan, S. (ed.) Routledge Handbook of Refugees in India. London and New York: Routledge. 545-549

2022: “The Conservation of Anarchy: Ethnographic Reflections on Forest Policies and Resource Use”, in: Energies Beyond the State: Anarchist Political Ecology and the Liberation of Nature, edited by Jennifer Mateer, Simon Springer, Martin Locret-Collet, and Maleea Acker, Vol. 3 of Anarchist Political Ecology, Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 143–160.

2021: „Über das Schweigen Sprechen: 100 Jahre Adivasi-Migration auf die Andamanen”, Südasien 1, 2021. 88–89.

2020: "Moral and religious responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in Pakistan”, CoronAsur: Religion and COVID-19, Asia Research Institute: National University of Singapore.

2020: "Patriots in Kala Pani: Writing Subaltern Resistance into the National Memory”, in: Banerjee, Rita (ed.): Cultural Histories of India: Subaltern Spaces, Peripheral Genres, and Alternate Historiography. London/ New York: Routledge. 67–88.

2020: "Speaking about Silence: One Hundred Years of Adivasi Migration to the Andamans”, Fieldsights, Society for Cultural Anthropology (SCA).