Everyday Social and Research

We are always in the act of making us, the 'We'. We, those who understand the language despite different perceptions, conceptions and interpretations. Other living beings can't understand this written language, but it can be translated into sounds, gestures, smell, taste, touch and other signals/codes. The artificial neurons can read this, working on a feedback system, with instructions to receive, analyze and produce, based on the training data and the preceding data. We are here or there, entangled with the moments of interactions, beings inseparable from the matter/non-matter in the world.

Our life is filled with different colors, sounds, tastes, images, smells, textures, organs, bodies, dreams, and their memories and lack/plenty. Our understandings confronts ” ‘the structure and dynamics of the brain which evolves, wires and predicts’, ‘the genes replicating for millions of years in survival machines’, ‘the processes of production, consumption, distribution, exchange and recording of data from birth through childhood to death’, ‘the perceptions of senses’, ‘the chaotic movement of inextricably linked matter (including us), energy, space and time, by unleashing varieties of patterns and rhythms’, ‘the continuing struggle of survival machines and desiring machines to flow, occupy, discover, create, copy, penetrate, judge, punish, destroy, win, get recognised and die in richness…..’

To our understanding;- without a telescope there is no cosmos, without a microscope there is no cell, without a camera there is no cinema. Otherwise, cosmos or cells or cinema can exist as thoughts or as imaginations articulated on a canvas or a paper with words and colors, but nothing more, nothing beyond. It’s not like some medium or material or instrument just comes in and translates thoughts into expressions communicable. I write, primarily to get clarity of understanding. The piece of writing I plan as part of the workshop, in particular, wants to be read by researchers. I want to reach the general public too, by translating to malayalam. With much affection, I like the writing to reach those who are interested in the nuances of everyday social shaping the world. I look at socialities, the way people relate, connect or engage with each other, in the context of urban Kerala. The diffused and spreaded structure of urbanisation urges to study the movement of the people making connections and networks. The socialities of Keralites in different experiential space-time projects the nuances of everyday life translating to oppression and progression. The everyday violence, it’s embeddedness with the daily routines, through the practice of centuries, keys right into the neural networks that understand ‘others’ and the world. That makes it easy for oppressive ideologies like capitalism and brahmanism to maintain and deepen the social stratification in terms of wealth and caste. How is it that different human practices create and make use of different definitions of urban Kerala? How socialities are formed and get entangled to form the urban Kerala of varying scales, spaces and times?

When I start to think of (or write or talk) anything ( an event or people or places or anything) I’m already confronted with the question: ‘What is the relation of the author(me) to ‘anything’?’ Who am I to ask this? I believe that a researcher should always be ethically responsible about research questions. Critique of immediate experiential space-time makes me responsible and aware of my relation to the immediate and the distant. It’s all about living the life, practicing, by intensifying potentialities, communicating and collaborating with people in an open field. Relations with the audience will be different with different forms and mediums of expressions. Friends from various fields like cinema, journalism, teaching, photography, drawing, social work, architecture, political parties, law, writing, IT etc. form a part of the audience and I’m their listener, in different ways. In addition to that there will be an audience I never directly engage with, but connected at an ethical level. I also do drawings and take photographs, which are inseparable from my lived experience and the research. I also plan to make audio and video productions, for which the writings will be the initial frame of reference. The creative works are an invitation for dialogue and I’ll be happy if any person uses my creative works without permission, as I don’t own them personally. It is the mood of being here, moves me, to understand and create , despite the occasional social anxieties in relating to others.

Abhinand Kishore

I draw, write, capture and listen. A researcher and an artist, desiring to collaborate with various ways of knowing/doing, to understand the world. Currently doing PhD, studying the urbanisation of Kerala. After completing the Electronics and Communication engineering degree, I had worked in a NGO named Anannia initiated by a conglomerate of social activists, social workers and other professionals. The projects of Anannia includes- Chilla, a foster home for children of sex workers, HIV orphans and children-in-conflict with law, Center for gender and sexuality, and the Centre for life skill education.I did MA in International Relations and Political Science from Central University of Kerala. I envisages a project called ‘on body’ incorporating different forms of expressions. I desire to study more of neuroscience and make movies.