Research Programs

interrogating concepts of the cross-cultural
postcolonialism and cultural history
the cultural impact of transnational migrations and mobilities
visual and new media research across cultures
cross-cultural perspectives of contemporary art and society

Postcolonialism and Cultural History

This program builds on the interdisciplinary energies of a vast body of scholarship that falls under the rubric of postcolonialism – a project devoted to the intellectual task of revisiting, remembering and crucially interrogating the modern European colonial experience and its aftermath. It aims to take into account the political, historical, cultural and epistemological fallout of not just old imperial structures, but also new forms of transnational empire building and networks of repressive and even fundamentalist modes of power. The program pays particular attention to forms of knowledge and practice regarding race, caste and gender that emerged during modern colonial encounters. It examines ways in which discourses and disciplines such as the natural sciences, history, anthropology, literature and art have conceptualised and privileged a particular sense of time and place in various institutional sites of a nation, such as museums. Under this program, the CCR has also developed projects dealing with histories and cultures of Indigenous peoples of former settler colonies such as Australia, Canada and Latin America. It has explored ways in which postcolonial and Indigenous cultures have challenged and resisted imperial and/or colonial forms of knowledge and power. In particular it has sought to examine the role both memory and history have played as subaltern groups countered imperial and/or colonial domination and modernity by asserting different senses of time and place and imagining different political, social and cultural futures. In the context of recent neoliberal forms of imperialism, this program seeks to attract projects on cross-cultural understanding and representations of late modern religio-ethnic conflicts, and especially the impact of non-state forms of religious and cultural terrorism on global public spheres.

Projects

Other research initiatives and outreach