BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:icalendar-ruby CALSCALE:GREGORIAN X-WR-CALNAME:Repair/Maintenance: Politics of (In)completeness Graduate Stud ent Symposium X-WR-TIMEZONE:Eastern Time (US & Canada) BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260908T001541Z UID:tag:localist.com\,2008:EventInstance_52444260450475 DTSTART:20260501T130000Z DTEND:20260501T140000Z DESCRIPTION:Our world is in dire need of repair. From collapsing infrastruc tures and ecological devastation to fraying democratic institutions and lo ngue durée effects of colonial violence\, the language of repair has beco me ubiquitous to our understanding of continuity and change. Particularly in South Asia—where accelerating crises of neoliberal capitalism interse ct with totalizing forms of political power—projects of repair are every where. Scholars writing about repair have invited us to consider repair as an ongoing work by which infrastructures are “earned and re-earned” ( Jackson 2015) through everyday care\, maintenance\, and intervention\, whi le they accrete in formations comprising multiple temporalities\, historie s\, and political rationalities (Anand 2015). Infrastructures\, by their n ature of incompleteness and uneven accretions of social–material relatio ns\, constantly call forth projects of maintenance and repair. But what do es it mean to repair? Who repairs\, under what conditions\, and to what en ds? \n\nWe invite proposals from students at Cornell University\, Syracuse University\, and University of Rochester for a one-day graduate workshop\ , organized by the Cornell South Asia Program\, to think with repair as an analytic that cuts across social science and humanistic inquiry. We appro ach repair not simply as a technical solution to breakdown\, but as a mate rial and discursive practice deeply embedded in political economy\, histor ical accountability\, and struggles over democracy and equality. Thinking expansively\, this workshop aims to understand repair as operating across multiple scales and registers. Repair speaks to material concerns—roads\ , embankments\, housing\, energy systems\, ecosystems—but also to discur sive and institutional domains such as postcolonial reckoning and reparati on. Repair may signal continuity and stabilization\, reproducing existing arrangements under the guise of maintenance. At other moments\, it may ope n possibilities for rupture or refusal. Attending to repair foregrounds th e labor\, affect\, and politics involved in keeping things going\, asking when repair may foreground or foreclose certain kinds of prefigurative pol itics. The workshop aims to create an interdisciplinary space for collecti ve thinking and feedback\, welcoming work at all stages—from early conce ptual explorations to advanced drafts. Beyond the single-day event\, we ho pe this gathering will foster an ongoing conversation about how repair\, a s both practice and analytic\, can help us critically apprehend contempora ry crises and imagine more just futures in and beyond South Asia.\n\n \n\n Symposium Schedule\n\n9:00-9:05 Welcome\n\nSarah Besky (Global Labor and W ork\, Cornell University)\n\n \n\n9:05-10:45 Panel 1: Labor\, Environment\ , and the Politics of (Re)Production \n\nFruit King\, Super Fast: The Poli tics and Labor of Perishability in Himachal's Apple Economy \n\nParijat Jh a (Anthropology\, Cornell University) \n\nHydromodernity at Her Expense: G endered Labor and the Politics of Environmental Decline at Manchar Lake \n \nSarah Hussain (History\, Tufts University)\n\nMaking Place\, Making Live lihood: Ethnic Enclaves as Resistance \n\nZanaya Hussain (Industrial and L abor Relations\, Cornell University)\n\nStrengthening Food Transfers for M aternal Health and Nutrition: Evidence from Rural India\n\nSumedha Minocha (Applied Economics & Management\, Cornell University)\n\nChair/Discussant : Ashawari Chaudhuri (Science & Technology Studies\, Cornell University)\n \n \n\n11:00-12:15 Panel 2: State Repair: Technology\, Law\, and Governanc e \n\n“Maintenance is our middle name”: Computer Repair Expertise and the Indian State\, 1975-91\n\nJai Vipra (Science & Technology Studies\, Co rnell University)\n\n“Broken Laws” - India’s Reckoning and Repair of Colonial-Era Legal Statutes\n\nMohona Ganguly (Public Administration\, Sy racuse University)\n\nRepairing Indian Education System: Can AI Help in th is Process?\n\nDeepak Dennison (Information Science\, Cornell University)\ n\nChair/Discussant: Sarah Thompson (Government\, Cornell University)\n\n \n\n1:15-2:30 Panel 3: Memory\, Space\, and the Politics of Restoration \n \nMythological Repair: Babri Demolition\, Sacred Labor\, and the Architect ure of Hindutva\n\nSara Ather (Architecture\, Cornell University)\n\nTipto eing Histories: Recuperating the Bagh as a Bagh\n\nYakin Kinger (Architect ure\, Cornell University)\n\nRepairing the Colonial Archive: Francis Bucha nan-Hamilton’s Botanical Illustrations and the Making of Imperial Knowle dge in Nepal\n\nPraagya Khand (Art and Music Histories\, Syracuse Universi ty)\n\nChair/Discussant: Ayesha Matthan (History of Art\, Cornell Universi ty)\n\n \n\nThis symposium is supported by a grant from the Central New Yo rk Humanities Corridor. GEO:42.44799;-76.491318 LOCATION:Kahin Center SUMMARY:Repair/Maintenance: Politics of (In)completeness Graduate Student S ymposium URL;VALUE=URI:https://events.cornell.edu/event/repairmaintenance CATEGORIES:Symposium END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR