Second International Congress on Reciprocal Knowledge

A first Congress ("Les Premières Assises de la Connaissance Réciproque") organised by Transcultura at the European Parliament (Bruxelles, Nov. 2001), was devoted to the reciprocal knowledge and the transcultural methodologies, This Conference, presented and prepared by the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, the University of Bombay, the French Institute of Pondicherry, the Jawarlahal Nehru University, Delhi and Transcultura International Institute will focus, with the same approach, on the concept of knowledge itself.

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Objectives

What is the place of culture in knowledge production ? How does culture shape the production of knowledge? What is the distance from different cultures and knowledge to universal knowledge and science?. Transcultural methodology, as developed in the past ten years by Transcultura, offers a means to cope with these difficulties in a constructive way. On the basis of this research, focusing on key-words, key-concepts and key images, the aim of this conference is to implement in India a base of International Transcultural Observatory, for enabling European and Indian citizens, to transcend cultural differences in order to communicate between themselves, as well as with citizens from other cultures.

The topic of the conference, Cultures of Knowledge, invites us to reconsider the global field of knowledge from a longue durée perspective and an equally extended spatial perspective, through a transcultural and reciprocal approach, rather than the usual and repetitive re-assessment of the few centuries of Western knowledge cultural domination. Thus, this conference will pursue two main objectives :

• the first is to address the meta-theoretic consequences of the reversal of the anthropological gaze in social science theory and policy in general.
• the second is complemented by the task of putting together a lexicon central to the be social sciences, but this time through the prism of non-European knowledge traditions.

The key word chosen for the first conference was that of "empire". The keyword chosen and to be debated in this Conference, is that of "knowledge", in all the senses of the term, including social and political patterns of knowledge as well as epistemological and philosophical, and how the note on of knowledge in the Indian tradition can comment a Cartesian doubt.

Format

Three sessions are scheduled :

• The first session (Oct. 17th to 19th), in Goa, on behalf of IIT Bombay, the University of Goa and the University of Bombay, will stress the concepts of otherness, of reciprocity and reciprocal knowledge in multicultural societies, and their possible applications to Transcultural communication methodologies.
• The second session (Oct. 20th to 22nd), at the French Institute of Pondicherry, will concern the central topic of knowledge, and scientific knowledge, in an epistemological approach of possible different patterns of knowledge, in the fields of Ethics and Aesthetics, Epistemology, and Anthropology, through the words and related concepts used in Asian, European and African cultures and languages.
• The third session, and conclusion of the Congress (Oct. 24th), in Delhi, will be held at Jawaharlal Nehru Unveristy, on the 24th of October, in two parts: a conclusive internal debate, followed by a Panel of discussion, open to a public of students.

Consult detailled schedule

Organizers

• Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay
• Jawharlal Nehru University, Delhi
• University of Bombay
• University of Goa
• French Institute of Pondicherry
• Transcultura International Institute

Organizing Committee

• President of the Scientific Committee: Prof Umberto Eco
• Program committee chair : Prof. Dhruv Raina
• Program committee co-chair : Prof Zhao Tingyang
• Advisory committee chair : Prof. Alain le Pichon
• Advisory committee co-chair : Prof. Prabhu Guankar
• Advisory committee co-chair: Dr. Jean Pierre Muller

Partnerships

• French Embassy in New Delhi
• French Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• Goethe Institüt in Delhi
• European Commission

Participants

• Mario Telo, Institut d’Etudes Européennes, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
• Zhao Tingyang, Académie des Sciences Sociales, Beijing, China
• Wang Mingming, University of Beijing, China
• Nicole Lapierre, EHESS, France
• Ahmed Djebbar, University of Science and Technology of Lille, France
• Alain le Pichon, University of Paris VIII, France
• Serban Ionescu, University Paris 8 / University of Quebec, France
• Joël Vallat, Lycée Louis le Grand, France
• Patrick Deshayes, University of Paris VII, France
• Bernard Randé, ESMP, Lycée Louis Le Grand, France
• Marie-Hélène Gorisse, Université Charles de Gaulle Lille 3, France
• Thierry Baffoy, University of Paris 8, France
• Juliette Marin, Internat Lycée Louis Le Grand, France
• Jocelyn Boussard, Internat Lycée Louis Le Grand, France
• Richard Pottier, University of Paris 5, France
• Stefan Dreyer, Goethe Institut Max Mueller Bhavan, Germany
• Lutz Götze, University of Sarrebruck, Germany
• Tinka Reichmann, University of Sarrebruck, Germany
• Balveer Arora, Vice Chancellor, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India
• Jean Pierre Muller, French Institute of Pondicherry, India
• Laurent Pordié, French Institute of Pondicherry, India
• Dhruv Raina, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India
• S. Irfan Habib, National Institute of Science Technology and Development Studies, India
• Prajit Basu, University of Hyderabad, India
• Dipankar Gupta, Center for the Study of Social Systems, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India
• Gajanana Phrabu Gaunkar, IIT Mumbai, India
• Ashok Misra Dir. IIT, IIT Mumbai, India
• Shubhada Joshi, University of Mumbai, India
• Albane Flahault, Cultural Centre Fatehpur, India
• Ali Paya, University of Teheran, Iran
• Reza Feiz, University of Teheran, Iran
• Eco Umberto, University of Bologne, Italy
• Eco Renata, University of Bologne, Italy
• Shigemi Inaga, Institut d’Etudes Japonaise de Kyoto, Japan
• Moussa Sow, Institut des Sciences Humaines du Mali, Mali
• Jose A.F. de Rota, University of La Coruna, Spain