2009/06/24 by Swarupa Gupta · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #Anthropological Studies and Insights #Anthropology #BENGAL #Caste #Colonialism #Epistemology #Ethnic group #Gender studies #Geography #Indigenous #Law #Nationalism #Negotiation #Ontology #Philosophy #Political science #Politics #Social and Economic Development in India #Social science #Sociology #South Asian Studies and Conflicts
paper · doi:10.1163/ej.9789004176140.i-414
openalex publication_date 2009/06/24 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
This book reopens the debate on colonial nationalisms, going beyond 'derivative', 'borrowed', political and modernist paradigms. It introduces the conceptual category of samaj to demonstrate how indigenous socio-cultural origins in Bengal interacted with late-colonial discourses to produce the notion of a nation. Samaj (a historical society and an idea-in-practice) was a site for reconfiguring antecedents and negotiating fragmentation. Drawing on indigenous sources, this study shows how caste, class, ethnicity, region and community were refracted to conceptualise wider unities. The mapping of cultural continuities through change facilitates a more nuanced investigation of the ontology of nationhood, seeing it as related to, but more than political nationalism. It outlines a fresh paradigm for recalibrating postcolonial identities, offering interpretive strategies to mediate fragmentation.