Centre for South Asian Studies

Description

"Postcolonial publics" is a concept that that brings together feminist and queer theories of publics with postcolonial work on the gendered production of nationalism. It specifies how people gather to craft pathways of creativity and freedom in the shadows of dominant projects of nation-building. These publics seek alternate imaginaries of what it means to belong, form collectives, and imagine a different future for themselves from the ones encoded by the masculine formations of nation and family. And yet postcolonial publics are never truly detached from the normative; instead they open small spaces and possibilities for how things might be otherwise. This talk offers a genealogy of the Startup City—Bangalore—by attending to how the gatherings of middle class bodies in public spaces are not a “new” feature of contemporary neoliberalism’s blurring of public and private only. They can also be traced to historical formations through which gendered assemblies formed in postcolonial contexts. Looking at a period of late colonialism, nationalism, and globalization in the 1980s and 90s, I draw on family oral histories, itineraries of the contemporary Startup Festival, and histories of urban spatial contestation to show how postcolonial publics help us understand life and labour in the Startup City. 

This seminar will be chaired by Professor Liz Stanley, Sociology, University of Edinburgh