This workshop brings together scholars and oral history activists from Pakistan, Nepal, India and the UK to debate the future of oral history in South Asia. We are broadly interested in four questions:
1) What can oral history contribute to historical research in South Asia and how does it fit in with documentary evidence?
2) Does the South Asian context require a particular oral history methodology, and if so, how can it be developed further and how can it be taught?
3) What are the political uses of oral history in the South Asian context? How do they contribute to community empowerment, to participation in – or challenge to – established nationalist paradigms?
4) How can oral history practice be effectively shared across South Asia and between the UK and South Asia? How can research material be made accessible and archived?
This workshop is part of a British Academy Mobility Grant linking Royal Holloway, University of London, and Government College University, Lahore. It is our long-term aim to institutionalize this collaboration and to widen it to include additional partners across the region.
For further information please contact
Dr. Markus Daechsel, Senior Lecturer in Muslim Societies
Royal Holloway, University of London,
markus.daechsel@rhul.ac.uk.