ICAS:MP Metamorphoses of the Political

The M.S. Merian  – R. Tagore International Centre of Advanced Studies ‘Metamorphoses of the Political’ (ICAS:MP) was set up in July 2015. ICAS:MP is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF: Bundesministerium f. Bildung und Forschung), and is the first of its kind funded outside Germany. It is based on a network of six Indian and German academic partner institutes who are engaged in six different Thematic Modules.

ICAS:MP combines the benefits of an open, interdisciplinary forum for intellectual exchange with the advantages of a cutting-edge research centre. ICAS:MP will focus on key political processes that have emerged in parallel in many parts of the world during the twentieth century through to the present day, processes that are entangled yet heterogeneous. Located in the global South where ‘most of the world’ resides, ICAS:MP critically intervenes in debates in the social sciences which, despite relying almost entirely on evidence from North-Atlantic rim societies, claim universal applicability. ICAS:MP is thus not just another initiative to strengthen ‘Area Studies’ nor a base for narrowly bilateral Indo- German comparison. Rather, it will serve as a centre of advanced international research located in India in order to consciously unsettle the methodological nationalism and Eurocentrism that continue to frame research in the humanities and social sciences.

For more details see the Programme Outline of ICAS:MP.