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Call for Papers - Special Issue Spring 2008: 'Outraged Communities': Investigating the Politicization of Emotions in South Asia

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The special issue's coordinators are: Amélie Blom (GRASP-Group for Research on the Anthropology, Sociology & Politics of Pakistan, Lahore) and Nicolas Jaoul (CEIAS-Centre for Studies on India and South Asia, Paris).

Propositions should state what empirical material will be used and the paper's contribution to the theoretical questions raised by the special issue. Deadline: Proposal (100 to 150 words) by February 29, 2008, articles by June 15, 2008. Final articles should be of 6000 to 8000 words. To submit an article, please contact: samajonline@gmail.com

Since the colonial period, mobilisations around religious symbols in South Asia have become part of a popular urban culture, somehow embedding the contestation of disenfranchisement into religious-based modes of popular assertion. By the end of the 19th century, mobilizations around religious symbols and events in the Indian subcontinent created new public arenas that became occasions for different communities to display their collective strength. While religious processions gave a ritualised turn to this type of mobilizations, collective protests could be triggered as well by the opposition met by the procession itself or by a perceived insult against the valued symbol. In all instances, they called for an uncompromising stand on the part of the community and, at time, led to communal violence. It has been noted that such popular arenas of public expression provided a unified expression of heterogeneous aspirations and motivations. While communal entrepreneurs used them to assert their organisation’s popularity, the disenfranchised and marginalized urban poor aimed to reclaim their share of the urban space, a physical statement that also encapsulated the contestation of their exclusion from the developing elite-based public sphere.

Interestingly, such expressions of communal fervour have not decreased after Independence. 'Outraged communities' have taken to the streets of South Asia's cities with a remarkable regularity, particularly since the 1980's. To cite a few examples, the Sikhs mobilized after the desecration of the Golden Temple (1984); Muslims protested S. Rushdie and T. Nasreen novels (1988-89 and 1994 respectively), textbooks' content (the 2000 sectarian riots in Pakistan's Northern Areas) or, more recently, the Danish caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad (2006); Hindu nationalists campaigned against Ayodhya's Babri Masjid that culminated in the destruction of the latter in December 1992 to supposedly ‘avenge’ the ‘desecration’ of Lord Rama’s ‘birth place’. Another occurrence of such events was the Maharashtra riots of November 2006, when the Dalits resorted to widespread violence over the desecration of an Ambedkar statue.

What do these examples reveal about the specificity of South Asia’s political culture of dissent, and more widely, about the contemporary politics of emotions? Mobilizations of ‘outraged communities’, infuriated by insults to their religious symbols, occur too often and cut across too many diverse, social groups, regions, nations as well as historical epochs, to remain treated as isolated case-studies. We believe that they constitute a specific pattern of public assertion and collective action that needs to be investigated thoroughly. Despite their diversity, these mobilizations share common characteristics. First, they are launched on the basis of an acute sense of being outraged, dishonoured, offended or insulted; second, the offence usually concerns a symbol, whose nature might vary greatly - a sacred book or place, a founding father's image or statue, a monument, a myth, a custom, a set of values, a language - but which, in all cases, works as a site for mutual social recognition and a defining element of the group's sense of honour; third, the collective protest results from a shared conviction that the outrage will only be washed away by a public display of the group's fervour towards the symbol, even to the extent of resorting to violence; and fourth, these protests often constitute highly theatrical statements of communal sensitivity that allow the group's bonds (and leadership) to be recalled, re-enacted and reshaped.

Understanding this phenomenon in its full complexity requires a focused interdisciplinary and comparative approach that combines empirical content with conceptual thinking. We therefore invite articles, focusing on single or comparative case studies, emanating from different disciplinary backgrounds and research-fields, related to the following countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri-Lanka. In addition, we also encourage a transnational perspective, which is essential to grasp how such mobilizations give birth to globalized interpretive communities. Here are some of the (by no means the only) questions that SAMAJ's special issue intends to address and discuss:

1) First we need to study the varying levels of organization of such movements and to question their construction as being the ‘spontaneous reaction’ of an emotional mob. It can therefore be useful to address issues such as: What is the triggering event? How is the ‘problem’ identified and the ‘solution’ framed? What role do ‘mobilization entrepreneurs’ play in translating individual/private feelings of outrage into a collective/public action? Which ‘repertoires of collective action’ are generally favoured (open letters, petitions, sit-ins, sequestrations of officials, street protests, burning of effigies, violent protests, etc.)? Why do some of these mobilizations degenerate into violence and even communal riots? How do the movement’s representatives negotiate with official authorities over issues on which no compromise is supposedly allowed? How do these protests end?

2) While looking at the varying modes of operation of these protests provides a comparative basis for our study, it does not account for the particular symbol's popular appeal. In this respect, we need to go beyond the utilitarian/instrumentalist reading of cultural mobilization in South Asia that overemphasizes how ‘mobilizing entrepreneurs’ manipulate symbols and emotions. Emotions do not simply accompany or colour  judgement and reasoned decisions, but are, actually, at the heart of the very process of shaping one's aspirations. Emotions define choice, and construct moral preferences. Moreover, protests around group symbols are not only side features but are also triggered by the consciously strategic effort by groups of people to fashion shared understandings of the world and of themselves that legitimate and motivate collective action. Focusing on people’s reaction to symbols is a delicate but important part of our study that requires an understanding of how political ideals are translated into moral commitments. More concretely, we need to look at the very process of judging and wording transgression. How does the language of passion operate, i.e. what are the emotional incentives to mobilize and how are emotions socially constructed during the protest? In addition, it is important to consider the pattern of claim-making: how is the offence articulated to seemingly unrelated issues? Against which 'Other' is the discontent voiced and how is otherness conceived?

3) Instead of the judgemental 'secular/communal' dichotomy commonly applied to South Asian politics, the topic requires fine conceptualisation that can match the unpredictability of the object. While they undeniably increase ethnic and religious polarisations, these high-pitched movements, relying on street politics rather than on electoral means, often lead to unprecedented levels of mass politicisation as well. The challenge is, therefore, to grasp simultaneously their role in re-enacting communal boundaries and in shaping new public arenas that have a potential for democratisation. In other words, it is worth asking if such sensitive and potentially violent popular arenas have been able to democratise South Asia’s politics by bringing in new actors. Do such mobilizations by emphasizing moral claims and challenging institutionalised norms of political participation, have a particular appeal on social categories that are usually excluded, or self excluded, from the public sphere, for example women, youngsters and illiterate people? Do the latter become politicized in the longer run? Are the organisers of these movements able, or willing, to engage themselves in more permanent leadership styles and institutionalised forms of politics?

10 4) There is, finally, a need to study the geography and temporality of such protests. First, what is the pattern of their spatial diffusion? Do ‘outraged communities’ emulate one another for instance? Second, how have they evolved historically and what does their historical resilience say about the modes of popular assertion in South Asian politics? In each period and context, do the theatrical assertions of ‘outraged communities’ encapsulate specific goals? For instance, while this type of protest emerged in the 1920’s, during the first phase of ‘massification’ of South Asian politics, they seem to be nowadays critically influenced by the very nature of media coverage. Could it be said that theatrical modes of public appearance anticipate the media's expectations of spectacular images for the sake of media exposure, reflecting a preoccupation shared by social movements worldwide? If this is the case, then perhaps these vocally ‘outraged communities’ can be understood as being both a product of South Asian trajectory and a reflection of globalized modes of protests.

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Référence électronique

« Call for Papers - Special Issue Spring 2008: 'Outraged Communities': Investigating the Politicization of Emotions in South Asia », South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal, Call for Papers, 2008, [En ligne], mis en ligne le 4 mai 2008. URL : http://samaj.revues.org/document217.html. Consulté le 13 mai 2008.