The Department of Political Science at Forman Christian College (A Chartered University) has recently become a part of “Disputed Territories and Memory Project” (DisTerrMem); a three-year project funded by Horizon 2020, the European Union’s biggest research and innovation program.

The total grant is over €500,000, out of which over €120,000 (more than Rs22 million) are dedicated to FCCU’s involvement.

The University of Bath, UK, is leading the project in partnership with Forman Christian College (A Chartered University), the University of Warsaw, Fundacja Pogranicze (Borderland Foundation) Poland, National Academy of Sciences of Armenia and Educational and Cultural Bridges, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) in Armenia.

The international researchers aim to explore competing memories across three key regions: Europe, South Caucasus and South Asia.

The pressing challenge in the global community of dealing with competing and often antagonistic memories of disputed territories gave rise to DisTerrMem. The impact of these disputes is felt long after the disputes are resolved. Individuals, cultures and societies continue to be influenced by the past, allowing the collective memory to play a key role in framing their current perspectives and identities.

This issue plays a significant role in the potential outcome for future dialogues and understanding of lasting peace.

The purpose of DisTerrMem is to explore competing memories for peace-building, instead of imposing a shared interpretation of history that undermines the significance of the view of diverse communities and their identities.

International researchers part of this project are looking at the roles of nation states, regional organisations, civil society groups and cultural practitioners in managing diverse memories.

One of the major aspects of the project is to bring the South Asian perspective on the management of competing memories into light, which has so far been discounted by the Western audience. A new and innovative method for the successful management of memories of disputed territories will be developed, which will help policymakers, academic researchers and other social groups.

The DisTerrMem team at FCCU is being lead by Dr Ryan Brasher, who is an Assistant Professor and Chairperson of the Department of Political Science. The team also includes Dr Ammar Ali Jan, Assistant Professor, Qalandar Memon, Assistant Professor, Dr Muhammad Younis, Associate Professor, M Usman Farooq, Lecturer, Rabia Malik, Research Assistant and Dr Umber Bin Ibad, Associate Professor from the Department of History.

As part of this project, members of partner organisations and the FCCU Team will visit each other. The first round of secondments has already begun; a member from the University of Bath visited FCCU earlier this year, and the FCCU team visited the partner organisations this summer.

During the summer, the UK and Poland teams also attended a series of seminars by the hosts.

The FCCU team was introduced to Memory Studies during the summer and some members also submitted literature reviews for the initial write-up of the project. In 2020, FCCU will organise a conference which will be attended by international researchers. The team members will also continue to visit partner organisations. By 2022, the FCCU team will submit their papers on several topics on DisTerrMem.

Sessions on Memory Studies will begin in 2020, which will benefit the students of FCCU.

The project has also given unique opportunities to the FCCU team that include collaborations with international researchers, visiting foreign universities and meeting intellectuals from all three partner countries.

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