Delhi Symposium
Desert Disorders Symposium, Delhi, 2024
The first Desert Disorders Symposium took place 10-11 December, 2024 in Delhi. It was hosted by the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, in collaboration with the British Academy funded project, Desert Disorders.
Thematic Focus and Rationale
Deserts and arid regions present affordances and challenges to modern forms of governance over space, populations, production and trade that are dependent on an understanding of desert and arid regions as marginal, extreme and frontier, whether within or beyond the colony/nation. On the one hand, deserts create natural boundaries through their apparently inhospitable, sparsely populated and unproductive landscapes. Deserts and arid regions are frequently held to exist apart from, and in distinction to, normative territories and populations. On the other hand, desert topographies resist the establishment of borders, whether cartographically or in situ, creating a porosity that defies the idea of a line in the sand. These regions have been places in which colonial models of governance and law were challenged and compromised. Existing desert research, however, tends to reiterate the marginalisation of these regions, regarding them as a geographic and topographic category. In travel and ethnographic narratives, deserts recede to provide backdrops. Desert societies are frequently understood as marginal and exceptional to a dominant socio-economic and political order. This symposium seeks to challenge these narratives.
Responding to Samia Henni’s provocation that ‘Deserts are not empty’, participants contributed papers that resituated desert and arid regions in colonial and postcolonial historical, social, cultural and political production.
Programme & Activities
Schedule and Activities
9 December
5pm: informal walk around Lodhi Gardens for anyone who would like to join.
10 December
9.30 -10.30am: Welcome, Introductions and Preliminary Remarks (led by Farhana Ibrahim)
10.30am – 12.00pm: Presentations (Chaired by Farhana Ibrahim)
Nisha Paliwal, ‘Green Extractivism and Unjust Transition: Imagining Post-fossil Futures in Thar Desert.’
Suraj Pratap Singh Bhati, ‘Energy potential or acquisition potential? Exploring energy transition in the Thar, Western India.’
Jama Musse Jama, ‘In semi-arid Somaliland, physical and imaginative spaces are not shrinking, but rather transforming.’
12.00 -1.30pm: Lunch
1.30 – 3.00pm: Presentations (Chaired by Katherine Baxter)
Neha Meena, ‘Pastoralism beyond culture: Affective human-animal relations in the Thar desert.’
Tirsit Yetbarek Seme, ‘“Not a clueless wonder”: Nomadism natural and dynamic livelihood in the desert and arid region’.
Arundhathi Padmanabhan, ‘Beyond the Human: Mobility and More-Than-Human Relationships in Desert Landscapes of Benyamin’s “Goat Days”’.
3.00 – 3.30pm: Tea and Coffee Break
3.30 – 5.00pm: Round Table Discussion (led by Christina Woolner)
7.00pm – conference dinner at Amaltas, M-25, First Floor, Greater Kailash-2, M-Block Market, New Delhi, Delhi 110048.
11 December
9.30 – 11.00am: Desert Times Workshop: Temporality, Narration and Agency
11.00-11.30: Tea and Coffee Break
11.30 – 1.00pm: Presentations (Chaired by Deborah Sutton)
Bharat Hun, ‘Cumin: A “risk” crop which created a disorder in the Thar desert’
Rohit Jha, ‘Locusts, Trans-Imperial Networks, and the Desert in Late Colonial South Asia.’
Lalit Kumar, ‘Continuity and change in colonial and post-colonial Thar Region: Comparing the implications of Ganga Canal and Indira Gandhi Canal.’
1.00 – 2.00pm: Lunch
2.00 – 3.30pm: Presentations (Chaired by Christina Woolner)
Razak Khan, ‘Desert Islam: Ecology, Materiality, and Affect’
Richard Atimniraye Nyelade, ‘Resituating Marginalized Communities in Somaliland: The Impact of Arab and Western Imperialisms on the Gaboye Community.’
Muhammed Shahin, ‘The Role of Deserts in Guerrilla Warfare: Case Studies from North African Independence and Resistance.’
3.30 – 4.00pm: Tea and Coffee Break
4.00 – 5.00pm Round Table Discussion (led by Katherine Baxter)
12 December
Informal walk around old city.
Venue Details