Postcoloniality, National Identity, Globalisation...
Postcoloniality, National Identity, Globalisation and the Simulacra of the Real
Author(s)
Srivastava, Sanjay
Abstract
The following discussion is part of a larger, though thematically modest, ethnography of Indian postcoloniality and modernity and the author seeks to combine the positions taken by Ahmad and Chakrabarty towards a study of the articulation of a global form (‘postcoloniality’ as ontology) with a local, historically and culturally specific, formation, the Indian nation-state. The author uses the word ‘formation’ to indicate referral to a set of factors: the material as well as the ideological manifestations of the nation-state; its buildings and bureaucracies as well as the discourse which surrounds these symbols. At another level, it is also the author’s intention to reiterate the importance of the study of national forms in the social sciences. This is, of course, becoming an increasingly unfashionable suggestion to make in the era of the ‘new’ social sciences with their focus on ‘post-national social formations.
