Traversing 2014 - International Workshop on Traversing super-, trans-, and inter-: Central and South Asia revisited

Traversing super-, trans-, and inter-: Central and South Asia revisited
Brook Bolander, University of Zurich
Till Mostowlansky, University of Bern
Thematic outline
In connection with a proliferation of research on the globalisation patterns of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, terms like “super-diversity” and “transnational” have come into increased use. Both affixes, “super-” and “trans-”, are frequently employed by scholars across the humanities, as markers to draw attention to (widespread and rapid) social change. They are thus often mentioned in connection with contemporary globalisation literature, and in research on social change and mobility (cf. for example, Appadurai 1996; Vertovec 2007; Blommaert 2010; Blommaert and Rampton 2011; and the titles in Routledge’s “Research in Transnationalism” series).
This workshop explores the use of these affixes in linguistic, anthropological, geographical and historical research on language use and other socio-cultural practices in Central and South Asia. While there is previous research which employs and/or theorises the affixes in these disciplines (see, for example, Heller 2010; Jacquemet 2010; Blommaert and Rampton 2011 for linguistics; Appadurai 1996; Inda and Rosaldo 2002; Vertovec 2007, 2009 for anthropology; and Krätke, Wildner and Lanz 2012 for geography), the workshop specifically aims to make a disciplinary comparison possible, and to tackle potential affordances and limitations of such an interdisciplinary approach in connection with these buzz affixes.
While there is globalisation literature which deals with Central and South Asian spaces, the aim of our workshop is not simply to topicalise these affixes with respect to the two regions. We rather wish to revisit these regions with a critical, interdisciplinary eye, taking into account their shared and non-shared linguistic, social and political histories (Marsden 2012). As a language intricately associated with globalisation in contemporary scholarship, English will play an important role in the treatment of these histories. This will involve engaging with the colonial past of South and Central Asia, as well as with contemporary processes of globalisation and the role accorded to English within the varied local (linguistic) landscapes.
To ensure a coherent workshop, all papers will evolve around the regions of Central and South Asia, and conceptually refer to at least one of the aforementioned affixes. Links to Central and South Asia will be established through reference to the regions as both physical as well as imaginary territories. In order to provide a framework of comparability and to facilitate the discussion of concepts, the papers will also reflect on the notion of “areas” as potentially unfixed, unstable and oscillating entities. In concrete terms, such pondering will bear upon Central and South Asia as geographical regions, but also transcend local geography and include “areas” such as e.g. “diaspora”, “identity” and “global connectedness”. The participants will furthermore consider contemporary and historical trajectories that connect or disconnect different “areas”. In this regard, “movement” along these trajectories will be clearly defined and conceptualised, so as to inform and support the workshop’s aim to test potentials and pitfalls of the affixes super-and trans- in an interdisciplinary manner.
Finally, the papers will take into consideration and explicitly mention shapes and roles of the “media” that allow us to follow and study such “movement”, and which accompany and structure the movement itself. The “media” is understood broadly here, and scholars will refer to language, as a core means through which individuals position themselves and construct their physical and/or socio-cultural movements between “areas”, as well as to materiality, sounds, signs and things that emerge as important in local practice. As stated above, English will occupy a key position in this discussion, by virtue of the important (South Asia) and increasingly important (Central Asia) role it plays in these imagined and physical spaces.
By bringing together scholars from linguistics, anthropology, geography and history, who are all interested in South and Central Asian areas, in movements within and between the nation states said to form the broader geographical spaces, and in how these movements are created through language (and other symbolic means), this workshop will contribute to research on the import of the affixes super- and trans- within and beyond the four disciplines. It will furthermore add to contemporary theorising on South and Central Asia, as well as on globalisation, and on the role of English within processes of globalisation.