Inventing Subjects: Studies in Hegemony, Patriarchy and Colonialism (Anthem South Asian Studies)

Himani Bannerji

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1843310732 ISBN 13: 9781843310730

Publisher: Anthem Press, 2002

A collection of essays written from a Marxist - Feminist perspective, Inventing Subjects is a significant contribution to the field of historical sociology. The essays speak of the different ways in which social subjects and their agencies have been constructed and represented in the context of the development of colonial hegemony and socio-cultural formations in India. Four of the essays focus on constructive proposals for social subjectivities and agencies of Bengali middle-class women by both the indigenous and the colonial elite. The othrt two essays consider the invention or construction of 'India' as an ideological category for ruling, which seeks to impose on it a colonially ascribed identity. The essays capture the fluidity and complexity of subject construction, and read moral regulations and culture in terms of a hegemonic process. They range from middle-class Bengali women's attempts at self-fashioning to the colonial ideological reflexes within which their projects are articulated. They disclose and query the tensions inherent in the processes of indigenous socio-cultural constructions and identity formations, as well as the reductionism involved in the creation of colonial 'others'.

Book Description:

A Marxist-Feminist perspective on the development of socio-cultural formations in colonial India.

About the Author:

Himani Bannerji is Associate Professor of Sociology at York University, Toronto, Canada, and has an active research and teaching connection with India, especially West Bengal, through the School of Women's Studies, Jadavpur University, Kolkata.