BUILDING
SOVEREIGNTY, PREVENTING HEGEMONY:
The
Challenges for Emerging Forces in the Globalised World
International and Multidisciplinary
Conference in the framework of a commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the
1955 Bandung Asian-African Conference
Yogyakarta-Bandung-Jakarta,
Indonesia
October
26-31, 2015
Terms of
Reference
In 1835, a British
colonial officer, Lord Macaulay, addressed the British Parliament as follows:
"I have traveled across the length and breadth of India and I have
not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in
this country, such high moral values, people of such calibre, that I do not
think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of
this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage, and, therefore, I
propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for
if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater
than their own, they will lose their self-esteem, their native self-culture and
they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation."
A little over a
century later on in 1974, Henry Kissinger, an American diplomat, speaking on
the subject of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, while addressing a group of
Washington D.C. businessmen, said the following:
"The Greek
people are anarchic and difficult to tame. For this reason we must strike deep
into their cultural roots: Perhaps then we can force them to conform. I mean,
of course, to strike at their language, their religion, their cultural and
historical reserves, so that we can neutralize their ability to develop, to
distinguish themselves, or to prevail; thereby removing them as an obstacle to
our strategically vital plans in the Balkans, the Mediterranean, and the Middle
East, to all this neuralgic territory of great strategic importance for us, for
the politics of the USA." (Ref: http://historum.com/asian-history/26268-lord-macaulay-s-address-british-parliament-2-february-1835-a.html
(accessed: Feb 11, 2015)
It is quite clear
from these two viewpoints, that culture (which we interpret here as a body of
knowledge based on the collective experiences of a people over time - including
their ideas, belief systems, history, language, music, literature, customs - in
regards to how they interpret their socio-political and socio-economic environment
and behave with respect to it) is an important target for people who intend to
impose any hegemonic influences on another group of people.
It
is therefore logical that if any group of people seeks to BUILD SOVEREIGNTY AND
PREVENT HEGEMONY, an apt theme for our conference, culture has to be an
important tool, a defence mechanism, for not to say weapon, for achieving this
goal.
Culture
has always featured, along with four other equally important topics (Ecology,
Economy, Politics, and Religion) as a major component of several commemorative
Bandung Conferences. So how do we hope to approach the question of the
contribution of culture to the conference theme in October 2015? In answer to
this question, cognizant of the major achievements of previous seminars in the
area of culture, this year's call for papers will seek to be innovative and
additive rather than repetitive and duplicative in approach. While building on
the previous themes of "Cultural nationalism, cultural diversity and
globalization in Africa and Asia, this year's focus will be on the theme of
"Comparative African and Asian perspectives of culture as a resource for
building sovereignty and preventing hegemony". As an illustration of the
comparative approach to African and Asian cultural analysis, within the area of
creative cultural industries in Africa and Asia, whereas there are numerous
studies and articles about Nollywood in Africa and Bollywood in Asia, it is
surprising that there are very few studies, if any at all, on the comparative critical
studies of Nollywood and Bollywood as major creative industries that can enable
Africa and Asia to promote the consumption of locally made cultural products,
thus minimizing the hegemonic imposition of foreign cultural products on the
societies of Africa and Asia. A paper on either Nollywood or Bollywood may, of
course, be entertained but one on a comparative perspective on Nollywood or
Bollywood will stand a better chance of being accepted, ceteris paribus.
Another
aspect of this comparative approach to culture is to focus on the relationship
between culture and history and raise the question of how African and Asian
cultures have undergone change vis-à-vis historical events.
Furthermore,
rather than charting only a celebratory approach to culture as a tool at the
disposal of African and Asian societies to tackle external hegemony, but also
internal hegemony which may lead to some majority ethno-cultural groups
dominating some minority groups within the same country, we also need to take
stock of what ways in which certain aspects of culture might indeed be inimical
to building sovereignty and preventing hegemony. What might be needed to
liberate African and Asian societies from the circle of internal colonization?
In the multilingual and multicultural societies that African and Asian
countries are, how might we reform ethnic and national cultures to be better
tools for developing more sovereign and harmonious polities?
Panels
or individual papers are invited that address any of the following aspects of
culture, which also reflect many interests of members of the Working Group on Culture, from comparative African and Asian perspectives:
i. Culture as a tool
for socio-political emancipation and socio-economic development
ii. The role of culture
in building national, ethnic, and individual identities
iii. Cultural
diversity in a global village
iv. Indigenous
language documentation and revitalization
v. Cultural heritage
preservation in multilingual and multicultural societies
vi. Migrant and
diaspora communities as cross-cultural bridge builders
vii. Creative
cultural industries
viii. Soft power and
cultural diplomacy in emerging markets and economies
ix. How cultural
change responds to the challenge of external hegemony
x. History as a field
of study and methodology in rethinking the development of Africa – Asia
solidary for cross-cultural exchange
In proposing panels
and papers for this segment of the conference, scholars are required to address
the following questions, which are, of course, not exhaustive:
I. Historical
perspectives: how have African and Asian cultures evolved in the past 60 years?
What has been the role of social movements in creating cultural dynamism
throughout this period of history?
II. Significance:
How prominent has culture often featured in the national and regional
development policies in Africa and Asia? What is the role of the autonomous
individual in strengthening group identities in these African and Asian
societies?
III. Interdisciplinary
aspects: what roles does culture play in ecological, economic, political, and
religious issues in African and Asian societies, and,
IV. Looking ahead:
How can culture better serve as a resource for building sovereignty and
preventing hegemony in the next 60 years?
Panel and abstract
specifications will be finally agreed on after we discuss these aspects with
the other working groups on Ecology, Economy, Politics and Religion. But in
addition to those, the following will apply to papers submitted for the seminar
on Culture:
Mandatory African and Asian language component: While for pragmatic
reasons the conference language is English and most papers are written in this
language, for papers submitted to the seminar on Culture, as a respect to the
languages and cultures of Africa and Asia, all papers in English or other
languages must contain a summary in the form of an abstract of up to 600 words
in an African or Asian language.
Prof. Dr. Adams Bodomo
Professor of African Studies (Chair of
Languages and Literatures)
Director, Global African Diaspora Studies
(GADS) Research Unit, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria, Europe
Members of the Working Group on Culture
Prof. Dr. Heidi K. Gloria, Ateneo de Davao University, Davao City, Philippines
Ms Lucia Ratih Kusumadewi, Department of
Sociology, University of Indonesia
Ms Brigitta Isabella, KUNCI
Cultural Studies Center, Yogyakarta
Prof. Geoffrey Nwaka, Professor of History,
Abia State University, Uturu, Nigeria