Call for Papers: Making and Unmaking Facts: Epistemologies, Power, Practice

Conference jointly hosted by
DECISION, IIM Calcutta and Fact or Value

Overview

DECISION, the IIM Calcutta-Springer journal, aims to facilitate scholarly inquiry into the contexts of our concepts. In collaboration with Fact or Value, DECISION aims to continue the conversation: investigating process(es) via which some ideas, perspectives and readings of the world have come to be recognized as universal and true; in other words, a fact. Fact or Value is a forum for lectures and discussions on philosophy, aesthetics and history.

What is a fact? We often think of facts as invulnerable, objective truths, descriptions of reality that stand apart from opinion, belief, and bias. But how did we come to be so certain of all that we are certain? In a world increasingly polarized by misinformation, the fact is frequently invoked as a neutral arbiter of truth. But has it always carried this authority? As Hilary Putnam had questioned in his critique of the fact–value dichotomy, the distinction between what is and what ought to be is neither as clean nor as stable as we might wish.

This conference invites scholars to interrogate the history, politics and epistemologies of factuality with special focus on the context of South Asia. Today, we regard facts as the building blocks of ‘scientific’ knowledge, far removed from the vagaries of ideology and values, which belong to the more fluid world of the humanities, and as such are always prone to bias or prejudice. But can these disciplinary boundaries based on the inviolable status of the fact or data be challenged when re-examined in light of the constructed nature of these concepts themselves? Can historicising these ideas shed light on our understanding of the systems of knowledge production?

From the early modern skepticism toward meteorites to the objectivity heralded by statistical tables and scientific atlases, facts have evolved in tandem with changing institutions, technologies, languages, and power structures. Whether through the lexicons of colonial botany, the atlases of Enlightenment science, or the spreadsheets of modern capitalism, facts have always been mediated, translated, and constructed. As Steven Shapin, Mary Poovey, Lorraine Daston, Minakshi Menon, and others have shown, the epistemic virtues of truth, precision, and objectivity are not universal constants, but products of historical development.

The claim that we live in a post-truth world assumes that, once upon a time, we lived in a world of Truth: an era when politicians and corporations did not lie as much, when the media could be taken for its word, when fact-checking was unnecessary. But has this ever been the case? And even if the institutions of yesteryear were guardians of the truth, how did those institutions, systems and ideas come to be? How did we come to live in a world where citizens feel entitled to facts, to information, to transparency? What was the world like before facts, before data, in a world without precision–particularly non-European societies? This conference will explore these and related questions.

Possible topics include (but are not limited to):

• Ways in which facts have been defined, constructed, contested, or dismissed in the history of South Asia and Southeast Asia.
• Practices (scientific, bureaucratic, linguistic, technological) that have enabled the production and stabilization of facts on the subcontinent.
• Networks of exchange between fact and fiction, fact and myth, fact and belief both before and after the colonial encounter.
• The extension of this revolution in beliefs pertaining to facts, objectivity, neutrality of data to other areas of human activity such as law and politics.
• The status of fact and objectivity in the digital world.

Conference Team

Conference Co-Chairs:
Dr. Nandita Roy, Business Ethics and Communication Group, IIM Calcutta
Dr. Doyeeta Majumder, Department of English, Jadavpur University

Conference Advisory Committee
Dr. Abhijit Gupta, Director, Jadavpur University Press; Director, School of Cultural Texts and Records; and Professor, Department of English, Jadavpur University
Dr. Anirvan Pant, Strategy Group, IIM Calcutta
Dr. Devi Vijay, Organizational Behavior, IIM Calcutta
Mr. Diven Nagpal, Editor, Seagull Books; Co-founder, Fact or Value
Dr. Partha Pratim Pal, Economics Group, IIM Calcutta
Dr. Pragyan Rath, Business Ethics and Communication, IIM Calcutta
Dr. Priya Seetharaman, Management Information Systems Group, IIM Calcutta
Dr. Rajesh Babu, Public Policy and Management Group, IIM Calcutta
Dr. Sourav Bhattacharya, Economics Group, IIM Calcutta
Mr. Subha Prasad Sanyal, Doctoral Fellow, Jadavpur University; Co-founder, Fact or Value
Dr. Sumanta Basu, Operations Management Group, IIM Calcutta

Invited Speakers

Dr. Anuj Misra

Dr Anuj Misra is Professor of the History of Science and the History of Knowledge at Freie Universität Berlin and leads the Max-Planck Research Group “Astral Sciences in Trans-Regional Asia” (ASTRA). His scholarship spans the philosophy and history of mathematics and astronomy, especially within pre-modern traditions. He holds a PhD in Mathematics (University of Canterbury, 2016) and currently explores knowledge transmission across cultural and regional boundaries.

Dr. Dhruv Raina

Dr. Dhruv Raina (formerly at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi) is a distinguished historian and philosopher of science whose work examines the institutionalization, circulation and cultural reception of scientific knowledge in South Asia. His research intersects the history and philosophy of science, educational studies, and the social epistemology of scientific models.

Dr. B. Eswara Rao

Dr. B. Eswara Rao is Associate Professor in the Department of History, University of Hyderabad, specialising in the modern Indian history of medicine. His research focuses on hygiene, sanitation, tuberculosis and public health policy in colonial South India. Key publications include “From Rajayaks(h)ma to ‘Blackman’s Plague’: Perceptions on Tuberculosis in the Madras Presidency, 1882–1947” and work on dam technology and sanitary policy in South India.

Dr. Gita Chadha

Dr. Gita Chadha is at Azim Premji University, Bengaluru. A sociologist by training, she has developed feminist frameworks for archiving and for the study of science-society intersections, including feminist art practices, cultural studies of science and gendered epistemologies.

Dr. John Mathew

Dr. John Mathew is Dean of the Arts and the Humanities and Professor of the History of Science at the Asian University for Women, Chittagong. His work explores environmental history, zoological natural history and histories of disease in colonial South Asia. He is author of Writing Zoological Natural History for British India (Oxford University Press) and numerous essays and reviews on animals, science and empire in British India.

Dr. Mihir K. Chakraborty

Dr. Mihir K. Chakraborty is a Visiting Professor in the School of Cognitive Science at Jadavpur University, Kolkata, and former Head of the Department of Pure Mathematics at University of Calcutta. His research focuses on logic, rough-set theory, fuzzy set theory and paraconsistent logics, exploring mathematical and philosophical frameworks for inconsistency-tolerant reasoning.

Abstract Submission Guidelines

We welcome contributions from anyone interested in the politics and histories of truth, knowledge, and evidence. Submissions can take the form of abstracts (of not more than 250-300 words) that are original, have not been published elsewhere and are not currently under consideration for being published elsewhere. All abstracts will go through a review by the conference team.

Submissions can be made by email to: factorvalue[at]iimcal[dot]ac[dot]in with the subject line: “DECISION - Fact or Value Abstract Submission”. Kindly use the template available below to format your abstract.

Important Dates

Conference Registration

* Information provided regarding registration fees is excluding GST and accommodation tariffs. Additional 18% GST will be added during checkout.

Accommodation

Limited on-campus accommodation at Management Development Centre in IIM Calcutta will be available for registered participants on first-paid-first-served basis. The accommodation charges are listed below

• Single Occupancy: Rs. 4500 (excluding 12% GST)
• Twin Sharing: Rs. 2250 (excluding 12% GST)

Please get in touch with the conference team at factorvalue[at]iimcal[dot]ac[dot]in for accommodation availability once you have registered for the conference.

Special Issue of DECISION

Subsequent to the conference, DECISION will publish a special issue on the theme of the conference. Authors presenting at the conference are welcome to submit completed papers to the special issue. Participation in the conference does not guarantee acceptance into the Special Issue; rather, presenting at the conference will help authors strengthen their manuscripts and align them with the theme.

DECISION accepts submissions in several formats such as original research papers, research commentary, case studies, review and curation, point – counterpoint and perspectives. Please refer to DECISION’s guidelines for authors to prepare the manuscript and select the Special Issue titled “Making and Unmaking Facts” when submitting your manuscript on the Snapp Springernature submission system.

• September 30, 2026: Deadline for full papers submission on the DECISION submission portal for the Special Issue
• January 31, 2027: Initial feedback to authors
• April 30, 2027: Deadline for resubmission of revised papers
• July - August, 2027: Second and subsequent round of reviews
• September 30, 2027: Final Submissions due
• Expected release of special issue: December 1, 2027