Abstract

CULTURAL STUDIES IN INDIA: INITIATIVES, PRESENT PRACTICES, AND FUTURE CHALLENGES

Darshana Liyanage, Rituparna Hazarika, Ivy Daimary

Volume: 5 Issue: 2 2015

Abstract:

What is the difference between area studies and cultural studies? If the terminologies like British Cultural Studies, American cultural studies, Canadian cultural studies, and African cultural studies are justifiable, can the same be applicable about Indian Cultural Studies? Should Indian cultural studies be a part of South Asian cultural studies, letting a broader geographical relevance, or should it be kept open to diversity in Indian cultural space, letting the narrowed down phrase makings like Northeast Indian cultural studies? This paper addresses these issues by reviewing the literature on and practices of cultural studies in India. The first part of the paper maps the cultural studies in India by surveying the literature and institutional set ups (including the academic programmes in universities/colleges/institutions and journals and publications), as a part of which some crucial points are discussed on the content of Indian cultural studies. These include the intersections and relationships of subaltern studies, dalit studies, tribal studies, and folklore studies etc. with cultural studies in the Indian context. The second part of the paper presents the argument that the challenge for Indian cultural studies is to be posited itself in the dialectic relationship between the local and the global, metropolis and the regional, without being trapped in either end. As such, in a theoretical parameter, it opens the debate on Indian cultural studies to the debate between universality and particularity.

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