Institutional email: s.tariq0720181@arts.ac.uk
How far do
colonial subjectivities pervade the oral archives of the partitioned Indian
subcontinent? How can practices of listening impact the production of such
archives?
This research aims to interrogate the diverse oral historical
practices that frame the 1947 Partition by listening to and attending to their
archival constructions. Voice has become central to the making of Partition,
and South Asian, history after decolonisation. My research therefore aims to
refocus on Partition according to its sonic traces. My investigation into the
“artefactualisation” of voices seeks to reveal whether a colonial politics of
subjectivisation pervades their making, characterising the ways in which
certain voices are selected, recorded, presented and curated. I intend to
articulate potential practices of listening to such archives – important seats
of knowledge and sites of historical value embedded with their own specific
politics and processes of material reproduction.