At Home In Diaspora: South Asian Scholars And The West

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In the last decade, there has been an increasing internationalization in the structure of research and academic institutions in the West. This has been accompanied by much greater visibility for Third World scholars in locations within the 'developed' world.

The greater presence of these scholars in Western institutions has helped alter the international division of social science labor. This book, comprising a blend of autobiography and intellectual history by some of South Asia's foremost contemporary historians and sociologists, shows that the postcolonial scholar's presence in the West is a phenomenon worth of analysis. In particular, the questions asked here relate to the impact of the intellectual Diaspora on research, both in the West and in South Asia.

While considering nomadic theories in an age of globalization, this book documents the complexities of the relationship between culture, knowledge, and the individual. It highlights the importance of singular as well as collective migrations today, alongside the circulation of lived experiences and knowledge across vast geographical spaces.

In showing how the intervention of scholars of South Asian descent in Western academic institutions has reconstituted the debate on post colonialism, imperialism, globalization, capitalism, and national traditions, this book is quite unusual in being simultaneously entertaining, informative, and thought-provoking about the whole history of South Asia's scholarly transactions with the West.

Jackie Assayag is an anthropologist and Senior Research Fellow (Directeur de recherché) at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS, National Center of Scientific Research), affiliated to the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Science Sociales (EHESS, Paris). He has conducted fieldwork in South India and been Director of the Department of Social Science at the French Institute, Pondicherry.

Veronique Benei is currently teaching at the Department of Anthropology, London School of Economics (LSE). She has published widely in French and English scholarly journals and has co-edited three books, including (with Chris Fuller) The Everyday State and Society in Modern India (2000).