South Asian Governmentalities: Michel Foucault and the Question of Postcolonial Orderings (South Asia in the Social Sciences, Series Number 6)

This volume analyses the ways in which the works of one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century, Michel Foucault, have been received and re-worked by scholars of South Asia. South Asian Governmentalities surveys the past, present, and future lives of the mutually constitutive disciplinary fields of governmentality - a concept introduced by Foucault himself - and South Asian studies. It aims to chart the intersection of post-structuralism and postcolonialism that has seen the latter Foucault being used to ask new questions in and of South Asia, and the experiences of post-colonies used to tease and test the utility of European philosophy beyond Europe. But it also seeks to contribute to the rich body of work on South Asian governmentalities through a critical engagement with the lecture series delivered by Foucault at the Collège de France from 1971 until his death in 1984, which have now become available in English. Contents 5 Acknowledgement 5 Introductions 7 1. Introducing South Asian Governmentalities 9 2. Governmentality in the East 45 Histories and Presents 67 3. Pastoral Care, the Reconstitution of Pastoral Power and the Creation of Disobedient Subjects under Colonialism 68 4. The Abiding Binary: The Social and the Political in Modern India 91 5. Colonial and Nationalist Truth Regimes: Empire, Europe and the Latter Foucault 116 6. Law as Economy/Economy as Governmentality: Convention,Corporation, Currency 144 Subjects and Matters 170 7. Do Elephants Have Souls? Animal Subjectivities and Colonial Encounters 171 8. Plastic History, Caste and the Government of Things in Modern India 189 9. Changing the Subject: From Feminist Governmentality to Technologies of the (Feminist) Self 211 10. The Tortured Body: The Irrevocable Tension between Sovereign and Biopower in Colonial Indian Technologies of Rule 235 Reflection 258 11. The Subject in Question 260 Contributors 272 Index 276 "This volume analyses the ways in which the works of one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century, Michel Foucault, have been received and re-worked by scholars of South Asia. South Asian Governmentalities surveys the past, present, and future lives of the mutually constitutive disciplinary fields of governmentality - a concept introduced by Foucault himself - and South Asian studies. It aims to chart the intersection of post-structuralism and postcolonialism that has seen the latter Foucault being used to ask new questions in and of South Asia, and the experiences of post-colonies used to tease and test the utility of European philosophy beyond Europe. But it also seeks to contribute to the rich body of work on South Asian governmentalities through a critical engagement with the lecture series delivered by Foucault at the Collège de France from 1971 until his death in 1984, which have now become available in English" (ed.) This volume analyses the ways in which the works of twentieth-century philosopher Michel Foucault have been received and re-worked by scholars of South Asia. It surveys the past, present, and future lives of the mutually constitutive disciplinary fields of governmentality and South Asian studies. Edited By Stephen Legg, Deana Heath. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Also Available In Electronic Format.