AHRC IAA : Counter-Archives of Marginality: Storying, Sounding and Visualising Agency in India

Transitions in authority within society rarely acknowledge the agency of those marginalised, particularly in intellectual historiography. The multigenerational life-histories of first-generation Indian academics who entered the university between 1963-2024 were co-produced into narratives, for research purposes and as a counter-archive, in a related workstream of a larger project. In addition, visual studies of 17 of the 30 institutions from whence they were based, were undertaken.

This workstream sought to 'open' the process beyond contributions primarily to academic knowledge – inviting current first-generation scholars and artists to respond to the research findings, in order to engender plural, situated insights and evocations from their lived experiences of present conditions of social marginality. They produced zines, graphic novellas, an anthology of visual stories, a book of short stories, and 6 artworks, including paintings and short films.

In turn, these were utilised to further engage members of the public about their reflections and recollections when considering diverse histories of agency and resistence.

A community counter-archive will be established, with a pragmatic toolkit to guide online commemoration for a transformative future.

This is part of a project which is a collaboration between Dr Nandita Banerjee Dhawan (Jadavpur University), Prof Dina Zoe Belluigi (Queen's University Belfast), Dr Asha Achuthan (Tata Institute of Social Sciences) and Dr Ulrike M Vieten (Queen's University Belfast). For that, we are appreciative of the funding that has been awarded from the Government of India's Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration (SPARC/2019-2020/P1858/SL), and Northern Ireland's Department for the Economy (R3558SES).