Rethinking space in contemporary South Asia: An interdisciplinary approach

Space presupposes meetings, or is the result of them. Any meeting — where political, intellectual, symbolic, religious, economic interests are implied — creates spaces or imagines spaces, and these cultural products, functioning as material as well as symbolic resources, allow further meetings; but they can also deny spaces, precluding further meetings. Space is constructed and maintained by/through/thanks to a dialectic of inclusion and exclusion, it can be sacred space, profane space, tourist space, political space. Space can be the mapping of hierarchy or the cancellation of hierarchy. It can be the inclusion of exotic spaces through linguistic, literary, visual means (for example: the representation of “foreign”). Spaces can be re-created or disputed (ex: Tibetans in India). We invite papers that focus on different issues regarding space in contemporary South Asia, with an interdisciplinary approach aiming to find hermeneutically valid tools for understanding contemporary life. This lends itself well, but is not restricted to, the study of cultural products dealing with the dialectical interaction of different kinds of space, with their recognition, their contraposition, with a definite focus on the contemporary world: if forests and ascetics, cosmogonies and cosmographies are dealt with, they must be studied with reference to the present time. Methodological analysis should be an important element of the presentation. The papers should be original as publication is an option.