Recently I read an article "Turning the iconic Ghana Must Go bag into high fashion" in In Pictures section of the BBC News. I was struck how a bag can have multiple meanings and become a symbol of migration, identity, mobility as well as stereotyping. I'm familiar with such bags. We also use them in India but even in India not everyone uses such bags. We still have three of these bags. They're fairly sturdy bottomless pits usually with black or red border piping. I must admit that I too have a certain disdain toward these bags. They're not 'cool' but I've also learnt that there are advantages to using them. I've seen them in Old Delhi and at railway stations. I've seen people of certain regions in India use them. However, I doubt whether these bags have many takers among upper classes in urban India.

Do you have any stories or memory related with such woven matted bags? It would be interesting to hear your experiences. 

The article is written by Nduka Orjinmo, BBC News, Abuja (19 November 2020)

The approach of HaB has helped challenge the existing course which is based on western texts written in 1950s-60s and the traditional structured teaching environment.

A two-day workshop, Rice Cultures, was organized at the Science College, Kokrajhar (Assam, India) by Ambedkar University Delhi in collaboration with Humanities across Borders (IIAS, Leiden), and INTACH (Delhi) on 5-6 January 2019. The objective of the workshop was to generate and foster an intercommunity dialogue on rice cultures vis-à-vis four communities of India – Boro, Rabha, Rajbongshi and Santhal.

In October 2018, a curricula development workshop was conducted at the Taipei National University of the Arts (TNUA), Taiwan, as part of the IIAS ‘Humanities across Borders: Asia and Africa in the World’ (HaB) programme. The workshop focused on the practice of indigo dye production and its use as critical pedagogy in higher education. 

Min-Chin Kay Chiang

The Newsletter 82 Spring 2019

Over the course of three days in October, students, craftspeople and researchers explored indigo from a variety of perspectives, as a methodological and pedagogical tool to surpass borders based on territorial, temporal and disciplinary categories in higher education. This methodology workshop, organised by the Taipei National University of the Arts (TNUA) in association with HaB and IIAS, included field visits and hands-on exercises that contextualised the discussions that took place and provided a truly immersive experience.