Towards Corporeal Cosmopolitanism: Performing Decolonial Solidarities

228 Pages·2017·1.86 MB·English

by  Anjana Raghavan

Towards Corporeal
Cosmopolitanism

Towards Corporeal
Cosmopolitanism
Performing Decolonial
Solidarities
Anjana Raghavan
London• NewYork
Published by Rowman & Littlefield International Ltd
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With additional offices in Boulder, New York, Toronto (Canada), and Plymouth (UK)
www.rowman.com
Copyright © 2017 by Anjana Raghavan
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems,
without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote
passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: HB 978-1-78348-795-0
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available
ISBN: 978-1-78348-795-0 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN: 978-1-78348-796-7 (electronic)
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992.
Printed in the United States of America
For my Amma and Appa: your love makes everything possible.

Contents
Acknowledgements ix
Note from the Author xi
Introduction: Incanting the Body into the Political 1
1 Locating Corporeal Cosmopolitanism:
Theoretical Vicissitudes 15
Kantian Resonances 17
Mapping Cosmopolitan Belongings 23
Mapping Cosmopolitan Belongings: Is Patriotism
a Cosmopolitan Feeling? 24
Mapping Cosmopolitan Belongings: The Case for
Cosmopatriotism 28
Mapping Cosmopolitan Belongings: Excising Nation
from Cosmos 34
Mapping “Other” Cosmopolitan Belongings 40
2 The Anatomy of Abjection: Contextualising Exclusion,
Corporeality and Emotions 51
The Mechanics of Exclusion 53
Body Stories across Times and Places 65
Body as Verb: Doing Corporeality 72
Corporealising Cosmopolitanism: Possibilities and Inspirations 79
3 Occluded Rainbows: Queerness and Cosmopolitan
Solidarities in India 87
Queer/LGBTQI : Naming and Organising in India 94
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viii Contents
Constitutionality, Legal Reform and Cosmopolitan Solidarity 97
Storytelling and Identity-Making: Mythologies,
Cosmologies and Life Stories 100
Thirunangai Representations and Narratives in Tamil Nadu 105
4 Are Dispossessed Bodies Human? Gender, Exile and
Cosmopolitan Solidarities 121
Windflowers: Unrooted Homes and Cosmopolitan Belongings 123
Black Masks; Brown Masks: Ethnic Conflicts in the
Caribbean Islands 127
Indo-Caribbean Women: The Marginalisations of
Gender and Race 134
Experiential and Literary Tropes in Indo-Caribbean
Women’s Identities 140
Writing as Memory, Writing as Healing: Indo-Caribbean
Women’s Literature 146
5 Love in the Time of Corporeal Cosmopolitanism 157
Affect, Eros and Vulnerability: Feeling Cosmopolitanism 158
Cosmopolitanism/Colonialism: The Janus-Faced Nexus 164
Love and Theory in Corporeal Cosmopolitanism 169
Desiring Cosmopolitanisms: Affective and
Embodied Solidarities 175
Corporeal Communities: Rituals of Belonging 182
Bookends: Incanting the Political into the Body 191
References 197
Appendices 207
Index 209
About the Author 215
Acknowledgements
Remembering and expressing gratitude is a profound privilege. It is also a
reminder of the tremendous support and love that have been given so freely
and generously to me. I am almost certain that I will not be able to thank
everyone I want to, so my first debt of gratitude is to the people I am unable
to name here, and to every one of my extraordinary teachers. Thank you all.
To my editors, Dhara Patel, Mike Watson and Anna Reeve (who was with
me at the beginning), thank you for being so patient with my anxiety and
my never-ending stream of questions. You have been remarkable bearers of
gentleness, patience and guidance.
My special thanks to Anisha Verghese, my dear friend and wonderful artist
who designed the cover image. You saw the book I wrote.
I do not know who you are, but to the person who read and reviewed my
final manuscript, thank you for your time, your attention to detail and your
faith in my work. It means the world to me. Many thanks to Dr. Jimmy
Casas Clausen for your generous solidarity, and also to my other anonymous
reviewer, both of whose support and discerning comments were invaluable.
To friends and colleagues who read and responded to chapters, ideas and
pieces of work, my enormous gratitude (in mostly chronological order):
Veronique Pin-Fat, for saying yes the first time; Andy Price, for setting me on
the path to this book; Pavithra Prasad, for believing and always knowing what
I needed; Padma Govindan, for navigating minefields with me; Mathangi
Krishnamurthy, for your attentiveness and ready laughter; Desirée Reynolds,
for your insights and love; and L. Ramakrishnan, for combining intellectual
incisiveness with such kindness.
I also owe much gratitude to my colleagues and friends at work who gave
me greatly needed emotional, intellectual and material support as I completed

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