ities within the state played an instrumental role in promoting citizen well-being. Singh’s solid... more ities within the state played an instrumental role in promoting citizen well-being. Singh’s solidarity argument, though convincing, leaves some questions unanswered as well. How does one explain the unevenness of state capacity within a single subnational case? Take, for example, the case of Bihar (a poor eastern state in India), where since 2005 astounding policy reforms have taken place in selected sectors (such as roads and bridges), but not comprehensively across all sectors. Furthermore, some districts have better development outcomes than others. If a strong regional solidarity were the driver, we would expect its impact comprehensively across sectors and states. I have shown elsewhere that ideas, learning, and policy powering (i.e., state’s ability to transcend the nested norms and networks, which might work against a program) play consequential roles. Further, Jensenius’s study of constituency quotas for the SCs suggests that a precondition for change in formal norms is necessary for social norms to change, albeit slowly. This underscores the significance of unpacking and a deeper understanding of an ecosystem of ideas within the state that produces political will and the moral purpose of the state. Plausibly, the state as a conceptual/explanatory variable always had what J. P. Nettl describes as a “skeletal” and “ghostly” presence. The answers to the questions dwelled upon in these books are as complex as the politics and policy landscape of India. These works carry lessons for other developing and poor regions of the world. Their richness of data, meticulous fieldwork, and robustness of methods are likewise instructive for social science research.
While hip hop and the university appear to operate within radically different social (and socioec... more While hip hop and the university appear to operate within radically different social (and socioeconomic) spheres, we nevertheless see increasing overlap between the two that demonstrates a mutual interest and perhaps desire between the two. With the rise of hip hop studies on the one hand and a remarkable array of hip hop songs and films that address the university space and/or university education on the other, these two discursive spheres produce knowledges that are both complementary and contradictory. By analyzing several texts—major academic works of hip hop scholarship; films on hip hop and the university, especially Method Man and Redman’s 2001 How High; and the rap oeuvres of Kanye West and J. Cole—this article examines the ways in which the epistemologies of hip hop and the university interact and conflict. By examining these texts, I show that academic epistemologies, or what I term “book knowledge,” inadvertently impose a hierarchical and colonizing frame on rap and hip h...
While scholars of Partition frequently reference witnessing as a necessary frame for understandin... more While scholars of Partition frequently reference witnessing as a necessary frame for understanding Partition literature, and particularly the work of Saadat Hasan Manto, I analyse Manto’s short story ‘Khol Do’ (‘Open It’) to argue that the text’s use of Urdu-inflected tropology both deploys and exceeds the discourse of testimony. Through its turn toward magical realism in its devastating ending, ‘Khol Do’ demonstrates both the futility of attempting to definitively fix meaning in the context of unrelenting ambiguity, as well as the vital necessity of Urdu literature in constructing new communities of reading and interpretation in the wake of the ruptures of Partition.
While hip hop and the university appear to operate within radically different social (and socioec... more While hip hop and the university appear to operate within radically different social (and socioeconomic) spheres, we nevertheless see increasing overlap between the two that demonstrates a mutual interest and perhaps desire between the two. With the rise of hip hop studies on the one hand and a remarkable array of hip hop songs and films that address the university space and/or university education on the other, these two discursive spheres produce knowledges that are both complementary and contradictory. By analyzing several texts-major academic works of hip hop scholarship; films on hip hop and the university, especially Method Man and Redman's 2001 How High; and the rap oeuvres of Kanye West and J. Cole-this article examines the ways in which the epistemologies of hip hop and the university interact and conflict. By examining these texts, I show that academic epistemologies, or what I term "book knowledge," inadvertently impose a hierarchical and colonizing frame on rap and hip hop, such as the practice of "close reading" rap as poetry. Instead, I argue that we can learn how to ethically inhabit and transform the university space by drawing from hip hop's commitment to producing the radical, decolonial, and embodied practices of "street knowledge."
While scholars of Partition frequently reference witnessing as a necessary frame for understandin... more While scholars of Partition frequently reference witnessing as a necessary frame for understanding Partition literature, and particularly the work of Saadat Hasan Manto, I analyse Manto’s short story ‘Khol Do’ (‘Open It’) to argue that the text’s use of Urdu-inflected tropology both deploys and exceeds the discourse of testimony. Through its turn toward magical realism in its devastating ending, ‘Khol Do’ demonstrates both the futility of attempting to definitively fix meaning in the context of unrelenting ambiguity, as well as the vital necessity of Urdu literature in constructing new communities of reading and interpretation in the wake of the ruptures of Partition.
ities within the state played an instrumental role in promoting citizen well-being. Singh’s solid... more ities within the state played an instrumental role in promoting citizen well-being. Singh’s solidarity argument, though convincing, leaves some questions unanswered as well. How does one explain the unevenness of state capacity within a single subnational case? Take, for example, the case of Bihar (a poor eastern state in India), where since 2005 astounding policy reforms have taken place in selected sectors (such as roads and bridges), but not comprehensively across all sectors. Furthermore, some districts have better development outcomes than others. If a strong regional solidarity were the driver, we would expect its impact comprehensively across sectors and states. I have shown elsewhere that ideas, learning, and policy powering (i.e., state’s ability to transcend the nested norms and networks, which might work against a program) play consequential roles. Further, Jensenius’s study of constituency quotas for the SCs suggests that a precondition for change in formal norms is necessary for social norms to change, albeit slowly. This underscores the significance of unpacking and a deeper understanding of an ecosystem of ideas within the state that produces political will and the moral purpose of the state. Plausibly, the state as a conceptual/explanatory variable always had what J. P. Nettl describes as a “skeletal” and “ghostly” presence. The answers to the questions dwelled upon in these books are as complex as the politics and policy landscape of India. These works carry lessons for other developing and poor regions of the world. Their richness of data, meticulous fieldwork, and robustness of methods are likewise instructive for social science research.
While hip hop and the university appear to operate within radically different social (and socioec... more While hip hop and the university appear to operate within radically different social (and socioeconomic) spheres, we nevertheless see increasing overlap between the two that demonstrates a mutual interest and perhaps desire between the two. With the rise of hip hop studies on the one hand and a remarkable array of hip hop songs and films that address the university space and/or university education on the other, these two discursive spheres produce knowledges that are both complementary and contradictory. By analyzing several texts—major academic works of hip hop scholarship; films on hip hop and the university, especially Method Man and Redman’s 2001 How High; and the rap oeuvres of Kanye West and J. Cole—this article examines the ways in which the epistemologies of hip hop and the university interact and conflict. By examining these texts, I show that academic epistemologies, or what I term “book knowledge,” inadvertently impose a hierarchical and colonizing frame on rap and hip h...
While scholars of Partition frequently reference witnessing as a necessary frame for understandin... more While scholars of Partition frequently reference witnessing as a necessary frame for understanding Partition literature, and particularly the work of Saadat Hasan Manto, I analyse Manto’s short story ‘Khol Do’ (‘Open It’) to argue that the text’s use of Urdu-inflected tropology both deploys and exceeds the discourse of testimony. Through its turn toward magical realism in its devastating ending, ‘Khol Do’ demonstrates both the futility of attempting to definitively fix meaning in the context of unrelenting ambiguity, as well as the vital necessity of Urdu literature in constructing new communities of reading and interpretation in the wake of the ruptures of Partition.
While hip hop and the university appear to operate within radically different social (and socioec... more While hip hop and the university appear to operate within radically different social (and socioeconomic) spheres, we nevertheless see increasing overlap between the two that demonstrates a mutual interest and perhaps desire between the two. With the rise of hip hop studies on the one hand and a remarkable array of hip hop songs and films that address the university space and/or university education on the other, these two discursive spheres produce knowledges that are both complementary and contradictory. By analyzing several texts-major academic works of hip hop scholarship; films on hip hop and the university, especially Method Man and Redman's 2001 How High; and the rap oeuvres of Kanye West and J. Cole-this article examines the ways in which the epistemologies of hip hop and the university interact and conflict. By examining these texts, I show that academic epistemologies, or what I term "book knowledge," inadvertently impose a hierarchical and colonizing frame on rap and hip hop, such as the practice of "close reading" rap as poetry. Instead, I argue that we can learn how to ethically inhabit and transform the university space by drawing from hip hop's commitment to producing the radical, decolonial, and embodied practices of "street knowledge."
While scholars of Partition frequently reference witnessing as a necessary frame for understandin... more While scholars of Partition frequently reference witnessing as a necessary frame for understanding Partition literature, and particularly the work of Saadat Hasan Manto, I analyse Manto’s short story ‘Khol Do’ (‘Open It’) to argue that the text’s use of Urdu-inflected tropology both deploys and exceeds the discourse of testimony. Through its turn toward magical realism in its devastating ending, ‘Khol Do’ demonstrates both the futility of attempting to definitively fix meaning in the context of unrelenting ambiguity, as well as the vital necessity of Urdu literature in constructing new communities of reading and interpretation in the wake of the ruptures of Partition.
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Papers by Sara Grewal