CR Ateliers de l'AJEI 2013 Calcutta · majeur en Asie du sud, Calcutta fait figure d’interface...

Présentation

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Présentation

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Les Ateliers de l’AJEI : un rendez-vous annuel pour les jeunes chercheurs en sciences sociales Les Ateliers et l’AJEI

Les Ateliers Jeunes Chercheurs ont vu le jour en 1998 sous l’impulsion de Christophe Z. Guilmoto, alors responsable du département de Sciences Sociales de l’Institut Français de Pondichéry (IFP).

La vocation affichée dès l’origine était de mettre en relation les jeunes chercheurs en sciences sociales (depuis les étudiants de maîtrise jusqu’aux post-doctorants) travaillant, trop souvent de manière isolée, dans différentes régions de l’Inde.

A l’issue de la première édition des ateliers, l’Association des Jeunes Etudes Indiennes (AJEI) (Association loi de 1901) a été créée afin que tous les intéressés puissent continuer d’échanger leurs expériences et autres états d’âme d’apprenti chercheurs.

Ces rencontres se sont très rapidement révélées formatrices au fil des années, non seulement pour les étudiants de maîtrise, mais aussi pour les doctorants, qui ont pu exposer à l’occasion, et parfois à titre expérimental, l’évolution de leurs travaux face à un public.

La tenue annuelle des Ateliers Jeunes Chercheurs en Sciences Sociales a permis de créer de manière incontestable un lieu mobile d’interdisciplinarité, favorisant la rencontre entre des chercheurs d’horizons différents, et suscitant des échanges fructueux, tant aux niveaux institutionnel que scientifique.

Les ateliers ont lieu chaque année dans une ville différente d’Asie du sud, nous sommes

en général accueillis par une université ou un centre de recherche local :

2008 - Shillong North-East Hill University, Shillong. 2009 – Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi. 2010 - Rashtrasant Tukadoji Maharaj Nagpur University, Nagpur. 2012 – Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai.

Depuis quelques années, cet événement majoritairement français a débouché sur un véritable échange franco-indien, ce à travers l’accueil des Ateliers dans les universités indiennes et surtout la participation de chercheurs et d’étudiants indiens. Dorénavant, l’échange franco-indien est aussi important que le fait de réunir les jeunes chercheurs français.

De ce fait, l’appel à contribution destiné

aux jeunes chercheurs est diffusé en français et en anglais, et nous comptons sur le relais des chercheurs indiens du CSH et de l’IFP vers leurs étudiants.

La forme des Ateliers est multiple et nous alternons les sessions de conférences en anglais et les ateliers de travail en petits groupes. Ces derniers permettent de réunir les étudiants autour de thématiques communes et offrent aux jeunes chercheurs des exemples concrets d’application au terrain à travers l’utilisation de différents outils méthodologiques. Ils sont animés par un chercheur confirmé et appuyés par les doctorants présents.

L’AJEI sur le web : ajei.hypotheses.org

Présentation

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Le thème des ateliers 2013 : les Frontières en Asie du Sud

Sur proposition des organisatrices, Hortense Rouanet (doctorante Urbanisme et Aménagement, Université Paris-Est, LATTS) et Bérénice Bon (doctorante, Géographie, CEAIS-EHESS), le Bureau de l’association a validé le thème des « Frontières en Asie du Sud : territoires, identités, mobilisations ».

Les frontières sont séparations mais

aussi ressources. Elles cristallisent des conflits, des mobilisations, des coopérations, des stratégies d’acteurs.

Par ailleurs, c’est un thème de recherche très fécond qui mobilise fortement des dimensions symboliques. La mobilité des frontières influence non seulement les populations par le jeu de construction et de reconstruction d’identités nationales et régionales, mais également les rapports de force qui se mettent en place à l’échelle du monde indien.

En outre, l’ouverture ou la fermeture d’une frontière ont un impact sur les mobilités, les liens entre territoires, et posent la question des entités qui peuvent traverser la frontière : flux de personnes, marchands, organisations transfrontalières.

Enfin à différentes échelles, la frontière, associée à l’idée de localisation, de catégorisation, de logiques de délimitation territoriale, structure le rapport des individus et des groupes à la société villageoise ou urbaine.

L’appel à communication – diffusé

dès septembre 2012 – proposait aux participants d’aborder ce thème à travers trois axes : les frontières comme 1) production de limites et niveaux de pouvoir, 2) délimitation territoriale et constructions sociales et 3) les mobilités et le passage de la frontière.

Nous avons reçu 31 propositions de

participations, relevant de disciplines et d’approches méthodologiques très variées. Le comité scientifique a eu pour tâche de sélectionner les 15 propositions finales. Ce comité fut composé de Lakshmi Subramaniam, professeur d’histoire au Centre for Studies in Social Sciences de Calcutta (CSSS-C), de Blandine Ripert, ethno-géographe, et de Pierre-Yves Trouillet, géographe, tout deux chargés de recherche CNRS au Centre de l’Etude de l’Inde et de l’Asie du Sud (CEIAS).

Comme à l’accoutumée, nous souhaitions faire des ateliers un espace de discussions interdisciplinaires entre des étudiants français réalisant leur recherche aux quatre coins du sous-continent, et une plateforme d’échanges entre des chercheurs français d’affiliations institutionnelles diverses et leurs homologues indiens.

Ce double objectif a été atteint grâce à la réponse positive de jeunes chercheurs et à la participation de leurs aînés qui ont partagé leur expérience et leur expertise au cours des quatre jours de rencontre.

Partenaires

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Notre partenaire local : Le Centre for Studies in Social Sciences Calcutta

Les Ateliers Jeunes chercheurs de l’AJEI ont été organisés à Calcutta pour la dernière fois en 2003, il y a exactement dix ans. En raison de sa situation stratégique près de la zone transfrontalière bangladaise, la ville se prêtait à merveille au thème retenu. De surcroit, en tant que port de commerce majeur en Asie du sud, Calcutta fait figure d’interface – à la fois frontière et lien - entre l’Inde et l’espace économique mondial.

L’AJEI a décidé d’organiser les Ateliers 2013 à Calcutta suite à la proposition du Prof. Basudeb Chaudhuri, directeur du Centre des Sciences Humaines de New Delhi. Nous souhaitons remercier chaleureusement Basudeb Chaudhuri pour nous avoir mis en contact avec notre partenaire d’accueil, le Centre for Studies in Social Sciences Calcutta.

Le CSSSC est considéré comme l’un des plus prestigieux centres de recherche en sciences sociales en Inde. Fondé en 1973, le CSSSC est aujourd’hui un centre académique indépendant. Il rassemble des étudiants et professeurs émérites, de disciplines diverses : les sciences politiques et économiques, la sociologie, l’anthropologie sociale, l’histoire, la géographie et les cultural studies. Dans le cadre d’un programme international, le Centre accueille des masterants et doctorants étrangers (M.Phil en sciences sociales et programme doctoral).

Nous tenons à remercier le Centre for Studies in Social Sciences d’avoir accueilli les ateliers Jeunes Chercheurs en Sciences Sociales de l’AJEI. Nous sommes tout particulièrement reconnaissantes au Prof. Tapati Guha Thakurta d’avoir accepté avec enthousiasme le partenariat avec l’Association Jeunes Études Indiennes. Nous avons été spécialement sensibles aux quelques mots d’encouragement qu’elle est venu prononcer le dernier jour.

Nous remercions également le Prof. Lakshmi Subramaniam, qui a rendu cet événement possible en se faisant le relais institutionnel du projet au sein de l’IIT. Nous tenons à remercier le Dr. Priya Sangameswaran pour avoir accepté de discuter une communication et de replacer un communicant au dernier moment.

Prof. Subramanian et Prof. Chaudhuri

Partenaires

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Partenaires et Participants Remerciements L’organisation des ateliers 2013 n’aurait pas été possible sans le soutien financier et logistique de plusieurs institutions. L’AJEI remercie le Centre des Sciences Humaines de New Delhi (CSH), Centre d’études de l’Inde et de l’Asie du Sud (CEIAS), le Laboratoire Techniques Territoires et Sociétés (LATTS), le laboratoire Mosaïques, l’Institut Français en Inde (IFI, Ambassade de France) et l’Institut français de Pondichéry (IFP) pour avoir contribué à la réalisation de cet événement. Pendant toute la durée des ateliers, les participants ont pu être logés à la Guesthouse du Satyajit Ray Film Institute, grâce à l’intervention de notre partenaire, le CSSS-C. Nous avons particulièrement apprécié le cadre calme et verdoyant de l’institut et nous souhaitons remercier les responsables de cette institution.

Nous souhaitons remercier toutes les personnes qui ont soutenu la 15e édition des ateliers Jeunes chercheurs en Sciences Sociales de l’AJEI, notamment les chercheurs, français et indiens, qui ont répondu positivement à notre invitation, en discutant les présentations de jeunes chercheurs, en parlant de leurs travaux ou en proposant des ateliers méthodologiques, notamment Lionel Baixas, Aurélie Varrel, Annu Jalais, Zoé Headley, Bertrand Lefebvre, Malini Sur, Shobhanlal Bonnerjee et Samuel Berthet. L'appui et les conseils des membres du bureau de l'AJEI ont par ailleurs été d’une grande aide dans le lancement du projet. Enfin, les jeunes chercheurs qui ont participé aux ateliers ont fait preuve d’investissement, en proposant des présentations de qualité. Nous souhaitons les remercier pour leur sérieux et leur attitude positive pendant toute la durée des ateliers.

Le Satyajit Ray Film Institute

Programme

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Programme

Sunday, 3rd of March 2013 Venue : Guest House Satyajit Ray Film & Television Institute, Calcutta

5 to 8 pm Welcome and registration of the participants staying at the guest house.

8 pm Dinner

Monday, 4th of March 2013 Venue : Centre for Studies in Social Sciences Calcutta, seminar room number 2

9 am Welcome of students (MA, MPhil and PhD)

9.30 – 10.30 am

Welcome and thanks by the organizers, Bérénice Bon and Hortense

Rouanet

Presentation of the CSSS Calcutta by Prof. Tapati Guha Thakurta

Director of the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences Calcutta

and Prof. Lakshmi Subramanian

Professor of History, CSSSC

Brief presentation of the activities of CSH by Prof. Basudeb Chaudhuri

Director of the Centre de Sciences Humaines of New Delhi

10.30 – 11.15

am

Inaugural adress by Prof. Basudeb Chaudhuri : “ Nations and nationalism in the discipline of economics”. Director of the Centre de Sciences Humaines of New Delhi

Break

11.30 – 12 am Adress by Dr. Lionel Baixas: “Border and Boundaries as the Theoretical and Methodological Foundations of a New Pludisciplinary, Multilevel and Comparative Research Program” Postdoctoral research fellow, CERI, Sciences Po

12 am - 2 pm Lunch

2 - 5 pm

Session 1 : Historical enquiry into borders and its implications for present days. Sengupta Anwesha : “ Some Stories from Bengal Borderland: Making and Unmaking of an International Boundary ” Discussant : Dr. Priya Sangameswaran (CSSSC) Kaustubh Sengupta : “ Space, Boundary, Law : The English East India

Programme

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Company in Calcutta in the Eighteenth Century ” Discussant : Dr. Samuel Berthet (Alliance française de Chittagong) Comments read by Dr. Priya Sangameswaran (CSSSC). Break

Dilpreet Bhullar : “ Remapping the Promised Lands: The Study of Margaret Bourke-White’s Photographic Essay The Great Migration: Five Million Indians Flee for Their Lives ” Discussant : Dr. Samuel Berthet (Alliance française de Chittagong) Comments read by Dr. Priya Sangameswaran (CSSSC).

Tuesday, 5th of March 2013 Venue : Centre for Studies in Social Sciences Calcutta, seminar room number 2 9 - 12.30 am

Session 2 : Territories, identities and mobilizations. Part 1 : Borders and social construction. S.Ponnarasu : “ Territorial boundaries of caste: an ethnohistorical perspective on Kongu nadu” Discussant : Prof. Lakshmi Subramaniam (CSSSC) Part 2 : The idea of belonging in the context of claims to place by marginal groups. Sayori Ghoshal : “Border-functions and Place-making: reading Gautam Ghosh’s Act Zero” Discussant : Dr. Annu Jalais (National University of Singapore) D. Annu Jalais : presentation of a forthcoming publication. Break Part 3 : The politics of mobilization in the city. Tara Saharan : “ Dynamics of social mobilization in Informal Settlements : The border between informal-formal residents and the resistance against the shift from one to another with a case study of low income informal settlement – VP Singh Camp in Delhi India ” Discussant (video) : Dr. Bertrand Lefebvre (Université de Rouen)

12.30am – 2 pm Lunch 2 – 5 pm

Session 3 : Administrative and economic boundaries : the new borders in discussion. Lorraine Hohler : “A Telangana State ? Multiscalar analysis of the stakes

Programme

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in modifying internal borders in India” Discussant: Dr. Lionel Baixas (CERI, Sciences Po) Break Dr. Claudia Roselli : “ Transition trough flexibility, adaptability, mixité. Shaping a new capital city in Chattisghar ” Salima Nekrouf : “The port of Kolkata as border space :The multiscalar stakes in the port governance” Discussant: Prof. Shobhanlal Bonnerjee (Centre for Built Environment, Kolkata)

Wednesday, 6th of March 2013 Venue : Centre for Studies in Social Sciences Calcutta, seminar room number 2

9.30 am – 12.30 pm

Session 4 : Accross the borders : mobilities and migrations in the global south. Chandni Basu : “ Theirs or ours! Justice of borders : The case of children from Bangladesh in the observation homes of West Bengal, India” Discussant: Dr. Malini Sur (University of Amsterdam) Break Delphine Thivet : “Resisting globalization, building solidarity across national borders: a case study of the Karnataka Rajya Ryota Sangha (KRRS- Karnataka State Farmers Association)” Discussant: Prof. Basudeb Chaudhuri (CSH)

Floriane Zaslasky : “Internet and social boundaries (de)construction : a case study of matrimonial websites and their impact on Indian traditional marriage” Discussant : Dr. Zoé E. Headley (CEIAS, Paris). Comments read by Dr. Aurélie Varrel (CEIAS, Paris).

12.30 – 2 pm Lunch 2 to 5 pm Workshop. Sessions in parallel.

Programme

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Workshop 1 Dr Lionel Baixas: Boundaries and Ethnic Groups in South Asia: Multidisciplinary Approaches, Comparative Perspectives, Theoretical Stakes and Methodological Issues. Towards the Construction of an Ethnic Boundary-Making Research Program. Workshop 2 : Dr. Aurélie Varrel (session in English). Workshop 3 : The organizers (session in French). L’accès au terrain

5 – 5.30 pm Vote of thanks and feedbacks of the participants. 8 pm Cultural evening.

Thursday, 7th of March 2013

Venue: Millennium Ghat, Calcutta 9.45 am - 4 pm 9.45 am - 1 pm 1.45 pm

Day Visit in Calcutta. Cruise down the River Ganges Bengali lunch Venue: Restaurant Kewpie's, Elgin Road , Calcutta

Participants

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Jeunes Chercheurs Liste des participants

Prénom Nom Diplôme Discipline Université

Chandni Basu Doctorat Sciences Politiques Alberts- Ludwig University Dilpreet Bhullar Master 2 Littérature University of Delhi Bérénice Bon Doctorat Géographie EHESS-CEIAS Emilie Edelblutte Master 2 Géographie Université Lyon 2 Sayori Ghoshal Master 2 Sciences sociales CSSS-C Bérénice Girard Doctorat Sociologie EGESS-CEIAS Lorraine Hohler Doctorat Géographie Université de Reims Julie Marquet Doctorat Histoire Université Paris 7 Denis-Diderot Salima Nekrouf Doctorat Géographie Université de Perpignan S.Ponnarasu Doctorat Anthropologie Université de Pondichéry Hortense Rouanet Doctorat Urbanisme Université Paris-Est Tara Saharan Doctorat Géographie Université d’Amsterdam Aneshwa Sengupta Doctorat Histoire JNU, New Delhi Kaustubh Sengupta Doctorat Histoire JNU, New Delhi Delphine Thivet Doctorat Sociologie EHESS Floriane Zaslasky Master 2 Sociologie EHESS

Total : 16

Chercheurs et Professeurs Liste des participants

Prénom Nom Discipline Université / Institution Lionel Baixas Sciences politiques CERI-Sciences po. Shobhanlal Bonnerjee Architecture, Urbanisme Centre for Built environment, Kolkata Basudeb Chaudhuri Economie CSH Santosh Ghosh Urbanisme Centre for Built environment, Kolkata Holger Jahnke Géographie Université de Flensburg Annu Jalais Anthropologie National University of Singapore Claudia Roselli Architecture, Urbanisme Faculty of Architecture, Florance Priya Sangameswaran Development studies CSSS-C Lakshmi Subramanian Histoire CSSS-C Malini Sur Anthropologie Université d’Amsterdam Tapati Gua Thakurta Histoire CSSS-C Aurélie Varrel Géographie CNRS, CEIAS (CNRS-EHESS)

Total : 12

Participants

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Statistiques participants Total : 28 Disciplines

Statuts

Géographie 25%

Histoire 18%

Urbanisme et Architecture

14%

Sociologie 11%

Anthropologie 11%

Sciences poli>ques

7%

LiBérature 3%

Sciences Sociales 3%

Economie 4%

Development studies 4%

Master 1 0%

Master 2 14%

Doctorants 43%

Chercheurs et

professeurs 36%

Post-‐doctorants

7%

Géographie 7 Histoire 5 Urbanisme et Architecture 4 Sociologie 3 Anthropologie 3 Sciences politiques 2 Littérature 1 Sciences Sociales 1 Economie 1 Development studies 1

Master 1 0 Master 2 4 Doctorants 12 Chercheurs et professeurs 10 Post-‐doctorants 2

Ateliers Jeunes Chercheurs

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Session 1: Historical enquiry into borders and its implications for present days Sengupta Anwesha

Some Stories from Bengal Borderland: Making and Unmaking of an International Boundary This paper focuses on the drawing of the international border between East Pakistan and India between 1947 and 1952 - the year when the border came into being and the year when the passport-visa became necessary papers for crossing it. It has three broad sections to address the following issues: a) how the Indo-East Pakistan international border was drawn and the arbitrariness of it b) the mechanism of policing the border and c) how the people who suddenly became the inhabitants of the borderlands negotiated with the border. This paper begins with a close reading of the Radcliffe Award and studies the loopholes in it that gave birth to numerous controversies and low intensity conflicts between the Governments of West Bengal, Assam and the Government of East Pakistan. Radcliffe used rivers at certain areas to demarcate the border between India and East Bengal. The river Padma formed part of the border between Murshidabad (West Bengal) and Rajshahi (East Pakistan) and it soon proved to be a major source of border disputes. The rivers in Bengal delta frequently change their courses. Their locations on the maps that Radcliffe used often did not tally with their actual location at the time of partition. Whether to follow the map or to follow the actual course of the river became a point of disagreement between the two countries.

The other question was when the rivers would again shift their courses, would the border also change or would it remain rigid?1 The chars2 on river Padma between Rajshahi and Murshidabad became another major site of contention between the two nation states because “the chars in the river Padma were not taken into account by the [Radcliffe] Commission.” 3 As the exact boundary line here was a disputed one, certain chars were in precarious positions and were claimed by both the parties. These chars became the sites of continuous conflicts with both the sides being eager to establish their control over them. Drawing the border and policing it was a simultaneous process. Not surprisingly, the state authorities were most active in the disputed areas. The border militia, state espionage system, para-military forces were most active in these regions and the governments were very prompt in establishing check-posts here. The intention was to ensure one’s authority over the disputed terrain. In this process of drawing the border and policing it, the local people had more often than not an active role to play. Though they were often victims of border skirmishes and the sudden emergence of an international border at their doorsteps at times 1 The Bagge Commission addressed these issues regarding the border conflict. The other problematic river was Kushiara which was used to demarcate parts of the border between East Bengal and Assam. The Bagge Commission published its report on 26th January, 1950. The full text of the report is available online. See http://untreaty.un.org/cod/riaa/cases/vol_XXI/1-51.pdf , last accessed on 21/07/2011 2 Chars are islands within rivers, formed generally near its delta. It is formed by the deposit of alluvial soil brought by the river. They are often temporary land formations. The river often washes one away, while building another. 3 Short Note on the Char Affairs, op.cit


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drastically affected their livelihood, they had their own tactics of negotiating with the states. They had their national loyalties fixed and often participated in the process of border-making by taking part in these clashes, playing active roles in displacing the minorities from the locality and acting as local informants to the border forces and state administration. Obviously, when a disputed area slipped off from the control of one side to the other, the power equations altered in the ground level as well. Take the case of Haripada Saha for instance. He was a resident of a disputed char village Narayanpur. India claimed Narayanpur to be within Suti police station of Murshidabad. Pakistan too claimed it. Haripada Saha was caught between these claims and counter claims. He wanted his village to be a part of India and helped the Indian Border Forces in all their activities in this village. But Pakistan managed to establish a foothold in this village by May, 1948. 4 A survey team of the Pakistan Government visited the char on August 2 of that year and stayed there for three days surveying ‘the whole of Narayanpur village and also the field adjacent to Narayanpur village.’ 5 The survey party was assisted by eight constables of the Pakistan Police Force and about 10 armed members of the Pakistan Border Forces. They enquired from Haripada Saha, who on an earlier occasion had openly helped the Indian Border forces, to which dominion Narayanpur fell. Being loyal to India he replied ‘that to the best of his knowledge he is a resident of the Indian Dominion and that the village fell under

4 Short Note on the char.., op.cit 5 File no 1238-47 ( Murshidabad) , Copy of D.I.O’s report dated 15.7.48

West Bengal.’6 Loyalty to one dominion was seen as equivalent to disloyalty to the other. Since, at that moment Narayanpur was under Pakistan, Saha was severely punished. He was sent to jail and the charge against him was that of passing information from Pakistan to West Bengal. Some other Hindus and a few Muslims, who had on earlier occasions helped Indian Border Forces, were also detained. But the Muslims were released as, following the logic of partition, their religious identity established their loyalties to Pakistan. It will be, however, wrong to assume the Bengal Borderland as a zone of continuous conflict and tension. In their everyday practices, the border did not always matter to the borderlanders. Crossing the border was necessary for them to go to their fields, markets, schools and offices and therefore was a regular affair. It was not going from one country to another but merely a journey from one village to another. Despite the states’ anxieties, the Indo- East Pakistan border, for most of its part, was very porous in nature, especially in the less controversial areas. Obviously, with the introduction of passport and visa system (1952), both the states tried to map the border crossings – but the people continued to have their “illegal” or “extra-legal” ways of crossing the borders everyday. Kaustubh Sengupta Space, Boundary, Law The English East India Company in Calcutta in the Eighteenth Century

6 ibid


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In this essay, I want to look at the way the space of Calcutta was delimited by certain legal conceptions from the middle of the eighteenth century. On one hand, the intention is to spatialize law and see how the contour of the urban was made distinct from the rest of the province; and on the other, it is to interrogate the way new subjects were produced in accordance to their places of residence. There were intense debates among the members of the Council of the English East India Company in Bengal regarding the nature of the settlement of the Company in Bengal, especially Calcutta. While some thought that they had the right to try anyone who had committed a crime in Calcutta, irrespective of the place of residence, others argued that the legal reach of the Company was restricted by the space of the city and its residents. Members were also not unanimous regarding the nature of the settlement—whether Calcutta was a ‘civil’ or ‘military’ settlement. These debates point to the ways the Company officials tried to negotiate with the space of the city and define it in legal terms, but often the boundaries were fuzzy and the conceptions of the ways of carrying out judgements differed among the members. The English East India Company tried to introduce a penal system according to English laws from the late seventeenth century. However, they could not modify or do away with the pre-existing civil and criminal codes based on the shastras and shariat. They established a Mayor Court in Calcutta in 1727, but it could only try European offenders, while the zamindar held the right to judge ‘natives’. However, after 1757, the English sought to introduce a uniform system. But the ‘natives’ found it confusing and tried to resist the move.

We find that in 1766, ninety five ‘principal of the Native inhabitants’ putting in a petition to the President of the Company, John Spencer, arguing for the remittance of capital punishment for Radhacharan Mitra, who was accused of forgery. They mentioned that,They [the inhabitants] find themselves subject to the pains and penalties of law to which they are utter strangers and are liable through ignorance unwittingly to incur them. As they are in no ways instructed in these laws, they cannot tell when they transgress them, many things being it seems capital by the English laws, which are only fineable by the laws of your petitioners’ forefathers to which they have hitherto been bred, lived and been governed, and that (till very lately) even under the English Flag.…7. The British Bench of Justices in their quarterly sessions proclaimed that English Laws were to be extended to the natives as well. As is evident from the petition above, the indigenous community resented the move. When their petition was placed before Mr. Verelst (the next President), he denied the right of the Bench of Justices, and mentioned that this was ‘An act unjustifiable in itself and in its natural consequences cruel and oppressive.’8 Within a few years, however, this ambivalence was almost erased as the English became more assured of their authority and tried to portray the Mughal rule as oppressive from which the English order had emancipated the inhabitants of the province. They now constantly evoked the idea that Calcutta was an English town which is different from older urban centres, which had its own governance and law. 7James Long (ed), Selections from the records of the Government of Bengal, (old edition), pp.430-432 8 Ibid, editor’s note, p. 430


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Elijah Impey’s speech during the trial of Nandakumar (who was judged guilty and hanged publicly which raised lot of hue and cry from the native elites in Calcutta) curiously draws a distinct congruency between the territory of the city and the ultimate authority of the English over it: “that it is not the case of a native inhabitant of the provinces at large, tried by an unknown new English law, imposed on foreign nations and provinces, but the case of a person tried by the ancient municipal laws of Calcutta, an English town, with which law he was well acquainted, and of which town he was a settled inhabitant…”9 The thrust of the argument was that the town of Calcutta was under English jurisdiction and its inhabitants enjoyed the benefits of that; so he would be judged according to the English law, and not by the judicial system prevalent in other part of the province. With the establishment of the Supreme Court in Calcutta in 1774, a new set of problem arose with regard to the jurisdiction of the court. Discussing some of the early cases of the Court, the paper will try to illustrate the intimate relationship between law and space, and how that defined the boundaries and the residents of the city.

9 ‘The Speech of Sir Elijah Impey’, cited in Niranjan Dhar, The Administrative System of the East India Company in Bengal 1774-1786, vol. II, Judicial, (Calcutta, 1966)

Dilpreet Bhullar Remapping the Promised Lands: The Study of Margaret Bourke-White’s Photographic Essay The Great Migration: Five Million Indians Flee for Their Lives The talk about borders in the Indian Subcontinent remains incomplete without the discussion on the history of Partition. The largest migration in the modern history, Partition witnessed the displacement of approximately 12 million people and rape of 70,000 women with unprecedented scale of communal violence and struggle in the sweltering summers of 1947. The division of British India into the two independent national states: India and Pakistan necessitate the need to acknowledge the scars of Partition instead of celebrations of Independence. Partition Studies, since its inception, is caught between the domain of high politics and private memoirs. To understand the historical movement of 1947 Partition, the educational institutes, academia and literary scholarship, with given subaltern proclivities, lay emphasize on the literary genres and cinematic representations. Somewhere in the process, the visual


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documentation of 1947 Partition, except counted numbers of re-readings, remains negated of the critical eye. In order to open the discipline of documentary photography to Partition Studies, the idea to study Margaret Bourke-White’s Photographic Essay The Great Migration: Five Million Indians Flee for Their Lives is conceived. Working on the idea that the “text” is an open space, the visuals narrate the lived experience of struggle and violence only to critique the dominant trajectory of political discourse constructed on the pre-conceived notions of nationalism. The semiotic understanding of visual representations locates the decentered subject to raises our attention to the politics of periphery and centre and works to counter the political assertion and its claim to legitimate truth. To trace the journey of Margaret Bourke-White’s (1904-1971) visual documentation, The Photographic Essay The Great Migration: Five Million Indians Flee for Their Lives published by Life magazine, of Partition of Subcontinent into India and Pakistan in 1947 is to bring ourselves a step closer to the narratives which complete the modern Indian history. Standing at the cusp of colonialism and modernism, the newly independent state of India is thrown to the challenges of Partition. The political function to monitor the appropriate reality has worked to intersperse the historiography of Partition with the idea to present a homogenized national culture. Moving away from the easy teleology of past, present and future, the conditional state of the licensed truth necessitate a process to investigate the paradoxes of individual freedom vs. state control. To its contrary, the visual narratives embedded within the human sufferings confront the science of politics

to rupture its edifice of democracy and justice. Straddling between visual beautification and uneasy truth, the discipline of documentary photography is recognition of official patronage’s hubris. The nationalist forces investigate the borders, conflicts, violence, migration and displacement under the assumptions of statehood and sovereignty. Similarly, the high politics institutionalize the ‘state’, ‘power’ and ‘security’ within the framework to reads the single concern at the macro-level conflict. The subaltern view counters these assumptions to open the space for the workings of meso-level and micro level. The question of history and memory are no longer bound to the temporal fixities but its set of plurality leads to the workings of subaltern proclivities. The rejection of coherent narratives highlights the gaps and denials of the dominant history. The paper works to showcase how the reticence and reluctance on the part of high politics works to the formation of exclusionary practices and oppression. While standing in antithesis to the linear high politics of Partition, the weaver’s diary (Pandey, 1991) -private memories, personal anecdotes, broken narratives- silhouettes the Partition literary writings. Partition Studies fissured by the two pronged arguments: ‘high politics’ and ‘voices from below’ offer us a room delineated with liberty to make a choice and question the dominant trajectory of political discourse. With my present paper, I have chosen to lay emphasis on the ‘history from below’, thereby making an attempt to enact the peripheral phenomena to decentralize the grand narratives. The collection of Bourke-White photographs from Life magazine works as a powerful


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trope to add complexity to the issues of political moral sovereignty. My paper does not attempt to trace the dynamics of the political negotiation which fabricates the accurate history; however it provides an alternative view to the progenitor of meaning. Session 2: Territories, identities and mobilizations

S. Ponnarasu Territorial boundaries of caste: an ethnohistorical perspective on Kongu nadu Kongu Nadu is one of the seven eco-cultural zones of Tamilnadu, the others include Chera, Chola, Pandiya, Thondai, Nanjil, and Chetti nadu (Singh, 1997). Though reference to these divisions is extensively used in the tamil literature, their every day usage especially in the present is limited. This lack of popularity

may be attributed to the fact that these divisions have under gone various changes over time with different central powers (from chera, chola and pandya to colonial and post-colonial eras) who ruled this land. The State and the Central governments of India have contributed significantly in changing the administrative divisions and boundaries of these historic regions. As a result administrative boundaries today include both merging of places from two different eco-cultural regions and splitting places that historically was identified within a single eco-cultural region. Here the case of Kongu Nadu is unique in comparison to the others in the way its territorial identification is kept alive through different forms of social constructions. This paper will discuss three examples, which demonstrate this phenomenon. The first is the case of the 359 (Singh, 1997: vol XL, pg xliii – xlvi) castes recognized by the government of Tamil Nadu, where “few communities derive their identity from territories they lived in and retain the territorial identity as prefixes, such Kongu vellala gounder, sozhiya vellalar, Nanchilnattu vellala, Thondai mandala mudali, pandya vellala, Nattukottai chettiar”. Though there are multiple castes, in each of this eco-cultural regions only a few prefix their names with the territorial name. The paper will explore if this is a strategy for claiming indigeneity by proving authenticity through territorial identification. Second is the case of Kongu Nadu Munnrera Kazhakam, a political party, which was started in 2009 originally named as kongu vellalar munnerra peravai. This name change is significant as it shows a priority shift from caste identification to


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territorial identification, an important inclusive strategy for political mobilization. Third is the case of palyakkarars and pattakkarars the traditional chieftains of Kongu nadu. The paper looks at how these traditional positions of power have been structured accordance to the boundaries of these eco-cultural regions. For instance, Colan Purva Pattaiyam, 17th century copper plate record shows 24 pattakararrs designated to 24 sub-nadus of this eco cultural region. Why are they using this regional division, for what purpose? What are the factors involved in recognizing this ancient land division? Who are the actors involved in this movement? Are all the communities who are living in this region claiming this ancient territorial identity or only a particular community? If so, who still reckons the ancient land division? What makes only certain communities to use this territorial identity? Is identifying with territory linked with dominance over the land? Exploring possible answers to these questions forms the discussion of this paper. All these questions will bring new dimension to our understanding of this ancient land division of Kongu Nadu and its transformation in present day context, tracing aspects of continuity and change and the possible reasons for it.

Tara Saharan

The border between informal-formal residents and the resistance against the shift from one to another with a case study of low income informal settlement – VP Singh Camp in Delhi India. Delhi has witnessed several evictions, demolitions and displacement of informal settlement under the guise of progress and growth. Social movements are commonly considered a key tool to counter such development; however, collective action and mobilization of large groups often face various obstacles in such heterogeneous environments. Communities rarely act as coherent social group with unified interest. Cities in the global South have several islands of formality and informality. Although interdependent and interlinked, these spaces are in collision from the governance point of view. The paper focusses on low income neighborhood, demarcated as informal from the service delivery perspective of the state. In the name of formalization and moving the settlement across the border of informality, the state often resort to eviction as a strategy. Mobilization as a counter action is not always successful. The aim of the paper is to illustrate the dynamics of collective action in an informal settlement based on a low-income informal settlement located in the southern periphery of Delhi. The main goal is to understand the underlying factors, why residents of the case study mobilized in one situation and not in others. In the case study, the informal settlement VP Singh Camp, qualitative interviews were


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conducted to get a better understanding of the critical issues of the settlement and the relevant actors who play important roles in the process of mobilization against the eviction drives in the past and lack of services at present. The paper will discuss the border between formal and informal in the cities of global south, with due focus to income category and the discourse on use of informality by the affluent class and policy for changing the low income informal settlement into formal housing by the state. First, the paper will elaborate on the theoretical framework related to informality and social movements. Then, it will revisit the history of the settlement to draw insights to the events that led to mobilization against the eviction in the past and explore the reasons behind the present lack of social movements in the settlement, both based on the data collected in 2009 and 2011. Finally the paper will present the factors that have marked the trajectory of collective action in the VP Singh Camp. The study borrows the concept of poverty dynamics and argue against research done at one point in time and propagate the “dynamic” approach where attempts are made to understand movement out of poverty through life histories, focus group sessions and detailed interviews of people. Applying the same rationale here, this paper aims to look at the social mobilization not from a static angle but through three different periods of the informal settlement where due to the circumstances the residents were presented with an opportunity to mobilize and act collectively. The paper looks into the theory of urban social movements by utilizing the trajectories of collective action of the case study. Although politics is a

central issue to the various periods of mobilization or lack of it, the research illustrates that the solidarity, threat – holistic or partial, politics – at local and national levels, knowledge as power are factors that influence the tipping point for mobilization. Session 3: Administrative and economic boundaries: the new borders in discussion

Lorraine Hohler La création du Telangana : analyse multiscalaire des enjeux d'une modification du maillage administratif de l'Union indienne. La gestion du maillage administratif, comme un outil de contrôle et d'intégration territorial, est un processus évolutif et perfectible appelant à des modifications et des ajustements nécessaires et constants. Les subdivisions territoriales ne sont pas des entités figées et


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leurs transformations sous-tendent des enjeux d'ordre politique et économique mais aussi sociaux et identitaires. Au sein de l'Union Indienne, les frontières internes marquent la reconnaissance par le gouvernement central du fait ethnique et linguistique et traduisent sa gestion de la diversité culturelle de la population. Or plus de cinquante ans après l'indépendance de l'Inde la création de nouveaux Etats reste encore largement débattue. Alors que de nombreuses régions revendiquent de nouvelles fragmentations territoriales sur des bases identitaires, beaucoup d'experts considérent que le maillage administratif indien n'est plus adapté au nouveau contexte économique mondial. Le cas du mouvement pour la création du Telangana est à ce titre exemplaire par son ancienneté, par le soutien populaire qu'il entraîne et par son organisation politique solidemment structurée et intégrée dans des réseaux nationaux et transnationaux. Au delà du débat sur la légitimité des revendications de ses habitants, cette présentation cherchera à analyser les limites du maillage administratif indien et de son fondement linguistique ainsi que les enjeux et les impacts possibles d'une nouvelle modification territoriale dans une perspective multiscalaire et dans le contexte politique contemporain. Au niveau national, la naissance d'un nouveau partenaire institutionnel vis à vis de New Delhi ne peut que renforcer le processus de morcellement politique à l'oeuvre depuis l'émergence des partis régionaux ainsi que favoriser le morcellement territorial avec la résurgence de nouvelles demandes d'Etats. Par ailleurs en vue des prochaines élections nationales de 2014 les réservoirs de votes que représentent le Telangana et l'Andhra

Pradesh sont devenus des enjeux de première importance pour les partis nationaux qui doivent recomposer leurs alliances électorales et leurs stratégies politiques. Au niveau régional la naissance du Telangana pose la question des futures relations que l'Etat entretiendra avec ses voisins en prennant en compte des problématiques fondamentales comme la gestion des resources en eau ou l'accès à la métropole d'Hyderabad. La création d'une nouvelle frontière implique également de prendre en considération l'avis des populations tribales d'Andhra Pradesh vivant dans les zones frontalières et qui seront une nouvelle fois divisées. La naissance récente d'un mouvement politique militant pour la création d'un Etat tribal regroupant tous les tribaux d'Andhra Pradesh illustre bien ce questionnement. Enfin au sein même du Telangana, la création d'un nouvel Etat peut être utilisée comme un puissant levier pour redéfinir les relations de pouvoirs ou au contraire renforcer les processus de dominations socio-politiques déjà en place. Une analyse des identités et des discours politiques à l'oeuvre ainsi que des stratégies de mobilisations des différents acteurs (en termes de caste, de classe ou de religion) est ici nécessaire. En d'autres termes un futur Etat du Telangana peut-il être social ou uniquement géographique ?


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Claudia Roselli Transition trough flexibility, adaptability, mixité. Shaping a new capital city in Chattisghar. The new city of Naya Raipur is in a process of building up: a new administrative capital in the state of Chattisghar. The issues of territorial delimitations, social constructions and a search for a new identity are strictly interconnected with its present. I participated to a workshop to establish the identity of Naya Raipur, the idea is avoid the danger of transforming it in another souless city, so it is important defined it, partly by its functions in relation to the other cities of the region Raipur and Durg Bilhai and then looking at the interactions between the city and its interior sector scales, working across geographical and cultural thematic at the macro and at the micro level. It will also be defined by the way it allows traditional Indian ways of dwelling to exist within the new city. In this respect there should be both a separation and a link between Raipur and Naya Raipur, such that there is a filter between the two cities. The

contribution will described also this particular issue. So this territory gives the chance to explore the notion of transition and its importance in terms of the relationship between the existent landscape and the new city and of the overlapping between the global and the local and between the modern and the traditional, trying to achieve flexibility, adaptability and mixité, looking at a more vast inclusion. This should allow the traditional Indian ways of life to continue. The challenge is investigating how the new fluxes connected with the Indian administrative capital will not destroy the rural lifestyle, typical of the Indian origins, that are still present in the village localized inside the boundaries of Naya Raipur. The development should also occur in a way that is sustainable, recognizing the ecosystems within the city and developing in a way that protects and enhances these systems. The proposal is that this will take place in several ways including imagining how to develop the rural and urban future connections, supporting continual interactions between the formal and the informal that is till today present in terms of the interactions of humans, transport, building and economy. This search for the unique future identity of Naya Raipur can be achieved through deepening the notion of permeability via the interpretation of the space within the new city and particularly having more flexibility in the existing Master Plan, focusing on the voids, the in between spaces and the thresholds.


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Salima Nekrouf Le port de Calcutta comme espace frontalier: les enjeux multiscalaires de la gouvernance portuaire.

Un port, en tant qu’interface entre le transport terrestre et le transport maritime, où transitent des marchandises et des hommes, est un maillon essentiel dans la chaîne des transports. Situé sur une côte ou au bord d’un fleuve, le port fonctionne ainsi comme un espace frontalier, offrant une ouverture vers l’extérieur qui est aussi une porte d’entrée de la mondialisation. Sur un littoral long d’environ 7 500 km, l’Inde compte 13 ports sous l’autorité du gouvernement fédéral (Major Ports), et environ 176 ports (Minor Ports) qui dépendent des États. Les territoires portuaires revêtent un caractère géostratégique, en constituant un espace de rencontres dans lequel les institutions et les entreprises entrent en contact avec des acteurs et de grands opérateurs internationaux. Les ports peuvent donc être appréhendés en tant qu’espaces frontaliers où sont négociés les intérêts des acteurs locaux, nationaux et internationaux. La gouvernance de ces territoires portuaires en Inde a subi d’importantes mutations, depuis l’ouverture à l’économie libérale des années 1990. La gestion des ports est passée d’une administration entièrement publique à une gouvernance multiscalaire où sont impliqués de multiples acteurs privés et publics. Les Major Ports, historiquement sous le contrôle direct du gouvernement central, voient l’arrivée croissante, néanmoins modérée, d’une participation des capitaux privés. Les Minor Ports, quant à eux

soumis à la législation des différents États maritimes auxquels ils appartiennent, assistent à ce même processus de privatisation qui s’opère avec plus d’intensité. Aujourd’hui, le paysage portuaire indien est caractérisé par une certaine hétérogénéité. Chaque territoire portuaire constitue un lieu de négociation spécifique entre les acteurs dont les intérêts diffèrent en fonction des échelles où ils agissent, du local à l’international. Le port de Calcutta illustre de façon pertinente ces mutations en cours dans le secteur portuaire indien. La fonction initiale de ce port fluvial, édifié au XVIIe siècle par les Anglais, était le négoce avec pour objectif de servir les intérêts économiques et commerciaux de la couronne britannique. De ce fait, il constituait déjà un espace d’échanges et d’ouverture avec l’extérieur. Avec la construction en 1978, d’un second port à Haldia, à une centaine de kilomètres au sud de la ville, le port de Calcutta devient aussi un port maritime. Afin de stimuler son trafic, l’espace frontalier est alors dédoublé, ce qui complexifie la gouvernance de ce port. Malgré l’ouverture économique et l’arrivée de capitaux privés locaux et internationaux, son trafic total est en diminution. Certains investisseurs ont commencé à déserter le port et le territoire portuaire peine à sortir de son enclavement. Pour pallier ces problèmes, un nouveau projet d’agrandissement du port est en cours avec l’édification d’une troisième entité portuaire, qui devrait être construite sur l’île de Sagar, à environ 150 km au sud de Calcutta, en pleine mer où le tirant d’eau est plus important. Ce projet, actuellement remis en question, aurait le


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potentiel de raccorder la mégapole de Calcutta aux réseaux d’échange global. Session 4: Accross the borders: mobilities and migrations in the global south

Chandni Basu Theirs or ours! Justice of borders: The case of children from Bangladesh in the observation homes of West Bengal, India. Childhood is idealised as the epitome of innocence. Criminality and childhood therefore appear as oxymoron! Children who cross the boundary and perform unchildlike activities are henceforth worth being apprehended and reprimanded. In this, children themselves are held responsible for disturbing identity markers which define their social position. They become abusers of childhood as they threaten to blurr the boundary between childhood and adulthood. The crossing of

borders by children from Bangladesh into India turns symbolic as it connotes multiple meanings. They constitute the largest number of apprehended children to be found in any observation home at a given time all across West Bengal. They are criminalised under Section 14 of the Foreigner’s Act, 1946, on charges of illegal entry as foreigners without valid documents. Being identified as illegal foreign visitors they are taken as juvenile-in-conflict with law and put under observation. The illegality of their presence however remains a contentious issue leading to a lack of consensus and confusion about their ambiguous legal status within the Juvenile Justice System as juvenile-in-conflict with law or children-in-need of care and protection! State takes the role of parens patriae with regards to children. The agenda of child protection and development fixes this idea. These inform the discursive practice of a normative childhood by various institutions and systems. With reference to the children from Bangladesh in India, the problematic is enhanced as national identity adds to the already existent complexity of deviance in childhood. Theirs or ours? is the big question to be addressed. They posit a threat to the integrity of the state and are worth being confined. Citizenship emerges as an important point of contestation, bringing along with it binary constructions of internal/external-insider/outsider. Modern nation state is based on the principle on democracy and the liberal ideas of justice; determined through jurisdiction of law. Sovereignity and jurisdiction emerge as important points of contention here. What should therefore be the status of those who are external to this jurisdiction, yet


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encounter an interaction with it? The role of the state comes forth as determining. The limited scope of liberal ideals of freedom, equality and rights come under introspection. In the context of the children from Bangladesh, justice emerges as the most dichotomous element. The discussion about borders is however not an argument about the legitimacy or redundancy of borders. It brings up issues of agency and resistance and the negotiations with social structures. The significance of international norms and the perception of juvenile justice prove to be momentous here! This paper presents a critical understanding of the presence of children from Bangladesh within the purview of the Juvenile Justice mechanism in India. It raises question about the role of the state towards children and its child protection agenda. Justice and rights come across as problematic terms whose complexities are overarching. The negotiations of the state and its engagement with the notion of childhood are complimented by the existence of international norms and standards. It adds an extra dimension towards the imagination of a global childhood in a fast shrinking world. Delphine Thivet Resisting globalization, building solidarity across national borders: a case study of the Karnataka Rajya Ryota Sangha (KRRS- Karnataka State Farmers Association)

The liberalization of agricultural economic sector – under the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) signed in 1994 and other regional free trade agreements – has

led in particular in the “Global South” to a shift from agricultural production for domestic consumption to production for international external markets, throwing a country like India in an unprecedented and severe agrarian distress. Among the numerous signs of the latter the most dramatic one is the “epidemic of farmers’ suicides” across the country10. Based on a strategy of export-led growth, the opening up of Indian agriculture to the world market led to the displacement of local food staples by the production of export crops production in the name of the Ricardian theory of comparative advantages. The removal of trade barriers and quantitative restrictions to imports moreover placed millions of foodgrain producers under the threat of increased competition from foreign countries which most often heavily subsidize their own farm produces and thereby enabling the export of vast quantities of low-priced grain (Patnaik 2003). Consequently, many developing countries which used to be self-sufficient in basic food commodities are nowadays witnessing a new food dependency on the world economy, exposing small-scale farmers to the adverse fluctuations and volatility of international prices (Wise 2009). Paradoxically, it is to contest the reduction of trade barriers that farmers began to organize themselves across national borders in the mid-1990s. The Karnataka Rajya Ryota Sangha in particular is the

10 According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) of the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs, 150,000 farmers have committed suicide between 1997 and 2005. However, sources often contradict one another since data are not always consistent. Consequently, a widely held view assumes that the real number of Indian farmers’ suicides is certainly larger and thus grossly underestimated in official surveys.


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first peasant organization in India which opposed strongly the entry of multinational corporations into Indian agriculture but also the patenting of seeds. Revisiting the context of economic liberalization policies of the 1990s in India and the impacts of Indian agriculture’s integration into the global market, this case study precisely outlines the key role farmers from Karnataka played in building new modes of peasant resistance at the transnational level. It describes how the Rajya Ryota Sangha took part to the emergence of the international peasant movement La Vía Campesina11 and to the definition – through the concept of “food sovereignty” – of an alternative frame for food production and distribution enabling communities and people to determine at the local/national level their own food systems. First, the paper analyses the process which led the Rajya Ryota Sangha to become part of the antiglobalization movement and to engage the constitution, materially and discursively, of a new scale of collective action for Indian farmers. It examines in particular the various alliances Karnataka farmers leaders established at the national and international level (People Global

11 This transnational social movement was born in May 1993 in Mons (Belgium) to oppose the negative social impacts of neoliberal economic globalization of agriculture. Since then, it kept growing, attracting more and more organizations from all over the world. Organized into nine regional secretariats, a rotating International Operative Secretariat, an International Coordination Committee (ICC), and various commissions or working committees, La Vía Campesina has a rather heterogeneous membership, now comprising 150 rural organizations made up of peasants, small and medium-holder farmers, organic farmers, rural women, rural workers, indigenous and landless from the Americas, Asia, Europe and Africa, and representing about 200 millions members from seventy countries.

Action and the Zapatista movement). Secondly, it explores the range of actions the KRRS has been involved in (“Beeja sathyagraha”, campaign “Quit India Monsanto”, “Operation Cremate Monsanto”, one-month tour of Europe as part of the Intercontinental Caravan, etc.). Finally, the paper addresses the difficulties, contradictions and dilemmas encountered by the farmer union in constructing effective solidarity across and above borders. The ethnographic fieldwork that informs this paper was carried out between 2009 and 2012 as a part of a PhD project on the transnationalization of solidarities and farmers' movements. It consists of semi-structured interviews conducted with international delegates of La Vía Campesina, national farmer and landless leaders and local activists of organizations taking part in La Vía Campesina, more particularly in France, Brazil and India. It includes also participant observation of rallies and public meetings at the national and international levels and extensive archival research on the socio-genesis of La Vía Campesina since the early 1990s.


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Floriane Zaslavsky Internet et (dé)construction des frontières sociales: le cas des sites Web matrimoniaux et leur impact sur le mariage traditionnel indien Depuis la fin des années 90, Internet est devenu un marronnier de la sociologie contemporaine, devenant entre autre la source de nouvelles branches et théories de l’analyse des réseaux sociaux. Ainsi, nombreux sont les travaux concernant l’impact d’internet et des nouveaux réseaux qui s’y sont développés. Comme chaque innovation technique d’importance, le world wide web, ère contemporaine d’internet, s’est développé accompagné de débats théoriques à couteau tiré entre excès de crainte et d’optimisme. Qu’il s’agisse de textes qui traitent de l’anéantissement apocalyptique de la vie privée ou au contraire d’enthousiasmantes perspectives d’émancipation de soi, tous soulignent l’existence d’une transformation des vecteurs de sociabilité des internautes. Parmi cette littérature touffue néanmoins, il n’y a que peu de textes qui s’attachent à décrypter l’influence sociale d’internet sur les sociétés non-occidentales, alors même

que 85% de la génération des moins de 30 ans – celle des digital natives, qui a atteint les 1,2 milliard de représentants en 2010, se situe dans le monde émergent. Les systèmes d’institutions, de hiérarchies et de représentations sociales diffèrent largement d’une société à l’autre, et avec eux les effets des nouvelles formes de sociabilité et de définition de soi induites par le média web. La société indienne est marquée par une hiérarchie sociale fixe et relativement hermétique qui se développe à plusieurs niveaux. Aux différences communautaires d’ordres religieux se superposent la stratification en castes, puis une hiérarchie nucléaire et familiale autour de l’ancienneté et du genre des individus. Le mariage est une étape cruciale dans la vie d’un homme ou d’une femme et revient souvent à une décision impulsée par et prise avec l’accord du reste de la famille, et en premier lieu des parents qui occupent une place de premier rang dans le choix du futur partenaire de leur progéniture. Les mariages traditionnels, dits arrangés, représentent la grande majorité des mariages en Inde (80% environ), et mobilisent des acteurs récurrents du dialogue interfamilial : parents, partenaires potentiels, et entremetteurs professionnels. Il s’agit par conséquent d’une cible de choix pour les sites matrimoniaux dont l’audience connait une croissance exponentielle en Inde depuis le début des années12 2000 : on y relevait par exemple en 2006 7,5 millions d’utilisateurs de ces services contre 4 millions seulement en

12 Seth, N., Patnayakumi, R. (2009). Online matrimonial sites and the transformation of arranged marriage in India, IGI Global, Social Networking Communities and e-dating services : concepts and implications, pp. 329-352.


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200413. Les premières études menées sur ce sujet, principalement auprès des classes moyennes supérieures et urbaines, aboutissent à la formulation d’hypothèses quant à l’impact de l’utilisation de ces sites sur le mariage traditionnel : désintermédiation familiale, convergence culturelle avec les normes occidentales, flux d’informations continus, plus grande acceptation du désengagement, flirt en ligne, stigma sociaux moins importants qu’auparavant14. En termes de frontières, la diffusion d’Internet a différents niveaux d’implications sociales lorsqu’on s’attaque à la recherche du conjoint idéal. Pour commencer, les sites de rencontre permettent de gommer les frontières territoriales entre familles et ne circonscrivent plus les recherches matrimoniales à l’échelle locale ou régionale. De plus Internet, en accélérant les flux d’informations et leur accessibilité, ouvre potentiellement de nouveaux champs du possible sur le marché du mariage. Parallèlement à cet effacement progressif, de nouvelles frontières peuvent se former via la recréation en ligne d’une identité et d’une nouvelle sphère privée par les individus futurs mariés, de laquelle ils peuvent exclure plus simplement qu’auparavant leur famille ou les entremetteurs extérieurs. Cette intervention lors de l’atelier 2013 de l’AJEI permettrait dans un premier temps de développer ces hypothèses. Cela nous mènerait à mieux cerner quelles sont les possibles redéfinitions de la sphère privée, mais aussi des rapports avec les partenaires potentiels ou avec le milieu familial, qui

13 Lakshman, N. (2006). Here come the bride sites. Business Week, 42

sont en jeu dans le développement d’Internet au sein de la société indienne. Il s’agirait ensuite de questionner ces hypothèses à l’aune du terrain débuté à Bangalore et dans un village du Karnataka au cours des quatre semaines ayant précédé la conférence. Ces terrains devront être réalisés auprès de responsables de sites matrimoniaux, d’entremetteurs traditionnels, de familles à la recherche d’un conjoint (parents, et enfants) issus de différents milieux religieux, sociaux ou professionnels dans la ville de Bangalore, et dans un village avoisinant du Karnataka. S’ils n’auront pas été réalisés dans leur totalité au moment de ce séminaire, ils

Ateliers Méthodologiques Jeunes Chercheurs La dernière demi-journée des ateliers a été consacrée aux ateliers méthodologiques, destinés aux étudiants et jeunes chercheurs. Le Dr Lionel Baixas (post doctorant, CERI-Sciences po) a tout d’abord proposé une présentation sur le thème des frontières et des groupes ethniques lors d'une sesssion plénière en anglais. Dr. Baixas a présenté aux étudiants les grandes théories classiques autour de ce thème, en insistant sur le constructivisme et le primordialisme (une identité ethnique unique). Quatre dimensions de l'ethnicité ont été ensuite analysées: celle de la fermeture sociale ("social closure"), de la science politique, de la différenciation culturelle, et de la stabilité. Les étudiants ont pu prendre connaissance des grands auteurs (par exemple Barth, Wimmer et Chandra), et des questions méthodologiques avec


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notamment une analyse de l'identité comme variable, et le choix des critères pour établir ces bases de données. Les participants sont ensuite divisés en groupes de réflexion pour approfondir les discussions sur les méthodes d’enquête, les blocages éventuels et les solutions envisageables. Afin de faciliter la prise de parole par les étudiants, notamment les masterants francophones, nous avons proposé la répartition en deux session de réflexion : une session en anglais et une session en français. La session en anglais a été dirigée par le Dr. Aurélie Varrel (chargée de recherche CNRS, CEIAS). A partir de sa propre expérience, le Dr. Varrel a lancé le débat sur le processus de construction d’un objet de recherche, qui est un processus personnel, guidé et contraint par une identité (qui suis-je ? Homme, femme, étranger, acteur indigène, extérieur ? Par conséquent, à quel terrain puis-je accéder ?) . Les discussions ont abouti aux « side topics » qui s’inscrivent en filigrane d’un travail de chercheur et qui sont souvent les objets véritables des travaux de recherche. La session en français, dirigée par les organisatrices, a pris comme point de départ les difficultés d’accès au terrain concédées par Salima Nekrouf (cf. présentation session 3). Les espaces frontaliers et les interfaces socio-économiques tels que les ports, sont des territoires particulièrement contrôlés et il est souvent difficile pour un chercheur d’y mener une observation in-situ. Cette difficulté est quotidienne pour une femme étrangère qui poursuit une enquête de terrain dans ce type d’espaces. La discussion s’est ensuite portée sur les clefs méthodologiques permettant d’accéder aux sources écrites (lettres d’introduction pour les archives de documents historiques, bibliothèques nationales, archives de journaux, etc) et

donc sur la nécessité d’être affilié à une institution de recherche ou d’enseignement en Inde, et d’obtenir un visa de recherche.

Dr Lionel Baixas

Dr Aurélie Varrel

CR Ateliers de l'AJEI 2013 Calcutta · majeur en Asie du sud, Calcutta fait figure d’interface...

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