[Urbanstudy] CFP: Home and the world: labor, domesticity, and a South Asia in the making? , Annual Conference, Wisc-Madison

[namita]

Apologies for the repeat post. 

To clarify, this is a panel proposal for the Annual Conference of South Asia at the University of Wisconsin, Madison this Fall. 

Home and the world: labor, domesticity, and a South Asia in the making? 

In his account of early-twentieth century nationalist rhetoric, Partha Chatterjee configures the Indian home as the bastion of national culture. Here, women are ascribed the work of upholding the virtue and morality of a changing India. Building on Chatterjee’s assumptions we explore the shifting matrix of gendered division of labor in both socio-cultural and capitalist re/production. Situating ourselves within the sphere of the domestic we look at ways in which ideas of ‘work’, construct, deconstruct, define, and dissolve conceptions of domesticity. We invite papers that unpack notions of labor in and related to the home. 

Questions engaged with could include: How do conceptions of home and performances of gender within the home intersect, subvert, redefine narratives of the South Asian colonial and postcolonial nation? How do we conceptualize the home not as a static space of inert domesticity, but a dynamic space of social reform, political activism, and liberalization? Where do the boundaries of the domestic lie and how do they intersect with the political-economic climate? This panel seeks papers that consider these and other questions from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, namely anthropology, history, literature, political science and economics. 

Queries and abstracts can be emailed to: 
Krupa Shandilya (Amherst College, Women’s and Gender Studies): kshandilya at amherst.edu
Namita Dharia (Harvard University, Anthropology): ndharia at fas.harvard.edu