Tue 03 Apr 2018

Double East: Culture as Politics in India, Russia and Turkey

The roundtable discussion “Double East: Culture as Politics in India, Russia and Turkey” took place on 19 July 2017 at the Forum Transregionale Studien, Berlin and was part of the workshop “Culture as Politics” convened by Ilya Kalinin (Prisma Ukraïna Fellow 2017; State University St. Petersburg)

Speakers (from left to right): Venugopal Maddipati (Art Histories Fellow 2016/17; Ambedkar University, Delhi), Banu Karaca (EUME Fellow 2016/17; Art Histories Fellow 2015/16), Ilya Kalinin (Prisma Ukraïna Fellow 2017; State University St. Petersburg), Georges Khalil (Forum Transregionale Studien; EUME).

Culture has become not only an important economic factor but also an essential tool for the state to manage the social order, for the reproduction of symbolic hegemony and for identity politics. Looking at the examples of Russia, Poland and others, this workshop asks whether culture still has any emancipatory potential when it has largely been appropriated by conservative discourse, populist politics and the neoliberal market. The concluding panel discussion will look at India, Russia and Turkey and examine the uses of ‘culture’ in strengthening (or inhibiting) currently growing political authoritarian tendencies.

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