South Asian Governmentalities

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.