Semester Two Seminar Series
Space, Politics and Postcolonial Representations
Anoma Pieris, Convener of this semester's seminar series
Through September the IPCS will be presenting a seminar seriesdirectly concerned with issues of space, focused on built andphysical representations and practices related to postcolonial environments. The seminars explore the national processes andidentity politics resulting from postcolonial conditions and are organised geographically. They combine the work of senior and junior scholars including postgraduate students in panels that address topical issues related to space. The objective of this series is to examine interdisciplinary cross-fertilisation between several fields, including history, geography, literature and politics with the studyof architecture and urbanism.
September 4
Panel on Malaysia
Chaired by Joel Kahn, Emeritus Professor, Latrobe University
John Ting
"Colonialism and the Sarawak Government: Institutional Buildings andSettlement Patterns from 1841 – 1941"
British colonial institutions and urban plans in Southeast Asiaduring the mid-19th century typically replicated elite, Europeanarchitectural templates that contrasted with or adapted indigenousmodels so as to convey colonial authority. However, the institutionsand settlement patterns of the white rajahs of colonial Sarawakevolved from an awareness of the local context, and willingly engagedwith local cultural systems and practices. The acknowledgement ofindigenous peoples as collaborators and partners and theirindependence from Britain produced quite a different kindof 'colony'.John Ting is a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Architecture atMelbourne University. He is also a part-time architect in Melbourne,and has practised architecture in Malaysia and Australia.
Maloti Ray
"Ethnic Representations and Kuala Lumpur City Streets"
This paper uses Kuala Lumpur as a case study for linking ethnicpolitics to representative spaces, across three city streets incentral Kuala Lumpur. Inter-ethnic, inter-institutional, inter-classnegotiations and segregations emerge in the analysis of street uses.Each of the three streets is representative of a differentdevelopmental stage of this young city.Maloti Ray works within the intersections of critical urban theoryand the history of Kuala Lumpur, with ancillary research approachesderived from architectural history, geography, sociology and culturalstudies. Prior to her PhD candidature, she studied architecture at The University of Melbourne and Limkokwing Institute in Malaysia and has practised as an architect.
September 11
Panel on Australia
Chaired by Maria Tumarkin, (Institute for Social Research, SwinburneUniversity of Technology)
Janet McGaw and Emily Potter.
"The Poetics and Politics of Sustainable Place-making in PostcolonialAustralia"
Australia is currently marked by a culture of unsustainable place,and the dominant techno-scientific responses to what is manifestingas a social and environmental crisis are proving inadequate. Thepresentation will consider this concern through the question of place-making. It begins with the proposition that traditions of place-making that have excluded marginal discourses (both human and non-human) are symptomatic of postcolonial Australia, as well asimplicated in the decline of sustainable communities and environments.Janet McGaw is a part-time lecturer in Architectural Design at theUniversity of Melbourne. She holds a B.Arch(Hons), a M.Arch byDesign and a Ph.D by Creative Works.Dr Emily Potter is an ARC Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Facultyof Architecture at the University of Melbourne.
Michelle Duffy
"Listening: Sound Silence Space"
Edward Casey has argued that a cartographic approach to understandingspace - very much part of the colonialist project - means little morethan pinpointing things or events on a grid. Rather, what is requiredis a mapping that enables us to enter and reconnect to theidiosyncrasies of relationships between people and place. Accordingto David Abrahms, we should simply "pay attention to its rhythms andtextures, not to capture or control it but simply to become familiarwith its diverse modes of appearance". Drawing on research that usesthe technique of listening, this seminar explores how the bodyinteracts with and inhabits place, in ways that, as Susan Smithsuggests, "bring spaces, peoples, places `into form.'"Michelle Duffy is a cultural geographer based at the AustralianCentre, University of Melbourne. Her research interests include thesignificance of music, sound and performance to ideas of place,belonging and alienation.
September 18
Panel on Indonesia
Chaired by Ariel Heryanto (Program Convenor of Indonesian Studies atthe Asia Institute, University of Melbourne.)
Jeffrey Lewis
"To Be Announced"
Jeffrey Lewis is Associate Professor of Media and Cultural Studies atRMIT and Associate Dean (Research and Innovation): Design and SocialContext Portfolio.
Amanda Achmadi
"The Architecture of Balinisation: Writings on Architecture, theVillages and the Construction of Balinese Cultural Identity in the20th Century"
This paper investigates the role of architecture and discourses aboutarchitecture in the making of Balinese cultural identity in the 20thcentury. It describes how writings on traditional Balinesearchitecture were part of a broader process through which aputatively authentic Bali was configured in contrast to the conceivedinauthentic "West" and a modernised and urban Java.Amanda Achmadi received her doctorate in Architecture and AsianStudies from the University of.Melbourne.
Eka Permanasari
"Postcolonial Nation, identity and space: Interrogating state architecture and urban forms in Indonesia"
This paper discusses the fluid identity over meaning and use of certain monuments and public places in Jakarta in relation to the formation of the postcolonial nation, identity and space. It investigates the establishment of postcolonial identity through architecture and urban forms and the ways in which the represented symbolism has consistently been contested over time by two mainforces: successive regimes' different approaches and everyday life.
Eka Permanasari obtained her Doctoral degree from the University ofMelbourne in Architecture and Urban Design.
September 25
Panel on Sri Lanka
Chaired by Phillip Darby (Director, Institute ofPostcolonial Studies)
Michael Roberts
"Tamil Tigers: Sacrificial symbolism and `dead body' politics"
Scholars and journalists often mistakenly treat the Liberation Tigersof Tamil Eelam (LTTE, or Tamil Tigers) as a "secular organisation".Yet the LTTE's goal of setting up a secular state needs to beunderstood alongside its innovative project of commemorative rites,as well as the iconography and embodied practices associated withthese rituals and other related activities. The effect ofinstituting the deification of humans is to sacralise localities withtheir dead. The LTTE does not, therefore, have to place icons ofChrist or Siva on the tombstones and cenotaphs in order toinvoke "religious" principles. The seed metaphor and the manyembodied practices of grieving kin, as well as their iconographyconvey the idea that fallen fighters are an embodiment of sakti –divine essence or cosmic energy.Michael Roberts is a Sri Lankan Australian and Adjunct AssociateProfessor at the University of Adelaide.
Anoma Pieris
"Avian Geographies: Understanding ethno-nationalism in medieval Lanka"
Does the concept of a bounded national geography predate modernityand colonisation in South Asia? Does it carry with it particularinternal processes and prejudices that have withstood decolonisation?Was it produced through an urban imagination? The 15 sandesha kavyas(message poems) studied in this project describe a secular landscape,naming villages, rivers, fields and forests and identifying templesand shrines along the journey. They collectively map a pre-colonialethno-nationalist project predicated on various interpretations ofterritory, of mythical parallelism, of centre and periphery and of anisland nation.Anoma Pieris teaches at the University of Melbourne. Her book HiddenHands and Divided Landscapes: The Penal History of a Plural Society,will be published in April 2009 as part of the Institute's WritingPast Colonialism series with Hawaii University Press.
Seminar Dates:4th, 11th, 18th and 25th September
All seminars start at 7pm and will be heldat the Institute of Postcolonial Studies, 78-80 Curzon St, North Melbourne, VIC 3051.
Charges: Waged $5, Unwaged $3,Members free.
