Ambivalence, Ambiguity and Alienation: Making Sense of 'Tension' in North India
How can we understand ‘tension’, the experience of rigidity that often underpins systemic structures of domination, epistemic violence as well as physical aggression in South Asia? Following Zygmunt Bauman, I want to suggest that ‘tension’ is the outcome of an overzealous pursuit of moral and categorical clarity which alienates us from the ambiguity of lived experience. At some point, alienation becomes so gross and the aspiration for clarity thus so untenable that it breaks down into ambivalence, and then violence. Deviating from Bauman and others, I however propose a heuristic vocabulary that distinguishes more clearly between ambivalence and ambiguity, building on ethnography of religion, gender and aggression in North India.
Date:
13 February 2018, 14:00 (Tuesday, 5th week, Hilary 2018)
Venue:
Ashmolean Museum, Beaumont Street OX1 2PH
Venue Details:
Headley Lecture Theatre
Speaker:
Raphael Susewind (King's College London)
Organising department:
St Antony's College
Organiser contact email address:
asian@sant.ox.ac.uk
Part of:
Modern South Asia Seminar
Booking required?:
Not required
Audience:
Public
Editor:
Maxime Dargaud-Fons
