The origins of ‘indigenous psychology’ go back mainly to Asia during the 1990s. Its declared objective is to arrive at psychologies which, unlike the American mainstream, are adapted to the needs o...

On the rise and decline of ‘indigenous psychology’:

: Water is essential to human survival and, with the passing of time, natural sources of freshwater supply are rapidly diminishing throughout the world. Because this realization is becoming more and more prevalent, the human survival instinct is prompting competition and conflict over water resourcing worldwide especially in regions like that of the Indus River to include India and Pakistan; and the Mekong River system encompassing China, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, and Burma.The research agenda generated from this topic will strive to answer the following question, What factors have led to state competition and conflict over diminishing water resources and what are the resulting consequences? A direct comparison of the Indus and Mekong regions shows the relational challenges and successes of the riparian countries involved and the role of China as an upstream water partner. Does China have the power over water to politically control downstream nations and, if so, is China leveraging this power to advance its own interests? The answers to these questions are explored in the following research study.

State Water Resource Competition and the Resulting Consequences of Diminished Water Supply

Diese Diplomarbeit beschaftigt sich mit dem Thema der Reprasentation weiblicher Rollenbilder zur Zeit der Teilung von Indien und Pakistan in Romanen sudasiatischer Autorinnen. Nachdem Frauen anfangs fast komplett aus der Geschichtschreibung der indisch/pakistanischen Unabhangigkeit ausgeklammert wurden, wurde ihnen spater vor allem die Rolle des Opfers von korperlicher Gewalt zugeschrieben. Erst allmahlich wird bekannt, dass Frauen auch eine Vielzahl anderer Erfahrungen hatten zu dieser Zeit. 
Da konventionelle Geschichtsschreibung meist hegemonial mannlich besetzt ist, wird die weibliche Sicht oft unterdruckt. Deshalb wird in dieser Diplomarbeit auf fiktionale Romane zuruckgegriffen. Diese Romane sind eine wichtige Erganzung zu den sonst wohlbekannten politischen und sozialen Ereignisse von damals. In der sudasiatische Literatur werden diese Romane einem eigenen Genre zugeordnet, das man als Partition Literature oder Partition fiction bezeichnet.
Im ersten Teil der Arbeit wird zuerst ein historischer Abriss der Geschichte Sudasiens wiedergegeben, um den historischen und sozialen Hintergrund der ausgewahlten Romane zu erklaren. Anschliesend werden verschiedene postkoloniale und feministische Theorien vorgestellt, anhand derer die ausgewahlten Romane analysiert werden sollen. Hier ist vor allem Gayatri Chakravorty Spivaks Aufsatz Can the Subaltern Speak? von Bedeutung, sowie die Idee der Doppelkolonisation (double colonisation) von Frauen und die Frage ob der Feminismus der Ersten Welt (first world feminism) berechtigt ist Frauen der Dritten Welt (third world women) zu reprasentieren.
Die Analyse der Werke erfolgt im zweiten Teil der Arbeit. Hier sollen vor allem die Unterschiede der weiblichen Reprasentationen hervorgehoben werden. Auserdem wird auf die Frage eingegangen ob die ausgewahlten weiblichen Protagonisten, als Subalterne, sich selbst vertreten konnen (agency) und fur sich selbst sprechen (voice) konnen. Im Bezug auf autobiographische Zuge der Autorinnen wird auserdem gezeigt, inwiefern diese sudasiatischen Frauen in ihren Romanen komplexe und vielfaltige weibliche Rollen reprasentieren und ihre Texte dadurch fur ein breiteres Publikum zuganglich machen. 
Die Romane, welche zur Analyse herangezogen wurden, sind: Cracking India (1991) von Bapsi Sidhwa, Fireflies in the Mist (1994) von Qurratulain Hyder, Sunlight on a Broken Column (1961) von Attia Hosain und Clear Light of Day (1980) von Anita Desai. Um zu einem aussagekraftigen Ergebnis zu gelangen war es wichtig, dass auch die Autorinnen der gewahlten Romane unterschiedliche Frauenbilder reprasentieren. Sie unterscheiden sich nicht nur in ihrer Nationalitat (nach der Teilung Britisch Indiens), sondern auch in ihrer Religionszugehorigkeit und manch anderen Faktoren. Die Frauen, die sie in ihren Romanen beschreiben, sind haufig eine autobiographische Reflexion, in jedem Falle aber individuelle Portrats von selbstbewussten, modernen Frauen, die von sich selbst und ihren Erlebnissen und Emotionen erzahlen.

The representation of women during the time of partition in novels of South Asian women writers

The 1947 Partition of British India marked the birth of two new nations and yet, at the same time, it was one of the largest human mass migrations in modern history (Butalia,
2000). While this historical turning point has given rise to the literary genre of Partition fiction, notable early works in English, such as Train to Pakistan (1956) by Khushwant
Singh (1915-2014) and Sunlight on a Broken Column (1961) by Attia Hosain (1913-1998), focused mainly on macroscopic issues such as religious differences and socio-political
unrest. This study, instead, aims to examine literary depictions of engendered violence against women set during the 1947 Partition of India, described by Butalia (100) as one of Partition’s “hidden” histories. It subsequently aims to discover the role of socio-cultural attitudes in stifling the voices of marginalised parties, notably those of women, in mainstream Partition narratives. In this study, engendered violence is described as a violation of women’s bodies, sexualities and psyches by men in general, carried out in various forms such as abduction, rape, honour killings, forced prostitution, forced marriages, forced religious conversions and bodily mutilations. That being said, this study shall focus solely on female characters depicted as victims of such violence in two selected
texts of Partition fiction in English. The texts chosen for this topic are the novels Cracking India (1991) by Bapsi Sidhwa (b. 1938) and Partitions (2011) by Amit Majmudar (b.
 1979). Both texts are examined based on a textual analysis method as the scope is narrowed down to scenes in the novels where various forms of engendered violence against women during Partition are depicted by the authors. By applying a “new Partition” approach initially identified by Rosemary Marangoly George(2007), this study utilises the works of “new Partition scholars”, namely Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin (1998) as well as Urvashi Butalia (2000) in delineating the concept of engendered violence against women during Partition as depicted in the selected texts. The study reveals that engendered violence against women during Partition, whether inflicted by men of the enemy or by men from within the community, has been depicted in various forms in the selected texts. In Cracking India, these include the abduction of Ayah, Hamida and the inmates of the Recovered Women’s Camp; the rape of Ayah and the Muslim women of Pir Pindo; the forced prostitution as well as the forced marriage and the forced religious conversion of Ayah, as well as the mutilated breasts of Muslim women on the train from Gurdaspur. On the other hand, in Partitions, these include the botched honour killing of Simran; the abduction of Simran and the human traffickers’ other female victims; the rape of Simran; the attempted forced prostitution of Simran and the human traffickers’ other
female victims, as well as the mutilated Sikh women of Rawalpindi. All the aforementioned textual evidence reflects the common perception of the time, place and society that views women as symbolic constructions of male honour.

Engendered violence against women during partition in Bapsi Sidhwa's Cracking India and Amit Majmudar's partitions

In this thesis, I apply insights from collective memory studies to poststructuralist IR in order to enhance understanding of how popular culture operates in processes of discursive identity construction. More specifically, I rely on Grant David Bollmer’s (2011) argument that repetition is key when attempting to keep certain memories from being forgotten. Using this theoretical framework, I analyze the following four films and TV-series on Norwegian resistance during World War Two as rituals of embodied movement: Operation Swallow: The Battle for Heavy Water (1948), Nine Lives (1957), Max Manus (2008) and The Heavy Water War (2015). The analysis demonstrates how these films and TV-series in large part reproduce and naturalize dominant representations of Norwegian identity by keeping certain memories of World War Two in Norway actualized. They represent wartime resistance and Norwegian identity along four main lines. These are: Norway as important for the outcome of the war, Norway as ‘not’ Germany, Norway as rural in its essence and Norway as cold hardy and beautiful. Interestingly, all four representational themes function to reinforce bedrock assumptions of Norwegian moral superiority, and as such, contribute to the perpetuation of the grand narratives of Norwegian identity. Importantly, arguing that Bollmer’s theory on collective memory and rituals of embodied movement should be used as a criterion for the selection of text when analyzing popular culture as discourse, I join the efforts of poststructuralists who advocate moderate methodological advances for the approach.

Ritualistic Remembrance - Films and TV-series about resistance during World War Two and the construction of Norwegian identity

This contribution focuses on the Indian experience of the Partition. The personal and shared (i.e., social) memories regarding the history of India and Pakistan will inform the examination of the temporal dimension of the Partition, i.e., its "roots". Tracing the re-established and new interconnections in terms of trade, travel, transportation, and communication between India and Pakistan along his- torical lines gives insight into the spatial dimension of the Partition's aftermath, i.e. its "routes". The main argument of this analysis is that the traumata resulting from the Partition are still not overcome and contain the potential for explosive conflicts in the future. *****

Roots and Routes: The Partition of British India in Indian Social Memories

In response to “Jagged 85’s” interference and Adrian Brock’s essay the first part of this contribution refers to psychological knowledge and practices outside the European and North American canon of academic psychology that tend to be lumped together under the term “indigenous”. A distinction between “textual”, “subaltern” and “synergetic” forms of indigenous psychologies is suggested. The second part highlights the agency of Indian academic psychologists and their attempts to “indigenize” academic psychology. The conclusion advocates the institutionalization of unified social science studies programmes.

Christiane Hartnack

Papers

Roots and Routes: The Partition of British India in Indian Social Memories

Presentism and Difference: On the Inclusion of Indigenous Psychologies in the History of Psychology