Cultural Heritage and Representation: (Mis)readings between India and the Indian Diaspora

The proposed multi-disciplinary network will focus on the nexus between Indian Diasporas, identity formation, cultural heritage and performance, with special attention paid to questions of representation in an increasingly globalised visual culture. Its focus is on performance, dance, theatre, story-telling, music and scenography, and how these practices are imagined, embodied and understood across these communities as vital components of Indian cultural heritage. The research begins from the premise that sharing how performative representations of Indian cultural heritage, both within India and between India and the Indian Diaspora, are conceived and perceived, which will lead to better understanding of how these conceptions contribute to the formation of identities and subjectivities in both constituencies. This becomes critically important when a rising tide of nationalisms as well as racial and religious stereotyping sweep across the globe, which carry with them an emphasis on identity, culture and heritage as spatially and temporally fixed, leading to reductionist and essentialist conceptions of the 'other'. To avoid these notions of fixity, the project adopts Arjun Appadurai's preferred adjectival application of the term 'cultural' in Modernity at Large (1996), understanding it to be 'a realm of differences, contrasts, and comparisons' (12). We also understand heritage as having meanings that are temporally fluid and, while often associated with space and place, it is not anchored by them. In this context, the primary question the network will seek to investigate is: to what extent are ahistoricised, abstracted, colonial fantasies of India perpetuated through performative representations of Indian cultural heritage in the Diaspora, and how can we instigate better ways of reading through these 'fictions and fantasies' in an era of mass communication? A secondary aim will be to test the efficacy of practice-led performance research as a mode of knowledge production with relation to cultural heritage, with the Indian Diaspora bringing a new critical and analytical lens to this area, potentially opening up new methods of enquiry for diasporic studies more widely.

The proliferation of images in a mediatised culture is one of the means by which narratives of power are maintained. In the face of unitary and homogenised representations of cultural heritage between India and the Indian Diaspora, the performing arts can either re-enforce this hegemonic discourse or offer up alternative perspectives. In order to achieve this, we first need to develop more critical ways of seeing and reading the meanings inherent in the way Indian cultural heritage is visualised and experienced between these two constituencies. The network will initiate collaborative partnerships and exchange visits between the TrAIN Research Centre (UAL), the Sarojini Naidu School of Arts & Communication (University of Hyderabad), and arts and community organisations concerned with cultural heritage, identity and community-formation across the sub-continent and in the UK. Adopting an innovative approach, academic institutions, arts organisations and community groups will be linked through a series of practical workshops. Two multi-disciplinary symposia will furthermore extend and contextualise the findings of the workshops. The symposia, one in London and one in Hyderabad, will be organised around three key themes: Stereotypes in the representations of cultural heritage; the invisibility of local specificity inherent in transnationalism; further collaboration and discussion of methodologies that make more effective engagement possible. Outcomes will be disseminated online, through pop-up exhibitions and a performance in the public domain, and through published articles in relevant international journals.

This project is intended to produce a long-term, sustainable network between India and the Indian diasporic community in the UK - of scholars, arts practitioners, community activists as well as practitioners from the humanities and the social sciences, and partners and stakeholders in education. In the UK, it will also engage with the general public. It aims to impact on professional practices and interactions across these disciplines, and affect public understanding of how Indian cultural heritage is represented and perceived through performance in both domains, in an increasingly globalised visual culture. The network will link these diverse organisations creating channels of communication between them, both physically through visits to the respective sites and virtually through online platforms and on social media, creating links across national borders to ascertain common concerns whilst remaining mindful of the specific contexts in which they arise.

In London, working with professional artists, we will engage with arts and community organisations and those working in education concerned with decolonising curricula. We will do this through a series of extended workshops with local elderly residents and their families, drawing out their perceptions of their Indian cultural heritage and how these have changed over time. Therefore, the impact of the project will reach community leaders and stakeholders as well educational experts and arts professionals. The organisations we have chosen as part of the network combine long histories of working with local residents, with transnational links and reputations. In this way, through the workshops we will help produce community-based knowledge, and that will also allow us to influence and develop policy-making at local level and nationally, and share this with our partners in Hyderabad. The symposium, performance presentations and pop-up exhibition at Tara Arts will open up the issue of cultural representation between India and the UK to the wider academic community, local councillors, politicians and the general public.

At Sarojini Naidu School of Arts and Communication in Hyderabad, staff and students come from all over the subcontinent, forming their own local Diaspora within India. Students pursue careers in the film industry, theatre, television and journalism as performers, directors, designers and writers. The workshops will have a direct impact on them as the next generation of artists negotiating their cultural heritage in the context of Indian modernity, and how this should be represented globally. Scholars and performance practitioners from across the subcontinent will be invited to the symposium in Hyderabad. Anuradha Kapur is recognised as one of the leading scholars and directors both within India and internationally. It is expected that papers from the symposium will be published on the project website and the attendance of high-profile academics and practitioners from the UK will attract interest in the local press and nationally. This will be key to discussions about the future of the network, which will aim to extend its reach to encompass a broad base of theatre practitioners and academics across the subcontinent in order to impact policymakers. Throughout, we will aim to have a truly interactive reporting and documentation of the workshops and the symposia, which will be available through social media and our established websites.