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The South Asia Chronicle is a bilingual (German-English) online journal that functions as an interdisciplinary platform for exploring the history, politics, economics, society and culture of the region South Asia. In examining questions on a diverse range of themes and issues such as environment, sport, migration, gender, media, literature, and more, the "South Asia Chronicle" particularly takes international and transregional aspects into consideration.
The open-source journal is issued by the South Asia Studies Department of the Institute of Asian and African Studies and published by the Open-Access-Publikationsserver der Humboldt-Universität. It appears annually in winter, between December and February.
The volume is divided into three rubrics. The Focus is a thematic section with a guest editor in charge of commissioned articles that highlight cultural, social, economic and political topics of contemporary as well as historical relevance. The second rubric Forum provides a space for contributions that, while falling outside the thematic focus of the volume, are of particular contemporary or scholarly relevance. The final rubric is reserved for review essays that review recent literature on a topic and discuss it within a larger frame of the state of the art.
Instructions for Authors
If you are interested in guest editing a Focus section, please get in touch with us via email with your proposal, which should include an abstract and a tentative list of contributors.
Manuscripts for the Forum section can be submitted via email all year round for a first review. If your article is accepted, you will have the opportunity to revise it before final submission in March. Subsequently, the paper will undergo a second round of internal reviews. The annual volume is published in winter, usually between December-February.
The length of the articles can vary from 8,000-10,000 words or 55,000-80,000 characters. We reserve our right to shorten or edit articles.
Contributors are responsible for ensuring they hold the permission to reproduce any copyrighted material used in their articles. They are required to include the appropriate acknowledgements in the manuscript.
Editors
Editor (V.i.S.d.P) : Prof. Dr. Michael Mann, Editorial Team: Johannes Heymann, Jannes Thode
Contact
southasiachronicle@hu-berlin.de
Volumes and thematical focus
2023 (13): Pashtun Millennials: Striving for Alternative Futures
Very often scholars resort to markers of group identification such as nation, race, ethnicity, or tribe to describe and explain socio-political phenomena in a certain geographic region and thus hegemonic narratives about groups of people emerge. An inherent challenge in such discussion is that these identifiers and narratives are often conceived of as static and immutable whereas lived reality is rapidly changing. Many public and academic discussions about ‘the Pashtuns’ are framed by stereotypes and prejudice that appear to no longer fit everyday life. Many young Pashtuns have set out to resist these prevalent narratives and they seek to define their Pashtun-ness (Pashtunwali) on their own terms. The articles in this FOCUS examine how young Pashtuns engage in these negotiations on various platforms, via multiple media and in diverse settings. A secondary aim of the FOCUS section is to explore the commonalities of this generation that we call Pashtun millennials. The articles explore the activities, practices, struggles, opportunities, hopes, and dreams of Pashtun millennials and how they make sense of themselves and their communities.
The FORUM section provides a thematic and methodological variety of recent researches on South Asia. This year’s section covers articles with contents ranging from the agricultural practices in the Indian Brahmaputra valley to the cultural anthropology of water mother deities in the Chennai area.
Out of this year’s four contributions to the journal’s signature REVIEW ESSAY section, the two articles by Andrea Fleschenberg and Shehzad Ali take up the broader frame of the FOCUS section, Pakistani politics and society in general, and the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area in particular. Melitta Waligora’s essay focuses on an under-researched topic with its discussion of the biography of an Indian anarchist, and Jai Prasad reviews literature on the relations between Adivasi rights and Indian forest politics.
Editor (V.i.S.d.P): Prof. Dr. Michael Mann
Editors FOCUS: Mateeullah Tareen, Abida Bano, Sarah Holz
Editorial Team: Johannes Heymann, Jannes Thode, Lila Miran
2022 (12): Christliche Mission in Indien vom 18. bis zum frühen 20. Jahrhundert. Fragestellungen, Herausforderungen und Perspektiven der Forschung / Christian Mission in India from the 18th to the Early 20th Century. Questions, Chanllenges and Perspectives of Research
The FOCUS section of the 2022 issue of the South Asia Chronicle engages with current academic questions, challenges, and perspectives of research on Christian missions in India between the 18th and early 20th century. Comprising already published, reworked, and new articles the section aims at presenting mile stone contributions to the thematic field as well as current research approaches. The original publication details of already published and reworked articles are mentioned separately for transparency reasons. Hence, the FOCUS brings together articles on a variety of topics ranging from Christian missionaries’ contact with slavery in India, their positioning in colonial contexts as well as the missionaries’ impact on knowledge production. The text selection specifically sheds light on the significant German missions’ historic entanglements with the sub-continent.
The FORUM section reflects the journal’s purpose to give space to various current research contributions with South Asia related topics. Hence, a broad range of articles from international scholars and diverse methodological backgrounds are represented in the 2022 issue – for instance, texts about Bodo Historiography, the Ahmadiyya community in Germany, and narratives in Indian cinema.
In the Review Essay section co-editor Tobias Delfs provides insights into German naturalists in 18th and 19th century colonial India.
Editorial Team: Johannes Heymann, Lila Miran, Jannes Thode
2021 (11): Print Journalism in India: Historical Perspectives and Contemporary Developments
The current issue of the SACh actually concentrates on two aspects. On the one hand, the FOCUS section deals with print journalism in India as it developed in the colonial and post-colonial era. Originally planned as a separate edited volume, the project collapsed due to corona confusions. As a consequence, Amelia and I decided to publish the contributions of the those patient authors who were still available in this volume of the South Asia Chronicle which is why the FOCUS section has become rather voluminous.
On the other hand, in this volume a particular emphasis lies on the RESEARCH REVIEW section. The editorial board decided to expand the notion of a research review and to share the experiences of doctoral field research during the corona pandemic which are accompanied by a theoretically framing essay. Of course, a couple of conventional review articles have also been included in the section.
The FORUM section comprises, as usual, articles on various aspects on cultural, political, historical and sociological aspects, like reflections on the academic literature produced after the last general elections in India, or on the politicisation of Dehli's Muslims in the 1910s.
Editor (V.i.S.d.P): Prof. Dr. Michael Mann
Guest Editor FOCUS: Dr. Amelia Bonea
Editorial Team: Johannes Heymann, Lila Miran, Domenic Teipelke
2020 (10): The Memorial Reproduction of 1971 in Present-day Bangladesh
Focus:
In 2021 Bangladesh will celebrate its 50th anniversary of the Liberation War, independence from Pakistan and the foundation of its nation state. The articles in the Focus section throw fresh light on the events of 1971 as well as the way these events have been memorialised in the past and are monumentalised for the upcoming anniversary. It becomes clear that Bangladesh as a nation state - as every nation state - needs various forms of remembering and celebrating. The 50th anniversary also documents the persistence of the South Asian Subcontinent's post-colonial political order.
Forum:
This section covers various articles ranging from historical aspects like the concepts of sovereignty the East India Company developed between the seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries in India, or the ethnographic study on tea production and tea trade in Central Asia, to the question of Muslim voices in present-day India as well as mass migration into contemporary Dhaka, Bangladesh. The contributions reflect the journal's aim, namely to cover a variety of thematic as well as geographic aspects within South Asia and beyond.
Review Essays:
Four essays deal with the latest research results regarding the role of alcohol in British India, predominantly in the nineteenth century, the question of bonded labour in South Asia and the Indian Ocean rim, and the political dimension of archaeology and heritage sites in Pakistan and India. Finally a report on training programmes for teachers sheds some light on the latest educational initiatives in Lahore, Pakistan.
Editor (V.i.S.d.P): Prof. Dr. Michael Mann
Guest Editor FOCUS: Dr. Farhan Karim
Editorial Team: Sadia Bajwa, Domenic Teipelke, Dr. Jana Tschurenev
2019 (9): Himalaya and Trans-Himalaya: Connecting Histories, Transcending Disciplines
Focus:
Translocal studies are becoming increasingly important, especially with reference to historical subjects. The overwhelming concern with the history of nation states in South Asia and beyond - as elsewhere - has obscured many translocal histories of moving people, goods and wares as well as artefacts, devotional objects and forms of religious rituals. With the latest research on media/film, historiography, syncretism and imaginations of geography, the present section pays tribute to the recent developments in historical, social and anthropological studies that highlight trans-Himalayan studies. The articles provide new insight into a mountainous world that has never been static.
Forum:
The first three article in this section extend the Focus' themes of movement and connection. The article on India's politics on China's Silk Road Project is followed by one on migration from South Asia to Europe in the interwar period. The third article examines how centralising rule in Pakistan during the 1950s and 1960s were legitimised through architectural discourses and practices that hybridized Western ideas and ideologies with South Asian architectural traditions. The Forum concludes with an analysis of collaborative governance and devolution in contemporary Pakistan.
Review Essays:
The three articles deal with the latest research in diverse fields. First, the review of recent publications in the field of trans-Himalayan studies provides a useful addition to the Focus section. The next essay gives a state of the art on education and student politics in Pakistan. The final article is a recent field study on the results of higher education at Pakistan's universities.
Editor: Prof. Dr. Michael Mann
Guest Editor: Prof. Dr. Queeny Pradhan
Editorial Team: Sadia Bajwa, Domenic Teipelke, Dr. Jana Tschurenev
2018 (8): Inequality, Difference, and the Politics of Education for All
The FOCUS section thematically concentrates on the politics of educational expansion and reform in modern India (19th-21st centuries) in relation to the issues of social inequality, and social difference. From the nineteenth century onwards, diverse actors were involved in building, contesting, and reshaping the colonial education system and its successor in independent India. Administrators, missionaries, social movements, and various reform associations have pursued diverse strategies to increase the reach of formal schooling, improve its quality, or adjust its social and political agendas. The case studies presented in this focus section explore both, efforts directed at the supply and regulation of modern education - such as institution-building, teacher-training, and the spread of expert knowledge - and policies to enhance the attractiveness of schools, and improve school attendance. All these efforts were in different ways responding to, and reshaping social inequality, and participated in the making and managing of social and cultural difference.
The FORUM section consists of five articles that rely on historical, statistical and anthropological sources, focussing on a diverse range of topics and are grounded in the disciplines of history, international relations, anthropology, economics and sociology. The themes engaged with include- physical anthropology, its development in Germany and travelling instruments that have informed the research of an Indian scientiest; the Indian state´s foreign policy vis-à-vis the Tibet question in the early postcolonial period and its historical precedents; a study of India´s energy sector and a roadmap towards affordable and sustainable energy; the intersection of disability and gender in the everyday struggles of women with disabilities in the city of Lahore in pakistan and questions pertaining to the protection of labour, tripartite mechanisms and management of industrial relations in colonial and early postcolonial India through the life trajectories of two important Labour Ministers.
The REVIEW ESSAYS rubric brings together four contributions, with each review unpacking relevant questions in diverse areas of research. These include- an essay on situating Northeast India as a region in historical and contemporary scholarship and its production as a place of remoteness and difference; imaginations and projections of the Muslim world in cinema and popular culture; the intersection of anthropology and law in developing a more user-centric understanding of the workings of legal frameworks and a review of historical and contemporary literature on the Rourkela Steel Plant in India through the lens of vocabularies of development, modernisation and industrialisation.
Impressum Editor (v.i.S.d.P.): Prof. Dr. Michael Mann Editorial Board: Dr. Anandita Bajpai, Domenic Teipelke, Daniel Schulze Guest Editor FOKUS: Dr. Jana Tschurenev
2017 (7): Revisiting Partition Seventy Years Later: Of Layered Echoes, Voices and Memories
The FOCUS section of volume 7 is titled "Revisiting Partition Seventy Years Later: Of Layered Echoes, Voices and Memories". The articles in the special issue contribute to the existing historiography on Partition by giving cognizance to experiences of displacement, relocation, trauma, re-shaping of lives as well as their periodic re-telling. They re-turn to oral history as a source that informs the writing of Partition to emphasize the multifarious and fragmented nature of remembrance and testimony. In doing so, they bring forth, and even magnify, the absence of singular narratives while simultaneously puncturing official statist silences on Partition or the inculpating discourses that lay blame on a religious ‘other’. At the same time, the contributions revisit literary works that have been crucial in shedding light on the human dimension of Partition, its deep-felt impact on innumerable partitioned lives. The articles take us through sites ranging from Faqiranwalla, Sheikhpura and Lahore in present day Pakistan to Delhi, Haryana, Dandakaranya, Kolkata and the Andaman Islands in present day India.
The FORUM section consists of eight articles that rely on historical, linguistic, literary and oral history approaches. Among others, they deal with topics as diverse as the perceptions of India in Germany and the USA, countercultures and movements in the Indian and Pakistani public sphere(s), the revival of vernacular languages in transforming social spaces, and the roots of resurgent political authoritarianism in India.
The REVIEW ESSAYS rubric comprises contributions that present overviews of scholarly engagement with the topics of land property rights, transitions from colonial to the national education system and the changing social and professional life-worlds of engineers in India.
The FOCUS section of volume 6 is titled "Law in Context: Case Studies from India." Drawing on an interdisciplinary approach, the FOCUS contributions examine law in the contexts of society, culture, religion and community and point to the manifold ways in which law is being practised and understood in India. The articles engage with different layers of law and identify various actors and locales where law and legal discourses are shaped. The contributions cover a wide spectrum of interesting topics, such as spirit based justice systems, law and religion, women's rights, farmers' rights and the incorporation of international law into national or local systems.
The FORUM includes seven articles on topics ranging from History, Literary Studies, Musicology and Anthropology to an overview of India-related holdings in German archives.
The final rubric REVIEW ESSAYS contains contributions that present current and historiographical overviews from History, Film Studies and International Relations.
2015(5) South Asia and the World Wars in the Twentieth Century
During the two World Wars ‘aliens’ of all skin and eye colours, linguistic groups, cultures and faiths were brought to Europe in the form of colonial soldiers and Black Americans who fought for the Allies. Among them were Africans, Egyptians, Turks, Palestinians, Arabs, Indians (from British India), and so on. To remember these ‘strange foreigners’, this year’s FOKUS of the South-Asia Chronicle deals with a specific category of these temporary soldier-migrants who were brought to Germany in thousands as captive British-Indian soldiers and camp followers in World War I and World War II. Some of them died in various prisoners of war (POW) camps, sick bays, hospitals, and sanatoria, others survived their ordeals in captivity in various internment camps or Stalags (Stamm-lager, i.e. large POW camps).
Each essay of FOKUS showcases a different range of archival deposits in various parts of Germany – in isolated cases also from Britain, India and Geneva – which has been used to recreate the lived experiences of ‘alien coloured captives’. All of them in their own ways allude to the dilemmas, anxieties, and confusions that the German officialdom faced during the two World Wars. Within this short span of time, the authors have outlined phases into which the treatment of jangi qaidis could be divided notwithstanding continued cultural confusions and linguistic misunderstandings.
The FORUM of the volume includes seven articles on diverse topics from history, sociology, and anthropology. The final rubric REVIEW ESSAYS contains contributions that present state-of-the-art and historiographical overviews on various topics.
Focus
Joshi, Vandana
South Asia and the World Wars in the Twentieth Century: An Introduction
Lange, Britta
„Wenn der Krieg zu Ende ist, werden viele Erzählungen gedruckt werden.“ Südasiatische Positionen und europäische Forschungen im „Halbmondlager“
Koller, Christian
Deutsche Wahrnehmungen feindlicher Kolonial¬truppen im Ersten Weltkrieg
The volume (4:2014) includes a special issue on Mapping Bangladesh Studies. Bangladesh studies is emerging as a major field and is continually getting richer and more diverse, although it still has a long way to go. As seen through recent contributions elsewhere and in this volume of the South Asia Chronicle, more nuanced and newer lines of enquiry, especially in the field of cultural history and anthropology, are emerging.
In addition it holds four contributions in its FORUM rubric on recent discourses and developments in South Asia: an article comparing the construction of the Muslim as Minority in India and western Europe; one on the new urbanism, law and the city of Bengaluru; a third on the emergence of a transnational religious community; and finally a piece that engages with the question of women's rights in India in light of the recent debate on sexual violence in India.
The final rubric of the volume is dedicated to review essays, which present the state-of-the-art and historiographical overviews on a various topics.
Südasien hat eine der ältesten Stadtkulturen der Welt. Gegenwärtig ist eine rasante Verstädterung in den Ländern des südasiatischen Subkontinents zu beobachten, einschließlich der Entstehung von Megacities.
Großstädte und besonders die Megacities des globalen Südens scheinen Problemzonen zu sein, die der eingehenden wissenschaftlichen Untersuchung und anschließender nationaler wie internationaler Kontrolle durch weltweit anerkannte Regulierungsmaßnahmen in Bezug auf Stadtplanung, Stadtentwicklung und Stadtpolitik bedürfen. Eine Innenbetrachtung aus der Sicht der Bewohner findet selten statt, was im Gegensatz zum anhaltenden Zuzug in die Städte steht, der offensichtlich für die Attraktivität urbaner Siedlungsräume spricht.
Diesem westlich geprägten Diskurs, der seine Ursprünge in der europäischen Kolonialherrschaft hat, als unzivilisierte außereuropäische Völker ebenfalls beobachtet und kontrolliert werden mussten, um sie an die eigene für höher stehend erachtete Zivilisation heranzuführen, möchten die Beiträge des Fokus-Teils in dem vorliegenden Band entgegenwirken.
Die Beiträge in der Rubrik „Fokus“ des aktuellen Bandes zeigen neben den Problemen einer Stadt in Südasien vor allem die Chancen, die sich mit ihr verbinden. Städte erfüllen vielfältige Funktionen in einer Gesellschaft, die über die rein verdichtete Ansiedlung von Menschen hinausgehen. Medien, Handel, Industrie und Gewerbe, Dienstleistung und Arbeit sowie Migration und Zirkulation von Menschen stehen hier im Mittelpunkt.
Das Wirtschaftswachstum Indiens, aber auch das Pakistans, sowie die nach wie vor steigende Bevölkerung rückt das Thema Nachhaltigkeit natürlicher Ressourcen wie Wasser, Boden und Luft in das Zentrum wirtschaftlicher und politischer Debatten. Fossile Energiegewinnung, fortschreitende Luftverschmutzung und eine intensive Wassernutzung lassen in südasiatischen Ländern die Frage nach dem Klima und ihrem Wandel dringlicher denn je erscheinen.
Sich verändernde Umweltbedingungen sind nicht nur in den wachsenden Großstädten und ihren Lebensräumen zu beobachten, sondern auch auf dem Land und in der Landwirtschaft machen sich inzwischen die Belastungen der Umwelt durch massive Ressourcennutzung bemerkbar. Entgegen der geläufigen Darstellung in unseren Medien, die zu oft ein apokalyptisches Bild von Umweltbelastung und Umweltverschmutzung schaffen und Indien neben China als einen Hauptverursacher künftigen Klimawandels ausmachen, versuchen die Beiträge in diesem Band zu zeigen, welche zum Teil höchst erfolgversprechende Konzepte zur nachhaltigen Gestaltung der Umwelt im städtischen wie ländlichen Raum existieren.
Nicht erst seit den letzten beiden Jahrzehnten ist der Indische Ozean ein Wirtschafts- und Kulturraum, der durch migrierende und sich in anderen Regionen niederlassende Menschen entstand und in vielerlei Hinsicht zusammenwuchs. Bereits im 12. Jahrhundert bestanden intensive Austauschbeziehungen zwischen den Anrainergebieten, teils über Karawanen, teils über Küsten und teils über Hochseeschifffahrt organisiert. Seit dem Auftauchen der Europäer wirkten im 16. Jahrhundert lediglich weitere Konkurrenten im Handelsnetzwerk des Indischen Ozeans mit. Erst ab der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts kann von einer wachsenden europäischen, schließlich britischen Dominanz gesprochen werden. Trotz der Kolonisierung weiter Teile Ostafrikas, Süd- und Südostasiens durch europäische Mächte im 19. Jahrhundert, die neue Strukturen in die Netzwerke des Indischen Ozeans brachte, blieben dessen alte in vielen Fällen bestehen. Mit der Unabhängigkeit der Kolonien ab der zweiten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts, vor allem aber seit dem Ende des Kalten Krieges und seiner bipolaren Weltordnung, hat sich der Indische Ozean seit den 1990er Jahren zu einer Weltregion weiter entwickelt, zu einem Raum, der diese Bedeutung eigentlich nie verloren hatte.
anniversary of the Liberation War, independence from Pakistan and the foundation of its nation state. The articles in the Focus section throw fresh light on the events of 1971 as well as the way these events have been memorialised in the past and are monumentalised for the upcoming anniversary. It becomes clear that Bangladesh as a nation state - as every nation state - needs various forms of remembering and celebrating. The 50th anniversary also documents the persistence of the South Asian Subcontinent's post-colonial political order.
with reference to historical subjects. The overwhelming concern with the history of nation states in South Asia and beyond - as elsewhere - has obscured many translocal histories of moving people, goods and wares as well as artefacts, devotional objects and forms of religious rituals. With the latest research on media/film, historiography, syncretism and imaginations of geography, the present section pays tribute to the recent developments in historical, social and anthropological studies that highlight trans-Himalayan studies. The articles provide new insight into a mountainous world that has never been static.
The first three article in this section extend the Focus' themes of movement and connection. The article on India's politics on China's Silk Road Project is followed by one on migration from South Asia to Europe in the interwar period. The third article examines how centralising rule in Pakistan during the 1950s and 1960s were legitimised through architectural discourses and practices that hybridized Western ideas and ideologies with South Asian architectural traditions. The Forum concludes with an analysis of collaborative governance and devolution in contemporary Pakistan.
The FOCUS section thematically concentrates on the politics of educational expansion and reform in modern India (19th-21st centuries) in relation to the issues of social inequality, and social difference. From the nineteenth century onwards, diverse actors were involved in building, contesting, and reshaping the colonial education system and its successor in independent India. Administrators, missionaries, social movements, and various reform associations have pursued diverse strategies to increase the reach of formal schooling, improve its quality, or adjust its social and political agendas. The case studies presented in this focus section explore both, efforts directed at the supply and regulation of modern education - such as institution-building, teacher-training, and the spread of expert knowledge - and policies to enhance the attractiveness of schools, and improve school attendance. All these efforts were in different ways responding to, and reshaping social inequality, and participated in the making and managing of social and cultural difference.
The FOCUS section of volume 7 is titled "Revisiting Partition Seventy Years Later: Of Layered Echoes, Voices and Memories". The articles in the special issue contribute to the existing historiography on Partition by giving cognizance to experiences of displacement, relocation, trauma, re-shaping of lives as well as their periodic re-telling. They re-turn to oral history as a source that informs the writing of Partition to emphasize the multifarious and fragmented nature of remembrance and testimony. In doing so, they bring forth, and even magnify, the absence of singular narratives while simultaneously puncturing official statist silences on Partition or the inculpating discourses that lay blame on a religious ‘other’. At the same time, the contributions revisit literary works that have been crucial in shedding light on the human dimension of Partition, its deep-felt impact on innumerable partitioned lives. The articles take us through sites ranging from Faqiranwalla, Sheikhpura and Lahore in present day Pakistan to Delhi, Haryana, Dandakaranya, Kolkata and the Andaman Islands in present day India. 
The FOCUS section of volume 6 is titled "Law
2014(4) Mapping Bangladesh Studies
