Concept Note & CFP on

Crisis and Hope in Contemporary South Asia

Crisis can be understood as any event or a series of events that disrupts, destabilizes, and threatens the everyday individual, social, and political order, leading to moments of transition and transformation that are often challenging to comprehend. The past few decades have witnessed an unprecedented accruement of crises on a planetary scale manifesting as economic and environmental exploitation, geopolitical conflicts, pandemics and public health emergencies, and financial and economic turmoil, making the world an increasingly volatile and uncertain space.

Within this larger context, the notion of crisis has permeated our everyday lives in South Asia as well. Growing social and political unrest have also fostered a pervasive sense of cultural unease, social malaise and dis-ease with our selves along with the proliferation of various dissenting voices in society in the form of social uprisings, protests, and movements. In this sense, crisis can also be understood as a catalyst which generates a proliferating network of connections, fostering previously unfathomable bonds of intimacy, solidarity, and collaboration among individuals, institutions, and societies. Though crises exacerbate vulnerabilities within existing systems and intensify inequalities, they may also act as stimulants for many enabling and empowering innovations, pushing the economic agents to remodel economic systems and prioritize social well-being. Working together to address the resultant issues of the crisis helps in building better and resilient societies.

This edition of the graduate research meet intends to dwell on the importance of perceiving the entanglements between different kinds of crises and their repercussions on economic, social, cultural, and psychological realms of the everyday. We seek to analyse from an interdisciplinary perspective, the causes and implications of the contemporary discourse of crisis and hope in contemporary South Asia. We are interested in scrutinising the interrelation between these ideas and the multifaceted significations of these terms, and how they get constructed in individual, local, national, and transnational contexts through the themes outlined below:

• Crisis, Trauma, and Hope in Contemporary South Asian Fiction
• Gendered Experiences of Trauma and Violence
• Crisis of Climate Change and Eco-consciousness
• Queer identities/sexualities in Crisis
• Testimonial and Postcolonial Literature: Bearing Witness to Crisis
• Pandemic/Post-Pandemic Narratives of Crisis Crisis, Urbanity, and Livelihood
• Greening the Economy via Energy Transition
• Behavioural Economics of Hope
• Macroeconomic Management in times of Crisis
• Economic Geographies of Migration 
• Strengthening Global Financial Networks amidst Crises
• Mental Health and Wellbeing in Times of Crisis
• Collective Trauma and Social Healing
• Behavioural Approaches to Rebuilding and Recovery
• Behavioural Addictions as a Crisis of the Self and Society
• Digital hope: Technological interventions in Well Being

Application process: We invite abstracts from research scholars and postgraduate students in humanities and social sciences. Please submit an abstract of 300 words and a bio-note of 50 words here by 25 August 2025.

Click here to apply  https://forms.gle/u1VrXKLCZ4Yt5uDQ9

Registration: The registration is free. Registered participants will be provided accommodation in IIT Bhilai from 6 to 7 November 2025, lunch and dinner on 7 November 2025.

Dates to Remember: Application: 1 to 25 August 2025

Intimation of selection: 10 September 2025

Registration: 12 to 20 September 2025

Submission of working drafts: 15 October 2025

GRM: 7 November 2025

Organising Committee: Dr Sruthi Vinayan, Assistant Professor, Department of Liberal Arts, IIT Bhilai Dr Sreelakshmi R, Assistant Professor, Department of Liberal Arts, IIT Bhilai Ms Chandrani Sanyal, Research Scholar, Department of Liberal Arts, IIT Bhilai Ms Lipsa Mariya Jose, Research Scholar, Department of Liberal Arts, IIT Bhilai

Contact details: In case of queries, please feel free to write to us at symposia_la@iitbhilai.ac.in