Humanities Across Borders: Asia and Africa in the World
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The Newsletter | No.78 | Autumn 2017 46 | The Network Humanities across Borders: Asia and Africa in the World IN 2016, IIAS announced its new programme Bhotiya Tribal Heritage Museum, ‘Humanities across Borders: Asia and Africa in the Munsiari, India; explored as a World’. Now that the programme’s framework is ‘repository of nar- ratives’ in the HaB project ‘Identity fully in place and activities have started, we would and Mobility along a Trans-Himalayan like to provide you with an update about the Trade Route’. Photo courtesy of developments at various levels of activities on Surajit Sarkar. research and education, on programmatic events and tangible outcomes, and at the level of the collaborative network. The programme runs from 2017-2020 and is co-funded by The Andrew Objectives and method initiates methodological, pedagogical and curricular W. Mellon Foundation and the twenty-two partner The objective of the Humanities across Borders (HaB) interventions to surpass narrow disciplinary, institutional, Programme is to mobilise the development of a global ideological and individualistic agendas in the production institutes in Asia, Africa, Europe and the USA. consortium of universities, and their local partners of knowledge. in Asia and Africa, interested in fostering humanities- The programme facilitates border-crossing meetings, Titia van der Maas, Programme Coordinator grounded education. Its epistemological vision is that workshops and other collaborative pedagogical formats, of an expanded humanities along the Asia-Africa axis of organised by its partners together with their local civil knowledge and collaboration. To this end, the programme society agents and actors with the objective to shape Revisiting ‘the Workshop Idea’ in Mandalay Aarti Kawlra, Academic Director THE WORKSHOP Re-imagining the civic role of the University, upon Françoise’s experiments with L’Atelier at the Fondation private schools located in conflict areas, not only held on 25-26 July 2017 at Mandalay University (Myanmar), Maison des Sciences de l’ Homme (FMSH) in Paris and my invigorated the discussions but also helped further was the first attempt at exploring ‘the workshop idea’ as own curricular and co-curricular explorations with young problematise our workshop process. The workshop gave a space of learning in the context of the Humanities across adults at The School of the Krishnamurti Foundation of India space to a diverse range of opinions in an atmosphere Borders programme. The account below shares insights in Chennai. of open exchange of ideas at an unlikely venue, into its theoretical background and in-situ practical Deploying the workshop idea in Mandalay to a i.e., the University. workings. Burmese audience could not have been possible without In an experiment on teaching methods in the social the anchoring vision of Tharaphi Than of Northern Setting the stage sciences in the mid 1950’s, Schenkman wrote in the Illinois University and the openness of Thidar Htwe Win Spatial arrangement was a matter of special attention Journal of Higher Education, “… we must get away from of Mandalay University. They grounded us in the realities for us if the workshop was to nurture free interaction. the idea that there are experts and non-experts”.1 He was of present day Myanmar, so that we were all the while We chose the horseshoe setup (chairs only, no desks) making a case for ‘the workshop idea’ over ‘pure lectures’ conscious of the subtle hierarchies defined by nationality, to accommodate an expanding number of participants during a summer session of Dutch universities held in the language, gender, discipline and institution in the and to consciously shift from the frontal proscenium city of Leiden in 1952. The workshop brought together course of the two days. stage setting more conducive for one-way lectures. participants from 16 countries in Asia, Africa and North Myanmar universities are now in the throes of re- A long conversation table in the centre was used as a America to share opinions and experiences on a common calibrating their mandate in society to define the public prop to display a number of familiar household objects platform with regard to the boundaries-crossing topic role of members of its faculty. Charged for mechanically and food including bananas and traditional snacks to ‘Eastern and Western World’. Sound familiar? reproducing rigid, militarised curricula promoting national prompt interactive discussions and to allow the part- Using ‘the workshop’ as a site for interrogating and values and state development goals disconnected from icipants to move freely along the aisles created on either unpacking hardened concepts and pedagogies in the local realities, universities in Myanmar are experiencing side. We were particular about avoiding plastic water social sciences and humanities is not new. What is special large-scale educational reform. According to Tharaphi, bottles, the ubiquitous conference artefact. In this way is that curricular experiments took place in Leiden more “Universities in Myanmar have undergone a depoliticizing the workshop also became an occasion to use earthen than sixty years ago in a spirit of collaborative exchange process for more than two generations. Politics has been water pots and rice-based homemade snacks and across borders. In this piece, I will share how we, at IIAS, taken out of textbooks, classroom discussions, lectures seasonal fruits that are commonly available but often have been exploring the idea of the workshop as a space and political activities banned on campuses. Physical relegated to the background on account of it being of learning and doing in an open atmosphere, fostering symbols of students’ activism such as union buildings an ‘international’ workshop. several levels of interaction in an atmosphere of mutual have long been demolished as well. In this context it is The workshop process unfolded along a semi- sharing and understanding. an understatement to say that our goal to help re-imagine structured agenda. Tharaphi became the chief interpreter, Initiated under the IIAS programme Rethinking Asian the civic role of universities in Myanmar is daunting”. But we although there were some participants who later helped Studies (2013-2016; funded by The Andrew W. Mellon had the wholehearted support of the pro-rector and rector in maintaining a bi-lingual atmosphere at the workshop. Foundation), and now ongoing as Humanities across of Mandalay University who co-hosted the event on their Educators who attended the workshop came, not only Borders: Asia and Africa in the World (2017-2020), our campus as part of the new national educational policy from the different departments at Mandalay University methodological and pedagogical explorations draw in the post-socialist militaristic era, following the election and Yadanabon University (outside Mandalay), but also upon the university’s self-appointed role as a “mid-wife … of the National League for Democracy. Indeed, according from the remote northern hill provinces. Out of the 120 of the next generation …”2 to re-imagine its boundaries to anthropologist and workshop participant Gustaaf participants who attended the workshop, 100 were women. as being dynamic and porous to wider societal exchange. Houtman, Mandalay University opened its doors to The teaching profession is dominated by women, not The global terrain of higher education is uneven. Countries him only last year in 2016, even though he has been because space has been carved out for them but because of the South have for long looked towards scholarship working in Burma for the past 40 years. a teacher’s work day can stretch to incorporate other and research trends emerging from the West. Prevailing part-time occupations. curricula are far removed from local and national realities; Aim In addition to low incomes, academics in Myanmar and pedagogies within the classroom, seminar and field The workshop was an occasion for mobilising local face the burden of standardised curricula and the site, however sensitively designed as spaces of learning, initiatives as part of our shared goal of catalysing challenge of introducing change in a milieu where nevertheless spiral down to subtly reproduce pervasive university-society linkages. We wanted curricula to be English is the official language of instruction but rarely hierarchies and deeply entrenched gender biases in the infused by ideas and values that are not just impacted the language of expression for both students and actual face-to-face encounter. In what ways can we bring by state-driven national policies or by prescriptive teachers. Whether or not to include micro, ethnic the everyday context of our socio-cultural and political ‘training’ models conducted by visiting faculty from histories; how to bridge the deep schism between lives to the forefront even as we inculcate disciplinary foreign universities. It was the first time that Mandalay rural and semi-rural communities that reside beyond (or trans-disciplinary) thinking in educational practice? University hosted an event at which a diversity of civic the boundary walls of their universities? In what ways agents could sit together with academics to discuss can curricular interventions be initiated in the first Deploying the workshop idea in Myanmar matters of curricula and pedagogies around common place? We therefore took the time to introduce ourselves The workshop titled Re-imagining the civic role of the University concerns pertaining to gender inequality, freedom of to