The workshop ‘Precariously Yours: Gender, Class, and Urbanity in Contemporary Shanghai’ took place between December 4-6 2014 in various locations in Shanghai. In this workshop we have extended the notion of precarity towards the domains of gender, love and sexuality. The topic ‘single women’ served as a prism to explore the complexities which surround precarity, urbanity and class. The HERA SINGLE members and their invited guests aimed at answering the following questions: How do single women negotiate the multiple expectations and demands that society imposes upon them? What are their tactics of resistance against normative gender roles and expectations? How do they negotiate the gendering of urban space? How to love in a city that never stays the same? How to navigate through the city, as a young woman without getting lost or feeling unsafe? How to imagine the city as a more intimate and fragile space? What is to be lost and gained in remaining a single woman?
The workshop zoomed in on how tropes like shengnü (leftover women) can be read as imaginations of a ‘new’ Asian femininity, how different modes of love and desire are explored in diverse creative and sexual cultures in Asian cities, and how art and activism attempt to intervene in hegemonic understandings of love, gender and sexuality.

Here you can download the programme flyer of the SINGLE workshop (Pdf, 0.4 Mb).

 
Further information

– Workshop Concept Note

– Workshop Programme

– Abstracts

Impressions from the Shanghai workshop (December 4-6 2014) and the art exhibition (December 6′, 2014)

The plot of the movie is set in Bundelkhand, India, where a revolution is in the making among the poorest of the poor, as the fiery women of the Gulabi Gang empower themselves and take up the fight against gender violence, caste oppression and widespread corruption. Led by the energetic and charismatic Sampat Pal, they travel long distances to fight for the rights of women and Dalits, a group of people traditionally regarded as untouchable. They encounter resistance, apathy and corruption, even ridicule. Sometimes whole villages connive against them to protect the perpetrators of violence. While the movie portraits Gulabi Gang members struggling against gender violence and state corruption, it also shows the flip side – members getting sucked by the trappings of their new found power. Breaking away from the deep-rooted patriarchal structure is a challenge even for the most fearless amongst them. The film pulls us into the centre of these blazing conflicts and uncovers a complex story, disturbing yet heartening. It was awarded, amongst many others, with prizes at film festivals such as the New York India Film Festival, Dubai International Film Festival or the Tri-Continental Film Festival (South Africa).

The filmmaker Nishtha Jain graduated from the Jamia Mass Communication Centre in New Delhi. She worked as an editor and correspondent for video news magazines Newstrack and Eyewitness before she studies at the Film and Television Institute of India, specializing in film direction. From her first film City of Photos in 2004 to Gulabi Gang in 2012, she has been exploring the human condition in its myriad states. As a result, her films have dealt with a broad range of topics, such as complexities of social hierarchies and the middle-class sense of entitlement and privilege or women’s movements and social change. Also, politics of image-making and nature of memory, as well as ethical implications of documentary filmmaking have also been addressed in her work. Her films have been shown extensively in international film festivals and occasionally in art exhibitions. They have won several prestigious awards and been broadcast on international TV networks and regularly shown in schools and colleges in India and abroad.

The film screening will be introduced by Roos Gerritsen, lecturer at the Institute of Anthropology at Heidelberg University, who will also moderate the question and answer session with Nishtha Jain following the screening. The event is financed by the HERA-project “SINGLE” and the South Asia Institute (SAI) of Heidelberg University.

Watch the film trailer on YouTube

Shanghai Workshop (Flyer)

Programme flyer on the SINGLE workshop!

Programme flyer on the SINGLE workshop 'Precariously Yours: Gender, Class, and Urbanity in Contemporary Shanghai', which took place in Shanghai in December 2014.

Awarded Film “Gulabi Gang” in Karlstorkino

The movie “The Gulabi Gang” (2014) by Indian filmmaker Nishtha Jain will be shown at the Karlstorkino on November 15, 2014.

The movie “The Gulabi Gang” (2014) by Indian filmmaker Nishtha Jain will be shown at the Karlstorkino on November 15, 2014. The event is organised by the Humanities in the European Research Area (HERA) project “SINGLE” initiated by Prof. Dr. Christiane Brosius.

Meeting with Prof. Saraswati Raju (June 16, 2014)

At the meeting with SINGLE project members she elaborated on the entanglement of employment, space and gender and the role of location for gendered practices.

At the meeting with SINGLE project members she elaborated on the entanglement of employment, space and gender and the role of location for gendered practices.

Meeting with Arunava Dasgupta (June 3, 2014)

Arunava Dasgupta talked to SINGLE Project members about issues of safety in and identified ‘problem areas’ in Delhi.

Arunava Dasgupta talked to SINGLE Project members about issues of safety in and identified ‘problem areas’ in Delhi.

Meeting with Prof. Aparna Rayaprol (May 6, 2014)

Prof. Rayaprol met with SINGLE project members to discuss the different waves of feminism in India and shared her concerns about the current gender politics.

Prof. Rayaprol met with SINGLE project members to discuss the different waves of feminism in India and shared her concerns about the current gender politics.

HRA Workshop 2014

The HRA workshop took place from April 14-16, 2014 at the Karl Jaspers Centre in Heidelberg.

The HRA workshop took place from April 14-16, 2014 at the Karl Jaspers Centre in Heidelberg. Coordinated by Prof. Christiane Brosius, the workshop trained the SINGLE Project members in using the metadata framework Tamboti, in Annotating Images and videos, and in using multimedia libraries.

Kick-Off-Workshop 2013

The Beginning of SINGLE!

The Kick-off workshop took place from December 5-7, 2013 at the Karl Jaspers Centre in Heidelberg. During the workshop all individual projects were presented, common key terms were defined, publication strategies and possible cooperation with individuals and institutions were discussed. Moreover, the dates for the next workshops were scheduled, the content of upcoming workshop in Shanghai was outlined and possibilities for joint fieldwork were selected.