The Idea of Gujarat Workshop

Thursday 15th May (L67)

9.00-9.30 Introduction

Session I

9.30-10.00 Shreeyash Palshikar (Universities of Oxford and Edinburgh)
Overlapping imaginations: Maha Gujarat and Maharashtra in the battle for Bombay

10.00 -10.30 Harald Tambs-Lyche (Université de Picardie-Jules Verne, Amiens, and LISST-Centre d’Anthropologie, Toulouse)
Between the sand the sea: Reflections on the specificity of caste in Gujarat.

10.30-11.00 Discussion: David Hardiman (University of Warwick)

11.00 – 11.30 Tea/Coffee

Session II

11.30-12.00 John McLeod (University of Louisville)
Khari mata, stri ane rani: Introducing Queen Victoria to “the Gujarati population of India”

12.00-12.30 Amrita Shodhan (Independent Scholar)
Nats and jamats in Bombay Presidency in the early nineteenth century

12.30-1.00 Discussion: Samira Sheikh (The Institute of Ismali Studies)

1.00-2.00 Lunch

Session III

2.00-2.30 Hanna Kim (New York University)
Contemporary Gujarat from an ethnographic perspective:
Swaminarayan bhakti and some considerations for unpacking assumptions about religion and religious subjectivity

2.30-3.00 Samira Sheikh (The Institute of Ismaili Studies)
Mata, mandir and Muslims: Sacred space and its guardians in Gujarat

3.00-3.30 Discussion: Rachel Dwyer (SOAS)

3.30-4.00 Tea/Coffee

Session IV

4.00-4.30 Rita Kothari (Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad)
Moolk ain desh : Understanding spaces Sindhis of Gujarat inhabit

4.30-5.00 Eiluned Edwards (Victoria and Albert Museum and London College of Fashion)
The social fabric: Textiles, dress and identity in Kachchh

5.00-5.30 Discussion: Edward Simpson (SOAS)

Senior Common Room (SCR) Bar open

Dinner for speakers and discussants at Imli

Friday 16th May (Khalili Lecture Theatre)

Session V

9.30-10.00 Riho Isaka (University of Tokyo)
Defining Gujarat and the Gujaratis

10.00 -10.30 Edward Simpson (SOAS)
Geographies of the past: The ethnographic history of Bhuj

10.30-11.00 Discussion: John McLeod (University of Louisville)

11.00 – 11.30 Tea/Coffee

Session VI

11.30-12.00 Nikita Sud (QEH, University of Oxford)
Narrowing possibilities of stateness: The case of land in Gujarat

12.00-12.30 Howard Spodek (Temple University)
Equipping the laboratory for Hindutva: Religion and
politics in Ahmedabad, 1900-2008

12.30-1.00 Discussion: Mario Rutten (University of Amsterdam)

1.00 -2.00 Lunch

Session VII

2.00-3.30 Roundtable discussion and concluding address by Professor Jan Breman (University of Amsterdam)

Organiser: SOAS Centre of Migration & Diaspora Studies

Contact email: ak83@soas.ac.uk

Sponsor: The British Academy and SOAS