CHOTRO THREE

Local Knowledge - Global Translations

The Imagination & the Images of Indigenous Communities in the Twenty-First Century
Bhasha Research and Publications Centre,
Vadodara, India
in association with
Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (ACLALS)
announces a conference to be held from 11 to 16 September 2010
at Delhi & Shimla

This conference, as the Bhili tribal term ‘chotro’ implies, aims to ‘bring toghether’ writers, artists and scholars from all over the world interested in languages, literatures, cultures, histories and movements of the indigenous peoples of the post-colonial world. Two Chotro Conferences were held in India in 2008 and 2009, respectively, and the conference being announced will be the third and the final conference in the series.
Chotro-Three will be held for the first two days, 11-12 September, at Delhi, which is the capital of India, and for the next two days, 13.14 at Shimla, which was the summer capital during the colonial era. A special Symposium on ‘The Indigenous and the Visual Culture’ will be held on the 16th September at Keylang, situated at an altitude of 12000 feet in the Himalayas. A number ofeminent Indian writers, artists and media persons will address the conference.
The Bhasha Research and Publication Centre has since its inception worked specifically with and on behalf of the Adivasi or tribal people of India, recognized in India as janajatis, whose cultural expression remains little known both in India and abroad. Bhasha has undertaken to document the linguistic, literary and artistic heritge of these communities. It has collaborated with national academies of art and literature and research institutes to encourage research in culture studies. It has pioneered the publication of literary and educational materials in tribal languages and has set up the Adivasi Academy at Tejgadh (Gujarat) as an institute of formal education for the promotion of tribal languages, literature, arts and culture. In recent years, Bhasha has initiated setting up of another institution for Himalayan Studies under the name ‘Himlok: Institute of Himalayan Studies’.
Together with its co-sponsors, Bhasha now seeks to initiate discussion of the experience of indigenous people on a global scale and in a comparative, cross-cultural perspective. The proposed conference will provide an opportunity for an international exchange of ideas between indigenous people and those interested in their cultural expression, for there are indeed close parallels between, for example, the Aborigines of Australia, the First Nations of Canada and the Adivasis of India. It is hoped that the conference will explore the existence and the future of the knowledge traditions of the indigenous communities in the rapidly changing context of economies and expressions. It is hoped that in drawing attention to the cultural traditions and the response of indigenous people to their marginalization the world over, the conference will at the same time provide new orientation and inspiration for post-colonial studies.
Contributions are sought on the following topics:
Oral traditions; Orature / indigenous world-views; knowledge systems/ storytelling; folk tales; poetry; drama and performance/ aesthetics / threatened languages / language death; language development / scripts/ subaltern history/ cultural and human rights/ publishing in aboriginal languages/ translation from aboriginal languages/ marginalization of aboriginal / tribal cultural expression/ imagery of the indigenous in theatre, cinema, media.
Bhasha would be happy to receive audio visual material, slides, photographs, calligraphy, handwritten and illustrated poetry, stories and samples of literature poetry, stories and samples of calligraphy by, for, and, on indigenous communities, in order to set up a display and an exhibition, as a backdrop to the proposed gathering, to enlarge its archive, and, to further fortify and spread awareness about the indigenous knowledge system and their modern transformations.
PRACTICAL ARRANGEMENTS
Registration: The registration form can be downloaded from
or and
should be returned as an attachment by email to
Ganesh Devy (Bhasha) at
Conference Fee:
There will be several categories of conference fee:
A) For the participants who wish to participate in the conference for the first two days in Delhi, that is the 11-12 September:
Overseas participants from Australia, Western Europe and North America –
GBP 80/ EUR100 / USD 120
Participants from African and Eastern European Countries –
USD 60
Participants from India
INR 2000
B) For the participants who wish to participate in the conference for the first four days in Delhi and Shimla, that is from the 11th to the 14th September
Overseas participants from Australia, Western Europe and North America –
GBP 130/ EUR160 / USD 200
Participants from African and Eastern European Countries –
USD 100
Participants from India
INR 3500
C) For the participants who wish to participate in the Conference as well as the Special Symposium, from the 11th to the 16th September.
Overseas participants from Australia, Western Europe and North America –
GBP 180/ EUR200 / USD 250
Participants from African and Eastern European Countries –
USD 120
Participants from India
INR 5000
Registration fee will be accepted not before1st April 2010, and not after30 June 2010
There will be no further charge for accommodation, meals and local transport nor the transport for Delhi-Shimla-Keylang and Keylang-Shimla-Delhi / or Delhi-Shimla and Shimla-Delhi, as the case may be.
The organizers will not be able to provide travel support to Indian participants for their travel between their home-town andDelhi. Similarly, no travel support will be available to any overseas participants for the international travel.
Abstracts:
Abstracts of presentations in approximately 200 words should be sent by email before the 31st November 2009 to Professor Geoffrey V. Davis, University of Aachen, Germany. Abstracts should not be sent directly to Bhasha Research Centre, India.
email Address:
Acceptance of contributions:
Notification of acceptance of papers will be sent to the participants by Prof. Geoffrey Davis by 31st January 2010.
A formal letter of acceptance of paper will be sent by Prof. G. N. Devy, Bhasha Research and Publication Centre, India, by 15th February 2010at the latest. A second letter confirming a scholar’s participation in the conference will be sent to the Indian Embassy/Consulate in the participant’s country on receiving the registration fee between April and June 2010.
Visa Requirements:
Foreign nationals requiring visas can download Indian visa forms from the website of the Indian embassy in their country of residence.
Publication:
One volume of the proceedings of the Chotro Conference- 2008 was published in January 2009 by Orient BlackSwan under the title Indigeneity: Culture andRepresentation, ed. G.N. Devy, Geoffrey V. Davis and K. K. Chakravarty. The second volume Ethnographies: Society and Interpretation will be published in early 2010 (Orient BlackSwan). The proceedings of the Chotro-2009 conference are getting ready for publication.
The organizers will be keen on having a selection of papers presented in Chotro-2010 published. The conference proceedings will be published jointly by Rodopi, AmsterdamNew York in their Cross/Cultures: Readings in the Post/Colonial Literatures in English series and by an Indian publisher.
Submission of finalized papers for publication:
Participants interested in having their papers considered for publication will be expected to submit the final text by 10th December 2010at the latest.
CHOTRO
Local Knowledge - Global Translations
The Imagination and Images of Indigenous Communities in the twenty-first Century
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Bhasha Research and Publications Centre,
Vadodara, India
in association with
the Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (ACLALS)
announces a conference to be held from 11 to 16 September 2010
at Delhi & Shimla
======
REGISTRATION FORM
Name:
Institutional Affiliation:
Institutional Contact details ( Fax/ E-mail/ Telephone/ Address) :
Dates on which You wish to Participate:
a)11-12 September
b)11-14 September
c)11-16 September
Country Category:
a)Australia, western Europe, America
b)Africa, Eastern Europe
c)India
Title of Presentation:
Synopsis in approximately 200 words:
Special Medical Needs ( particularly for high altitude travel) :
Date on which Registration Form is submitted:
Additional person(s) accompanying you:
NOTE: Registration form containing the synopsis of your presentation is to be submitted through e-mail to Prof. Geoffrey V Davis, Aachen, at