SÉANCES ORDINAIRES

51 | Lundi 8 novembre 2010

 

Iqbal AKHTAR [Université d’Edinburgh] :

Khoja Paradox: The Evolution of a Transnational Shi'i Identity.

With the events of 9/11 in North America and 7/7 in Britain the contradictory tensions between the identities of the East African Khoja in Western Europe and North America have became acute. The century in East Africa, apart from Madagascar, meant that the Indic had been actively forgotten and in doing so became the "other" for the Khoja. The Iranian and Arab Shi'i they encountered in Western Europe and North America would never accept the Khoja for their sense of nationalism and civilizational confidence is necessarily restricted to a narrowly defined ethnic and linguistic nationhood respectively. With the beginning of the twenty-first century the promise of normative equality in the advanced industrialized world seems to be fleeting as transnational terrorism is routinely equated with Islam and Muslim "integration" among the most salient political issues of the day. The Khoja are a nation thrice divorced: from their Indic heritage in part against whom they define themselves, from their shared memories of their African experience whom younger generations know of only as ancient tales, and from their European/American present where the Muslim has ostensibly become the existential "other". [fichier 1 et fichier 2]

 

52 | Mercredi 23 février 2011

 

Ludovic GANDELOT [historien, doctorant à l’université de Paris 7 (SEDET)] :

Migrations, main d’œuvre et politique. Coopération des Indiens de Madagascar aux projets migratoires de l’administration coloniale, au tournant des 19^ème et 20^ème siècles.

Au nord-ouest de Madagascar, les migrants indiens de la fin du 19^ème siècle et du début de l’ère coloniale sont originaires du Cutch et du Kathiawar. Les migrations se sont  développées au cours d’un 19^ème siècle marqué par des transformations géopolitiques fondatrices pour le devenir de l’océan Indien : influence politique de la dynastie omano-zanzibarite des al-Busaïd d’abord et emprise grandissante puis totale des puissances européennes ensuite. Si les migrations gujaraties ayant touché le nord-ouest de Madagascar reposent principalement sur des réseaux de commerces autonomes et indépendants du contrôle politique européen, cette communication s’intéressera à des projets qui ont peu retenu l’attention des chercheurs : des projets de migrations de travailleurs indiens orchestrés par le pouvoir colonial et réalisés en partenariat avec certaines notabilités indiennes de l’île.

 

53 | Vendredi 6 mai 2011

 

Jay THAKKAR, [Professeur assistant, School of Interior Design, Faculty of Design, CEPT, Ahmedabad, India, Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology]

Wood Carvings of Traditional Houses of Gujarat - Decoding craft expression.

Crafts have always been an integral part of the traditional built environment of India, and Gujarat is not an exception. But the development of wooden architecture in Gujarat is a most unusual phenomenon because it had no source of structural timber. This was made possible by the Gujarati tradesmen who imported large amounts of wood from Daman, Malabar and even from Burma. The wooden architecture became synonymous to ‘Gujarati architecture’ and it led to the flourishing of wood carving, which gave a very distinctive character to the traditional buildings of Gujarat. The lecture will focus on understanding the expressions of this craft of wood carving through a systematic decoding system, looking at its content from a factual perspective to a cultural one.

The current situations of the crafts related to interior architecture will also be a point of discussion in the talk. [présentation partie 1 et partie 2]

 

54 | Mercredi 8 juin 2011

 

Inês LOURENÇON [Centre for Research in Anthropology/ISCTE-Lisbon University Institute (CRIA/ISCTE-IUL)]

Gujarati Hindus in Portugal, The community of Santo António dos Cavaleiros(Loures, Lisbon).

After the independence of Mozambique in 1975, many Indian living there, most of them originating from Gujarat, migrated to Portugal where they are approximately 33,000 today. My doctoral study, Os Corpos da Devi. Religião e Género em Diáspora¹ focuses on a Hindu community established in Santo António dos Cavaleiros (Council of Loures, Great Lisbon Area). The social structure of this group, which is organised around the Shiva Temple, will be presented, giving particular attention to its cultural diversity. The strategies of cultural maintenance and reproduction it developed in order to build up a common identity will be taken into account to better understand the processes of construction of Portuguese Hindus’ multiple identities, as well as to think about the transnational mobility of Hindu people around the world.

(¹Les corps de la Déesse. Religion et genre en diaspora, ^.2009, PhD Thesis, ISCTE-Lisbon University Institute).