Fwd: Call for Proposals: Sarai-CSDS Independent Research Fellowships

>From: The Sarai Programme <[email protected]>
>To: [email protected]
>Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 12:23:10 +0530
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>CALL FOR PROPOSALS - SARAI-CSDS INDEPENDENT FELLOWSHIPS, 2004-05
>
>Applications Invited for Independent Research Fellowships
>The Sarai Programme, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi
>
>Sarai is a public initiative of media practitioners and scholars looking
>at media cultures and urban life. Sarai's interests are in the field of
>old and new media, information and communication technologies, free
>software, cinema, and urban space –its politics, built form, ecology,
>culture and history–with a strong commitment to making knowledge
>available in the public domain. Sarai is a programme of the Centre for
>the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi. (For more information, visit
><http://www.sarai.net/>)
>
>*Who Can Apply? *
>Sarai invites independent researchers, media practitioners, software
>designers and programmers, urbanists, architects, artists and writers,
>as well as students (postgraduate level and above) and
>university/college faculty to apply for support with regard to
>research-driven projects. We support projects from all over India, and
>have an established track record of supporting deserving project
>proposals that originate outside the metropolitan centres of Delhi,
>Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Bangalore. We would like to see the focus
>of our fellowship programme expand to support more research in smaller
>towns and non-urban areas.
>
>
>The duration of the fellowship is six months, beginning from 1 January
>2005. The final presentation of the research project will be made in
>Delhi in August 2005.
>
>*Why Research ? What Do We Mean by Research? *
>Sarai is committed to generating public knowledge and creativity through
>research. By research we mean both archival and field research,
>practice-based research and forays into theoretical work, as well as any
>process or activity of an experimental or creative nature–in the
>audiovisual media, for instance, as well as in journalism, the
>humanities and social sciences, computing and architecture.
>
>We are especially interested in supporting projects that formulate
>precise and cogent intellectual questions, reflect on modes of
>understanding that implicate knowledge production within a critical
>social framework, foreground processes of gathering information and of
>creating links between bodies of information. We also encourage research
>that is based on a strong engagement with archival materials and
>imaginative ways of tackling the question of the public rendition of
>research activity.
>
>**The Experience of Previous Years**
>This is the fourth year in which Sarai is calling for proposals for such
>fellowships. We would like to describe how the process has worked in
>previous years, as an indication of what applicants should expect.
>
>We have so far supported a hundred research projects over the past three
>years, including work in the areas of popular culture, literature, urban
>ethnography, architecture, geography, creative writing, graphic arts,
>new media, cinema studies, FLOSS software, histories of media forms and
>practices, sexuality, studies of technology and culture, and oral history.
>
>Successful applicants have included freelance researchers, academics,
>media practitioners, writers, journalists and activists. (For a detailed
>overview of successful proposals from the previous years, see
>_http://www.sarai.net/community/fellow.htm_)
>
>The project proposals, postings and reports were submitted in English,
>Hindi or a combination of the two languages. We have seen that projects
>which set important but practical and modest goals were usually
>successful, whereas those that may have been conceptually sound but
>lacked sufficient motivation to actually approach a research objective
>in the field usually did not sustain themselves beyond the interim stage.
>
>Sarai interacts closely with the researchers over the period of the
>fellowship, and the independent fellows make a public presentation of
>their work at Sarai at the end of their fellowship period. During the
>term of their fellowship each fellow is required to make a posting to
>the Sarai Reader List every month, reporting on the development of their
>work. These postings, which are archived, are an important means by
>which the research process reaches a wider discursive community. They
>also help us to trace the progress of work during the grant period, and
>understand how the research interfaces with a larger public. Fellows
>also receive structured but informal feedback from Sarai in stages
>during the course of their work. Submissions by fellows include written
>reports and essays, photographs, tape recordings, pamphlets, maps,
>drawings and html presentations. On occasion, fellows have also
>incorporated performance into their final presentations.
>
>**What Happens to the Research Projects?**
>The annual research projects add to our now substantial archival
>collections on urban space and media culture. These are proving to be
>very significant value additions to the availability of knowledge
>resources in the public domain. Researchers are free to publish or
>render any part or all of their projects in any forms, independently of
>Sarai (but with due acknowledgment of the support that they have
>received from Sarai). Sarai Independent Research Fellows have gone on to
>publish articles in journals, work towards the making of films,
>exhibitions, websites, multimedia works and performances, and the
>creation of graphic novels, soundworks and books. We actively encourage
>all such efforts.
>
>**What We Are Looking For**
>Like previous years, this year too we are looking for proposals that are
>imaginatively articulated, experimental and methodologically innovative,
>but pragmatic and backed up by a well argued work plan which sets out a
>timetable for the project, as well as suggests how the support from
>Sarai will help in generating/providing specific resources (human and
>material) that the project needs.
>
>Suggested Themes:
>Sarai's interests lie in the city, and in media. Broadly speaking, any
>proposal that looks at the urban condition or at media, is eligible.
>More specifically, themes may be as diverse as habitation, sexuality,
>labour, migration, surveillance, intellectual property, social/digital
>interfaces, urban violence, street life, technologies of urban control,
>health and the city, the political economy of media forms, digital art
>and culture, or anything that the applicants feel will resonate with the
>philosophy and interests that motivate Sarai's work.
>
>We are particularly interested in supporting work that delves into what
>we are beginning to call 'Histories of the New'. This can include
>excavating the histories of different forms of media practice (early
>photography, cinema, print, radio, the music industry), as well as the
>histories of urban spaces and phenomena, neighbourhoods in cities, the
>evolution of utilities, transport and communications networks
>(electricity, telegraphy, telephony, the early Internet in India,
>railways, roads, urban public transport), labour, histories (including
>oral histories and biographical research) of dissident political
>movements, milieus and cultures and people associated with them.
>
>Again, Sarai supports innovative and inventive modes of rendering work
>into the public domain. Proposals which pay attention to this principle
>will be particularly valued.
>
>Also, proposals that include the collection of materials for our archive
>will be appreciated: in the past, fellows have submitted photographs,
>recordings, printed matter, maps, multimedia and posters related to the
>subject of their study to this archive.
>
>Preferred Approaches:
>We especially welcome the articulation, within the text of the proposal,
>of innovative and interdisciplinary methodologies that gesture towards
>how research, practice, and delivery or rendition methods will dovetail
>into each other in the project.
>
>**Conditions**
>Applicants should be resident in India, and should have an account in
>any bank operating in India.
>
>The research fellowship would be available for up to six months and for
>a maximum amount of Rs 60,000.
>
>The fellowships do not require the fellows to be present at Sarai.
>Fellowship holders will be free to pursue their primary occupations, if
>any.
>
>**What Do You Need To Send?**
>
>There are no application forms. Simply post your:
>- Proposal (not more than 1000 words)
>- A clear work plan (not more than one page)
>- An updated CV (not more than two pages)
>- Work samples (maximum two)
>- Envelopes should be marked - "Attention: Short Term Independent Research
>Fellowship" (Email proposals will not be considered). Proposals may be
>sent in English or Hindi.
>
>Mail these to: Independent Fellowship Programme, Sarai, Centre for the
>Study of Developing Societies, 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110054, India.
>Inquiries: [email protected]
>Last date for submission: October 30, 2004
>The list of successful proposals for 2004-2005 will be notified on the
>Sarai website by 15 December 2004
>
>Note: Proposals from teams, partnerships, collectives and faculty are
>welcome, as long as the grant amount is administered by a single
>individual, and the funds are deposited in a single bank account in the
>name of an individual, partnership, registered body or institutional
>entity.
>
>Applicants who apply to other institutions for support for the same
>project will not be disqualified, provided they inform Sarai that
>support is being sought (or has been obtained) from another institution.
>The applicants should inform Sarai about the identity of the other
>institution.
>
>–
>The Sarai Programme
>Centre for the Study of Developing Societies
>29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054
>Tel: (+91) 11 23960040
> (+91) 11 23942199, ext 307
>Fax: (+91) 11 23943450
>www.sarai.net
>The Newsletter of the Sarai Programme,
>29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054, www.sarai.net
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>Directions to Sarai: We are ten minutes from Delhi University. Nearest bus
>stop: IP college or Exchange Stores
>
>See Calendar and Newsletter online:
>http://www.sarai.net/calendar/newsletter.htm