101. Theorizing Photography from Global South Asia

What does it mean to write histories of photography from a postcolonial location like the Indian subcontinent, which simultaneously remains marginal in dominant discourses on the medium and sustains an uneasy relationship with the repertoire of global modernism? The answer seems obvious. Yet, this historiography over the last three decades, with a handful of exceptions, broadly demonstrates a pattern of epistemic hierarchy, in which the colony supplies the archives and the metropole provides the theoretical framework for metacognition. This schema simultaneously reinforces Eurocentric universality and the perceived binary between theory and practice–as if “theory” exists in a historical and intellectual vacuum and is summoned to explain any empirical situation. This practice persists in art-historical thinking, especially in histories of photography, despite the method of provincializing dominating postcolonial thought over the last twenty-five years. For example, the Kodak Box Brownie is routinely cited as universally democratizing because of its affordability, when empirical evidence shows that India never had a comparable Brownie moment.

This day-long panel, with 6 research papers and a facilitated debate, emphasizes the intertwined relationship theory/archive, rethinks its location, and nurtures the practice of theorization by examining a range of photographic practices from India that are both cosmopolitan and historically specific. In doing so, the panel intervenes in the ongoing conversations around “theory from the South.”

The panel invites conceptual, methodological, and archival insights from global South Asia, including the diaspora, that may reflect on archival politics, techno-material and/or genre-specific histories, witnessing, belonging, mnemonics, publics, and beyond.

Themes: South Asia, photography, theory/archive

Additional format comment: The format is a mix of research papers and alternative format: research papers and a facilitated debate at the end.

Lead Convenor: Ranu Roychoudhuri, Associate Professor, Ahmedabad University, India

Co-convenors: Suryanandini Narain, Assistant Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India

To submit a Paper to this Session, please follow the guidance on our website and complete the AAH 2027 Call for Papers Proposal Submission Form.