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    • Douglas Haynes

    Doug Haynes specializes in the history of South Asia, but he also has a strong comparative interest in colonialism and anti-colonial struggles, as is suggested by his course offerings: Modern Southeast Asia, the Theory and Practice of National Liberation, and Colonialism and Culture in Asia and Africa (seminar), as well as the history of modern India. He has recently added a course on the environmental history of South and Southeast Asia. His current research concerns the adaptations of western Indian artisans, particularly handloom weavers, to colonialism and to the competition of mill-made textiles. Based extensively on reconstructions of family histories through oral interviews, this study will especially examine the role of artisans in shaping contemporary forms of capitalism in the region. He has previously completed a study on the cultural accommodations of elites in Surat, a small Indian city, to British domination; and he has co-edited a book, Contesting Power, on "everyday resistance" in South Asian society and history.

    E-Mail

    douglas.e.haynes@dartmouth.edu

    Department Home Page

    http://www.dartmouth.edu/~history/faculty/haynes.html

    Urban South Asia Posts by Douglas Haynes

    Roundtable on Labour Space & Politics

    Thursday, March 22nd, 2007

    Roundtable at the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) Annual Meeting on THURSDAY 22 March 2007 from 7.00 to 9.00 p.m.

    Salon E, 4th Floor, Boston Marriott Copley Place, 110 Huntington Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02116

    Labour Space and Politics:
    Rajnarayan Chandavarkar and the History of Modern South Asia

    Rajnarayan Chandavarkar was one of the foremost scholars of urban and working class history writing on South Asia. His sudden death in April 2006 has been an inestimable loss to the academic community. The empirical depth of Chandavarkar’s scholarship stood out amongst his contemporaries. The impact of his work on the field remains to be assessed.

    This roundtable will focus on several areas where Chandavarkar’s contributions remain significant and offer new directions for future scholarship. His challenge to universalising narratives of world capitalism opened up new ways of understanding the social spaces, political choices and organising strategies of urban working classes. Larger formations such as class and nationalist politics articulated with everyday relations amongst women, migrants and the urban poor. The earlier importance given to the workplace as the primary site of class mobilisation gave way to a wider understanding of how the spaces of the neighbourhood and countryside enabled workers to engage in urban politics. His attention to social organisation emphasised the shifting nature of class and community identities in the context of mass action, challenging functionalist conceptions of social structure and political agency.

    This roundtable will situate Chandavarkar’s wide-ranging contributions to the historiography of modern South Asia, addressing critiques of his work as well as areas where his interpretations have gained acceptance. This roundtable also points to new directions which his work and mentorship have helped shape amongst his peers and colleagues. The participants include senior historians, younger scholars, and Chandavarkar’s former students from the U.S., U.K. and India.

    Chair

    Frank F. Conlon, Department of History, University of Washington, Seattle, WA

    Participants

    Douglas Haynes, Department of History, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire
    Subho Basu    , Department of History, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York
    Lisa Trivedi, Department of History, Hamilton College, Clinton, New York
    Nikhil Rao, Department of History, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts
    Shekhar Krishnan, Program in History and Anthropology of Science & Technology, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts

    Posted in Conference Panels |