CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF SOCIAL SYSTEMS
SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
JAWAHARLAL NEHRU UNIVERSITY
cordially invites you to the
THURSDAY COLLOQUIUM
on
Breath, Body and Air in India: An Exploration
on
2nd November 2023 at SSS II,
Room 013, 3:00pm-5:00pm
Abstract: Though scholarly work on the anthropology of air and bodies has made important inroads, we find that breath as a conceptual category in these works appears as a tangential presence; a means to expose what is foregrounded, either the body or airy materials. By manoeuvring the anthropological lens, or more broadly mobilising disciplinary perspectives from the social sciences and humanities, to focus on breath, we foreground what sorts of analytics breath itself may expose and be exposed to. In the process breath appears as not just one thing with a universal rhythm or pattern nor as having a singular ontology. Breath affects all - and hence geographical and epistemological origins become moot; and yet remains multiple, thus there is something to be said about how breath emerges through specific cases. In this talk, we foreground and pursue breath through its entanglements with air and the body, in varied Indian contexts – such as, breathwork in contemporary yoga practices and the COVID – 19 pandemic in Delhi, the most (air) polluted city in the world. In doing so we challenge any singular or essentialist understanding of breath by locating it, along with air and the body, as part of varied social, political, moral, and epistemological compositions. Breath is both universal and multiple, we argue. Yet, the questions raised by us, we believe, can further mobilize inquiries into the socio-political qualities of breath in other contexts.
Tuhina Ganguly is Assistant Professor at the Department of Sociology, Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence, India. Her current research is on mental health rehabilitation in India. She is also interested in epistemologies of the body, and contemporary religiosities. She has published in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, and Contributions to Indian Sociology.
Vasundhara Bhojvaid is Assistant Professor at the Department of Sociology, Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence, India. Her research explores the intersections of science, air pollution, climate change and ecological relationships in India. Her articles have appeared in the Journal of Material Culture, and Cultural Anthropology
