Invite Papers Concept_Note

8/10/2019 Invite Papers Concept_Note

1/3

Integral Formation for Social Transformation Through Philosophy and Research Communication

CONCEPT NOTE

Identity and Social Relations within thePatterns of Democratic but TechnocraticSociety is a significant theme from

philosophical/social/cultural/political/economic/ technological perspectives. Theconcept of identity is both individual (self)and collectively characterized, shared, andconstructed by social relations oridentifications. Thus can we speak ofindividuality as identity? Or can we speakof the collective cultural identifications asidentity? Are our identities in socialrelations enabling or disenabling/falselyconstructed? Philosophers speak of thisproblem as embodied vis--visdisembodied and as Identity Syndrome.

There are vagaries of Identity and SocialRelations such as Self Identity,Cognitive/Behavioral Identity, RacialCaste, Gender, Religious Political,Ideological Identity, Territorial, NationalLinguistic, Identity, Professional Identity,Discriminated, Enslaved Identity, Minority

Identity, Collective Community Identity,Traditional, Modern, Technocratic Identity all these construct identity claims andidentity formations. These vagaries aretermed as Politics of Identity by socialscientists and Identity Representations byphilosophers. Deep down these multipleidentities and representations positproblems of Identity Crisis/Theft or FalseIdentifications. Critical thinkers critique

identity-constructions as interest-bound,hence political and being political theypromote philosophies/practices ofdomination and cultural manipulations asagainst the ethics of promoting socialrelations.

(New Delhi)


2/3


Major Issues: (i) How identity and relationsare construed and perceived withinmodern (Indian) democratic andtechnological society? (ii) How can wephilosophically position these perspectives

of identity and relationality? The questionsof Identity and Relation as mutual categoriesbecome the domain for exploration, and thisseminar is contextualized for the same.There is a need to explore the diversepossibilities of perceiving/positioningIdentity as in-differentia without losingsight of the collectivity as against anymilitantly sigularizations of identity andrelations.

The Deficiency of Modernist Democracy

What is deemed as representative democraticpolitics (of that of modernism) seems notsufficiently representative of the IndianCultural Plurality. Within Indian polity, thereseems to be both the rise and decline of theindividual and the collective.The majoritarian

representations turn out to be caste-culturalpolitics misrepresentations, hence not-sufficiently-democratic. There is a need toexplore the diverse possibilities ofperceiving/positioning Democracy as in-differentia rather than defining identity andDemocracy away from rigid categories. As suchthe paradigmatic shifts need to be theorizedand philosophically perceived as a departure

from the Euro-Centricformulations (John Locke,

J.S. Mill, Bentham, Hobbes,Rousseau etc) of democracytowards culture-specificidentifications but withoutlosing sight of themodernist frame ofenlightenment ethics.

From Democracy to Technocracy andTechnopoly: Issues

Technology increasinglychanges the face ofmodernist democracy. It

does not seem to beaugmenting pragmaticinterests towards collectivesocial progress, development andemancipatory involvements but implicit itimpels instrumental interests in favor of mereconsumerism and digital imperialism whichin turn project a new form of governance i.e.,technocracy. While democracy is national,technocracy is transnational in the sense of aglobal political culture. It is a movement from

the reification of the material conditions(modernist) towards the deification of thetechnological conditions. The development ofEuropean rationality pitched within thestructures of the knowledge such asrationalism, Empiricism, Positivism, Scientism,Economism and Technologism allied withsocial/political structures Theocracy -Aristocracy to Democracy, (now the mostmodernist version is ) and Technocracy (therule of the Technologically powerful). All these

cumulatively propel a serious sense of erosionof identity and relationality of that of thevulnerable people. Both Beyond and Betweenthe borders of democratic claims and withinboundaries technological society, the questionIdentity and Relations turn out to be all themore techno-logical, technocratic and techno-politicized. Technocracy as a form ofgovernance and technopoly as its culturalpolitics is both a state of mind (ideologicalcolonialism) and culture today along with

untold forms caste/racial/religious identities.However Traditional claims of identities andrelations and modern and technologicalprojections of identities are thus contested, re-produced, subsumed but many times arerobbed (identity-theft).


3/3


THEMES FOR PAPER PRESENTATION

o Meta-narratives of Technological Societyo

Theories of Technologyon Identity ImageProductions

o Digital Society Identity Constructso

Social Networking and Social Relationso The Rule of the Technology Powerful vs.

Democracy towards identity and relationso

The Religion of Technologyo The Collective prison of Technologyo Can Technology reproduce the human

identity?o Technologically controlled Identities, Hi-

Connect Identities,o Bio Technological Human Identity etc.o

From Democracy to Technology: Demands

and Challenges towards Identity andRelations.

o Caste, Politics, Religion Consumerism,(post) Colonialism on Identity and Social

o Relations, The politics of caste Identity

constructions.o Subaltern Identity: Dalit, Feminist, Tribal,

Indigenous Claims of Identity and SocialRelations. Nationalists Constructions,Contested Democratic Space, IdeologicalColonial Identity Manifestations.

o

Development Perspectives of IdentityandSocial Relations - Social Movements andIdentity Concerns.

o Perspectives of Identity and Social

Relations in Literature & Linguistic Claimson Dalit, Feminist and Colonial Identities.

Philosophy, Religion & Ethics Positions:

o

Philosophical Markers ofIdentity/Relations?

o Is identity predicated /attributed?o

What do we mean when we refer to theI? Is Methe I, and who is Iof Me?Is Me a bundle of the Sense or Mindperceptions? Is it a matter of experience ora physical state or a state of mind orempirical or Trans-empirical?

o If Identity is bodily, what is the sense such

identifications? Is memory an identity? Isidentity no identity at all?

o What does it mean for an object to be thesame as itself? If an object or subject does

change can the object be identified with asense of enduring-self or permanency? Isthe object same or not-same, if so what isits identity? Is my Identity the Other?

o Is the Otherness of the Other in me as My

Identity.o

What is "personal identity"? What aremarkers of identity? Is identity historical ora cultural memory? Is identity relational

o What is Religious (Buddhism) Response toTechnological Social constructions of

Identity?

Please contact

Dr. S. LourdunathanHead, Department of Philosophy

Arul Anandar College, AutonomousKarumathur625 514

Madurai

[email protected]

Phone: 9566477696
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]

Invite Papers Concept_Note

Documents

Transcript of Invite Papers Concept_Note