Colonial Governmentality:: Critical Notes from a Perspective of South Asian Studies

Das Konzept der kolonialen Gouvernementalität, das in Anlehnung an Foucaults Theorien entwickelt wurde, ist in den letzten zwei Dekaden gerade in der südostasiatischen Geschichte oftmals als Ansatz benutzt wurden, um koloniale Gesellschaften zu interpretieren. Der Aufsatz untersucht diesen Ansatz kritisch und entwickelt eine nuanciertere historische Herangehensweise an koloniale Situationen. An Beispielen aus der Geschichtsschreibung Indiens und Sri Lankas wird erläutert, inwiefern das Projekt der „colonial governmentality / modernity“ eine Überinterpretation der kolonialen Dominanz in der Forschung erzeugte und wie dadurch die Rolle der Kolonisierten und deren Spielräume im kolonialen Machtsystem marginalisiert wurden. Außerdem wird grundsätzlich auf die Vielfalt der kolonialen Situation verwiesen, die nur durch eine verstärkte Erforschung der Lebenswelt der Kolonisierten wahrgenommen werden könne

Diaspora identification and long-distance nationalism among Tamil migrants of diverse state origins in the UK

Accounts of Tamil long-distance nationalism have focused on Sri Lankan Tamil migrants. But the UK is also home to Tamils of non-Sri Lankan state origins. While these migrants may be nominally incorporated into a 'Tamil diaspora', they are seldom present in scholarly accounts. Framed by Werbner's (2002) conception of diasporas as 'aesthetic' and 'moral' communities, this article explores whether engagement with a Tamil diaspora and long-distance nationalism is expressed by Tamil migrants of diverse state origins. While migrants identify with an aesthetic community, 'membership' of the moral community is contested between those who hold direct experience of suffering as central to belonging, and those who imagine the boundaries of belonging more fluidly - based upon primordial understandings of essential ethnicity and a narrative of Tamil 'victimhood' that incorporates experiences of being Tamil in Sri Lanka, India and in other sites, despite obvious differences in these experiences. © 2013 Taylor & Francis

Being Tamil, being Hindu:Tamil migrants’ negotiations of the absence of Tamil Hindu spaces in the West Midlands and South West of England

This paper considers the religious practices of Tamil Hindus who have settled in the West Midlands and South West of England in order to explore how devotees of a specific ethno-regional Hindu tradition with a well-established UK infrastructure in the site of its adherents’ population density adapt their religious practices in settlement areas which lack this infrastructure. Unlike the majority of the UK Tamil population who live in the London area, the participants in this study did not have ready access to an ethno-religious infrastructure of Tamil-orientated temples and public rituals. The paper examines two means by which this absence was addressed as well as the intersections and negotiations of religion and ethnicity these entailed: firstly, Tamil Hindus’ attendance of temples in their local area which are orientated towards a broadly imagined Hindu constituency or which cater to a non-Tamil ethno-linguistic or sectarian community; and, secondly, through the ‘DIY’ performance of ethnicised Hindu ritual in non-institutional settings

4. History as Heritage: Producing the Present in Post-War Sri Lanka

The state – actually a shifting complex of peoples and roles… Introduction Walter Benjamin warned against the ‘appreciation of heritage’, describing it as a greater ‘catastrophe’ than indifference or disregard. Indeed, heritage can be considered an essentially cultural practice centred in the present, and an instrument of cultural power. Cultural heritage is as much a construction of the present as it is an interpretation of the past. The changing fortunes and popularity of historical sites i..

Colonial governmentality and the political thinking through “1931” in the Crown colony of Ceylon/Sri Lanka

Cet article s’appuie sur la notion arendtienne du « politique » pour soutenir que le cadre colonial et la modernité ont pendant longtemps surdéterminé la manière dont les historiens ont analysé le « politique » en Asie du Sud. En utilisant comme point d’entrée l’année 1931 – celle où le suffrage universel fut introduit dans la colonie de la Couronne du Sri Lanka –, il interroge de manière critique mais constructive l’adaptation créative que l’école des subaltern studies a faite de la notion foucaldienne de gouvernementalité, ainsi que le travail séminal de David Scott sur la gouvernementalité coloniale au Sri Lanka. Il identifie également la nécessité d’explorer de nouvelles stratégies afin de rendre compte de l’échec des techno­logies disciplinaires et des technologies modernes gouvernementalisées à produire des sujets modernes rationnels. La solution consiste-t-elle, comme le suggère Fred Cooper, « à faire de l’histoire historiquement », et, de là, à simplement échanger des notions comme celles de « modernité coloniale » et de « gouvernementalité coloniale » contre celles de processus, forces, actions et agents multiples des explications historiques ?This paper uses the Arendtian notion of the “political” to argue that the colonial framework and modernity have for long overdetermined the way historians have analyzed the “political” in South Asia. Using 1931—the year universal suffrage was introduced to the Crown colony of Sri Lanka—as an entry point, it engages critically yet constructively with the subaltern studies school’s creative adaptation of Foucault’s notion of governmentality, as well as the seminal work of David Scott on colonial governmentality in Sri Lanka. It identifies a real need for seeking new strategies to understand the failure of the disciplinary technologies and governmentalized modern technologies to produce modern rational subjects. Is the solution then as Fred Cooper suggests“ to do history historically” and simply trade notions such as “colonial modernity” and “colonial governmentality” for multiple agents, actions, forces and processes of historical explanations

Monsoon Asia: a reader on South and Southeast Asia

Monsoon Asia was the first venue of global trade, a zone of encounters, exchanges, and cultural diffusion. This book demonstrates the continuing fertility of the Monsoon Asia perspective as an aid to understanding what South/Southeast Asia, as a connected space, has been in the past and is today. Sixteen tightly knit chapters, written by experts from perspectives ranging from Indology and philology to postcolonial and transnational studies, offer a captivating view of the region, with its rich and variegated history shaped by commonalities in human ecology, cultural forms, and religious practices. The contributions draw upon extensive research and a thorough command of the most recent scholarship. This volume will be an invaluable text for anyone interested in South and Southeast Asia, and for more specialized students in the fields of global and Indian Ocean history, transcultural studies, archaeology, linguistics, and politics