Navigating Shomoyscapes Temporality and Faculty Life in Dhaka, Bangladesh
A Webinar featuring
Riyad Shahjahan (Associate Professor, College of Education, MSU)
Tasnmi Ema (undergraduate student, Dept. of Anthropology, University of Dhaka)
Nisharggo Niloy (alumnus, Dept. of Anthropology, University of Dhaka)
Thursday, January 13, 2022, 10:00am-11:30am EST on Zoom
Free registration at https://muslimstudies.isp.msu.edu/about/reg-links
Drawing on interviews and participant observations with 22 faculty in Dhaka, Bangladesh, we illuminate how academics experience, contest and manipulate their time(s) amid rapid socio-economic transformations of Dhaka (a mega-city). We aim to decenter the Global North knowledge production about temporality in higher education literature by introducing and applying a culturally sustaining concept of ‘shomoyscapes.’ While the Bengali word ‘shomoy’ literally means ‘time,’ it goes beyond ‘clock time,’ and also refers to memories, present moments, feelings, a particular duration, and/or signifier for a temporal engagement. We demonstrate the efficacy of shomoyscapes by illuminating how faculty in Bangladesh experience various temporal forces, such as: a) traffic, b) university politics, and c) the future of others. We conclude with implications about the complex temporal constraints at work within an urban Global South context and a rapidly growing HE system in South Asia.
Cosponsored by the Asian Studies Center, College of Education, and Global Studies in the Arts & Humanities.