Firmly situated within the analytics of the political economy of a north Indian province, this bo... more Firmly situated within the analytics of the political economy of a north Indian province, this book explores self‐fashioning in pursuit of the modern amongst low‐caste Chamars. Challenging
existing accounts of national modernity in the non‐West, the book argues that subaltern classes shape their own ideas about modernity by taking and rejecting from models of other classes
within the same national context. While displacing the West—in its colonial and non‐colonial manifestations—as the immanent comparative focus, the book puts forward a unique framework
for the analysis of subaltern modernity. This builds on the entanglements between two main trajectories, both of which are viewed as the outcome of the generative impetus of modernisation in India: the first consists of the Chamar appropriation of socio‐cultural distinctions forged by 19th‐century Indian middle classes in their encounter with colonial modernity; the second features the Chamar subversion of high‐caste ideals and practices as a result of low‐caste politics initiated during the 20th century. The author contends that these conflicting trends give rise to a temporal antinomy within the Chamar politics of self‐making, caught up between compulsions of a past modern and of a contemporary one. The eclectic outcome is termed as ‘retro‐modernity’. While the book signals a politics of becoming whose dynamics had previously been overlooked by scholars, it simultaneously opens up novel avenues for the understanding of non‐elite modern life‐forms in postcolonial settings.
The book will interest scholars of anthropology, South Asian studies, development studies, gender studies, political science and postcolonial studies.
How have the archetypes for femininities and masculinities been reshaped in Indian political hist... more How have the archetypes for femininities and masculinities been reshaped in Indian political history and in the present? How have the practises and subjectivities of non-elite individuals and communities contributed to the production of alternative self-representations? What does a focus on the linkages between materialities and ideologies reveal in such an inquiry?
Unsettling the Archetypes addresses these questions from the standpoint of long-standing issues within Indian society, history and culture. An expression of multiple temporalities and diverse regional contexts, these issues range from the nationalist movement for independence to the career of the Women’s Bill in Parliament; violence in Hindu-Muslim relations; meanings surrounding the body; the life of history textbooks, and forms of activism among Dalit communities.
Rather than offering one encompassing framework for all phenomena, the essays in this volume sketch new lineages, connections, and ruptures in the production of femininities and masculinities across time and space. They testify to the profound need to further interrogate the very categories of gender and politics in order to emphasise the importance of situated accounts. Thus, by thinking of ‘other’ male bodies, of non-feminist women, and of recalcitrant Muslim youth, for example, this volume compels us to move beyond known frameworks and to expand the existing repertoire of possible selves, while unsettling their order.
The volume includes essays by Tanika Sarkar, Charu Gupta, Wendy Singer, Sylvie Guichard, Badri Narayan, Atreyee Sen, Hugo Gorringe and Manuela Ciotti.
Journal of Cultural Economy 13, no. 6: 725–42, 2020
Drawing upon ethnographic moments recorded at two of the most prominent art world institutions, t... more Drawing upon ethnographic moments recorded at two of the most prominent art world institutions, the Venice Biennale and the auction house Christie's at its New York headquarters, this article reflects on what it means to investigate the global art world ethnographically and interrogates some of the current trends within the anthropology of art. In particular, the article shows the potential of re–focusing the attention on the interconnectedness of art-world actors, institutions and objects in time and space in order to produce expansive narratives on the art world which reflect not only how art is produced in the present and in the past but also its circulation and commerce. Moreover, by challenging the anthropology of art's focus on the anthropologist–artist dyad, their practice and collaborations, the article shows how a renewed engagement with the art world as an ethnographic field site brings about possibilities for a renewal of anthropology itself.
It was in the years immediately after Independence from British rule that India began to partic... more It was in the years immediately after Independence from British rule that India began to participate to the Venice Biennale. Those were the years when also other countries of what now goes under the label of Global South began to exhibit at this archetypical art biennale. India’s first national participation took place in 1954, an iconic year for the arts in India with the creation of the National Gallery of Modern Art and the National Academy of Art. On that year, India in Venice featured a rich repertoire of artists such as M.F. Husain, S.H. Raza, Jamini Roy, Amrita Sher-Gil and Francis Newton Souza whose art works fill museum collections, exhibitions, and auction catalogues today. Broadly speaking, India’s presence at the Venice Biennale mostly took place through collective shows during the 1950s and 1960s followed by two participations in the 1970s and 1980s respectively - signalling a decline in the country’s national participation. After decades of absence, the Indian pavilion was set up in Venice in 2011.
This paper offers a genealogy of India’s presence at the Venice Biennale and the ensemble of institutional and non-institutional actors involved in the art exhibitions which substantiate this presence. This genealogy sheds light on India’s global art exhibition history since Independence where the Venice Biennale is only but one location in a wider geocultural map. What is more, this genealogy serves as a corrective to accounts of the 2011 India pavilion which was portrayed as the country’s first ever presence in Venice. If these accounts can be read as a sign of the ‘hegemony of the present’, this paper shows that the need of historicizing contemporary global art world events is stronger than ever. Further, emerging histories can help to rethink the ‘South’ and ‘North’ tropes whose polarity in the art world appears increasingly unable to explain its current trends.
Firmly situated within the analytics of the political economy of a north Indian province, this bo... more Firmly situated within the analytics of the political economy of a north Indian province, this book explores self‐fashioning in pursuit of the modern amongst low‐caste Chamars. Challenging
existing accounts of national modernity in the non‐West, the book argues that subaltern classes shape their own ideas about modernity by taking and rejecting from models of other classes
within the same national context. While displacing the West—in its colonial and non‐colonial manifestations—as the immanent comparative focus, the book puts forward a unique framework
for the analysis of subaltern modernity. This builds on the entanglements between two main trajectories, both of which are viewed as the outcome of the generative impetus of modernisation in India: the first consists of the Chamar appropriation of socio‐cultural distinctions forged by 19th‐century Indian middle classes in their encounter with colonial modernity; the second features the Chamar subversion of high‐caste ideals and practices as a result of low‐caste politics initiated during the 20th century. The author contends that these conflicting trends give rise to a temporal antinomy within the Chamar politics of self‐making, caught up between compulsions of a past modern and of a contemporary one. The eclectic outcome is termed as ‘retro‐modernity’. While the book signals a politics of becoming whose dynamics had previously been overlooked by scholars, it simultaneously opens up novel avenues for the understanding of non‐elite modern life‐forms in postcolonial settings.
The book will interest scholars of anthropology, South Asian studies, development studies, gender studies, political science and postcolonial studies.
How have the archetypes for femininities and masculinities been reshaped in Indian political hist... more How have the archetypes for femininities and masculinities been reshaped in Indian political history and in the present? How have the practises and subjectivities of non-elite individuals and communities contributed to the production of alternative self-representations? What does a focus on the linkages between materialities and ideologies reveal in such an inquiry?
Unsettling the Archetypes addresses these questions from the standpoint of long-standing issues within Indian society, history and culture. An expression of multiple temporalities and diverse regional contexts, these issues range from the nationalist movement for independence to the career of the Women’s Bill in Parliament; violence in Hindu-Muslim relations; meanings surrounding the body; the life of history textbooks, and forms of activism among Dalit communities.
Rather than offering one encompassing framework for all phenomena, the essays in this volume sketch new lineages, connections, and ruptures in the production of femininities and masculinities across time and space. They testify to the profound need to further interrogate the very categories of gender and politics in order to emphasise the importance of situated accounts. Thus, by thinking of ‘other’ male bodies, of non-feminist women, and of recalcitrant Muslim youth, for example, this volume compels us to move beyond known frameworks and to expand the existing repertoire of possible selves, while unsettling their order.
The volume includes essays by Tanika Sarkar, Charu Gupta, Wendy Singer, Sylvie Guichard, Badri Narayan, Atreyee Sen, Hugo Gorringe and Manuela Ciotti.
Journal of Cultural Economy 13, no. 6: 725–42, 2020
Drawing upon ethnographic moments recorded at two of the most prominent art world institutions, t... more Drawing upon ethnographic moments recorded at two of the most prominent art world institutions, the Venice Biennale and the auction house Christie's at its New York headquarters, this article reflects on what it means to investigate the global art world ethnographically and interrogates some of the current trends within the anthropology of art. In particular, the article shows the potential of re–focusing the attention on the interconnectedness of art-world actors, institutions and objects in time and space in order to produce expansive narratives on the art world which reflect not only how art is produced in the present and in the past but also its circulation and commerce. Moreover, by challenging the anthropology of art's focus on the anthropologist–artist dyad, their practice and collaborations, the article shows how a renewed engagement with the art world as an ethnographic field site brings about possibilities for a renewal of anthropology itself.
It was in the years immediately after Independence from British rule that India began to partic... more It was in the years immediately after Independence from British rule that India began to participate to the Venice Biennale. Those were the years when also other countries of what now goes under the label of Global South began to exhibit at this archetypical art biennale. India’s first national participation took place in 1954, an iconic year for the arts in India with the creation of the National Gallery of Modern Art and the National Academy of Art. On that year, India in Venice featured a rich repertoire of artists such as M.F. Husain, S.H. Raza, Jamini Roy, Amrita Sher-Gil and Francis Newton Souza whose art works fill museum collections, exhibitions, and auction catalogues today. Broadly speaking, India’s presence at the Venice Biennale mostly took place through collective shows during the 1950s and 1960s followed by two participations in the 1970s and 1980s respectively - signalling a decline in the country’s national participation. After decades of absence, the Indian pavilion was set up in Venice in 2011.
This paper offers a genealogy of India’s presence at the Venice Biennale and the ensemble of institutional and non-institutional actors involved in the art exhibitions which substantiate this presence. This genealogy sheds light on India’s global art exhibition history since Independence where the Venice Biennale is only but one location in a wider geocultural map. What is more, this genealogy serves as a corrective to accounts of the 2011 India pavilion which was portrayed as the country’s first ever presence in Venice. If these accounts can be read as a sign of the ‘hegemony of the present’, this paper shows that the need of historicizing contemporary global art world events is stronger than ever. Further, emerging histories can help to rethink the ‘South’ and ‘North’ tropes whose polarity in the art world appears increasingly unable to explain its current trends.
This paper focuses on the Mumbai pavilion - part of the inter-city pavilion initiative at the 9th... more This paper focuses on the Mumbai pavilion - part of the inter-city pavilion initiative at the 9th Shanghai Biennale ‘Reactivation’ – and the circuits of people, objects, practices and imaginaries inaugurated by its making. This Biennale was held in 2012 at the newly-inaugurated Power Station of Art - formerly the Pavilion of the Future at the Shanghai Expo 2010.
Arjun Appadurai has argued that ‘the materiality of objects in India is not yet completely penetr... more Arjun Appadurai has argued that ‘the materiality of objects in India is not yet completely penetrated by the logic of the market’ (2006:18). However, the entry and the visibility of modern and contemporary Indian art into the circuits of the global art world increasingly challenge this argument. That of modern and contemporary Indian art is the story of the inscription of local objects and their ‘Indianness’ into the above circuits, with market value being created in the process. If the globalisation of the art world provides a conceptual and material arena where objects are circulated, displayed, and bought and sold through auction houses, exhibitions, biennales, and art fairs, this article analyses an event that epitomises some of the forces at play in this arena: the contemporary art exhibition ‘The empire strikes back: Indian art today’ held in 2010 at the Saatchi Gallery, London. An artistic cum business instantiation of ‘India in Europe’- and one that challenges the visual and aesthetic canons ‘traditionally’ associated to India - this article examines this exhibition as an entry-point into the analysis of how neoliberal capital produces ‘culture’, and into the tension between the commodity form and the infinite possibilities, and unintended consequences, opened up by this very status.
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Books by manuela ciotti
existing accounts of national modernity in the non‐West, the book argues that subaltern classes shape their own ideas about modernity by taking and rejecting from models of other classes
within the same national context. While displacing the West—in its colonial and non‐colonial manifestations—as the immanent comparative focus, the book puts forward a unique framework
for the analysis of subaltern modernity. This builds on the entanglements between two main trajectories, both of which are viewed as the outcome of the generative impetus of modernisation in India: the first consists of the Chamar appropriation of socio‐cultural distinctions forged by 19th‐century Indian middle classes in their encounter with colonial modernity; the second features the Chamar subversion of high‐caste ideals and practices as a result of low‐caste politics initiated during the 20th century. The author contends that these conflicting trends give rise to a temporal antinomy within the Chamar politics of self‐making, caught up between compulsions of a past modern and of a contemporary one. The eclectic outcome is termed as ‘retro‐modernity’. While the book signals a politics of becoming whose dynamics had previously been overlooked by scholars, it simultaneously opens up novel avenues for the understanding of non‐elite modern life‐forms in postcolonial settings.
The book will interest scholars of anthropology, South Asian studies, development studies, gender studies, political science and postcolonial studies.
Unsettling the Archetypes addresses these questions from the standpoint of long-standing issues within Indian society, history and culture. An expression of multiple temporalities and diverse regional contexts, these issues range from the nationalist movement for independence to the career of the Women’s Bill in Parliament; violence in Hindu-Muslim relations; meanings surrounding the body; the life of history textbooks, and forms of activism among Dalit communities.
Rather than offering one encompassing framework for all phenomena, the essays in this volume sketch new lineages, connections, and ruptures in the production of femininities and masculinities across time and space. They testify to the profound need to further interrogate the very categories of gender and politics in order to emphasise the importance of situated accounts. Thus, by thinking of ‘other’ male bodies, of non-feminist women, and of recalcitrant Muslim youth, for example, this volume compels us to move beyond known frameworks and to expand the existing repertoire of possible selves, while unsettling their order.
The volume includes essays by Tanika Sarkar, Charu Gupta, Wendy Singer, Sylvie Guichard, Badri Narayan, Atreyee Sen, Hugo Gorringe and Manuela Ciotti.
Papers by manuela ciotti
This paper offers a genealogy of India’s presence at the Venice Biennale and the ensemble of institutional and non-institutional actors involved in the art exhibitions which substantiate this presence. This genealogy sheds light on India’s global art exhibition history since Independence where the Venice Biennale is only but one location in a wider geocultural map. What is more, this genealogy serves as a corrective to accounts of the 2011 India pavilion which was portrayed as the country’s first ever presence in Venice. If these accounts can be read as a sign of the ‘hegemony of the present’, this paper shows that the need of historicizing contemporary global art world events is stronger than ever. Further, emerging histories can help to rethink the ‘South’ and ‘North’ tropes whose polarity in the art world appears increasingly unable to explain its current trends.
existing accounts of national modernity in the non‐West, the book argues that subaltern classes shape their own ideas about modernity by taking and rejecting from models of other classes
within the same national context. While displacing the West—in its colonial and non‐colonial manifestations—as the immanent comparative focus, the book puts forward a unique framework
for the analysis of subaltern modernity. This builds on the entanglements between two main trajectories, both of which are viewed as the outcome of the generative impetus of modernisation in India: the first consists of the Chamar appropriation of socio‐cultural distinctions forged by 19th‐century Indian middle classes in their encounter with colonial modernity; the second features the Chamar subversion of high‐caste ideals and practices as a result of low‐caste politics initiated during the 20th century. The author contends that these conflicting trends give rise to a temporal antinomy within the Chamar politics of self‐making, caught up between compulsions of a past modern and of a contemporary one. The eclectic outcome is termed as ‘retro‐modernity’. While the book signals a politics of becoming whose dynamics had previously been overlooked by scholars, it simultaneously opens up novel avenues for the understanding of non‐elite modern life‐forms in postcolonial settings.
The book will interest scholars of anthropology, South Asian studies, development studies, gender studies, political science and postcolonial studies.
Unsettling the Archetypes addresses these questions from the standpoint of long-standing issues within Indian society, history and culture. An expression of multiple temporalities and diverse regional contexts, these issues range from the nationalist movement for independence to the career of the Women’s Bill in Parliament; violence in Hindu-Muslim relations; meanings surrounding the body; the life of history textbooks, and forms of activism among Dalit communities.
Rather than offering one encompassing framework for all phenomena, the essays in this volume sketch new lineages, connections, and ruptures in the production of femininities and masculinities across time and space. They testify to the profound need to further interrogate the very categories of gender and politics in order to emphasise the importance of situated accounts. Thus, by thinking of ‘other’ male bodies, of non-feminist women, and of recalcitrant Muslim youth, for example, this volume compels us to move beyond known frameworks and to expand the existing repertoire of possible selves, while unsettling their order.
The volume includes essays by Tanika Sarkar, Charu Gupta, Wendy Singer, Sylvie Guichard, Badri Narayan, Atreyee Sen, Hugo Gorringe and Manuela Ciotti.
This paper offers a genealogy of India’s presence at the Venice Biennale and the ensemble of institutional and non-institutional actors involved in the art exhibitions which substantiate this presence. This genealogy sheds light on India’s global art exhibition history since Independence where the Venice Biennale is only but one location in a wider geocultural map. What is more, this genealogy serves as a corrective to accounts of the 2011 India pavilion which was portrayed as the country’s first ever presence in Venice. If these accounts can be read as a sign of the ‘hegemony of the present’, this paper shows that the need of historicizing contemporary global art world events is stronger than ever. Further, emerging histories can help to rethink the ‘South’ and ‘North’ tropes whose polarity in the art world appears increasingly unable to explain its current trends.