Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T12:36:38.440Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Engaging Subjective Knowledge: How Amar Singh's Diary Narratives of and by the Self Explain Identity Formation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 May 2004

Lloyd I. Rudolph  and
Susanne Hoeber Rudolph
Lloyd I. Rudolph
Affiliation:
Professor emeritus of political science, University of Chicago ([email protected]). He is finishing a book titled Postmodern Gandhi: Essays on Gandhi after Gandhi.
Susanne Hoeber Rudolph
Affiliation:
Professor emerita of political science, University of Chicago ([email protected]). Her current book project is Living with Difference: Cultural, Legal, and Economic Dimensions of Diversity in India. This article was much strengthened by the lively challenges offered by reviewers and the editor of Perspectives on Politics.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

What should count as knowledge in political science? We have tried here to show that subjectivity is valid and useful, that firstperson accounts of experience—‘telling what I know,” narratives of and by the self, partial and contingent truths, and self-asother ethnography—contribute to knowledge. The move to subjective knowledge does not require the abandonment of objectivity. Self-consciousness and reflexivity simply make it possible to render the familiar unfamiliar, to gain a certain detachment, to achieve “objective subjectivity.” Subjective knowledge helps to explain identity and category formation and the politics of recognition. Accessibility to the politics of those taken to be outside the public sphere, those whose behavior is not easily observed or counted by objective political science—colonized persons, subalterns, and marginalized minorities—depends on their ability to articulate their identities, purposes, and interests. Such forms of identity politics have become of increasing interest to political scientists concerned with subaltern agency, multiculturalism, and ethnic conflict and peace.

Type
Articles
Information
Perspectives on Politics , Volume 1 , Issue 4 , December 2003 , pp. 681 - 694
Copyright
© 2003 by the American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Almond Gabriel A., and Sidney Verba. 1963 The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Amar Singh diary manuscript. Kanota Fort. Jaipur District, Rajasthan, India.
Baltzell E. Digby. 1958 Philadelphia Gentlemen: The Making of a National Upper Class. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press.
Benhabib Seyla, ed. 1996 Democracy and Difference: Contesting the Boundaries of the Political. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Bhabha Homi K. 1994 The Location of Culture. London: Routledge.
Cannadine David. 2001 Ornamentalism: How the British Saw Their Empire. New York: Oxford University Press.
Carmines Edward G., and Robert Huckfeldt. 1996 Political behavior: An overview. In A New Handbook of Political Science, eds. Robert E. Goodin and Hans-Dieter Klingemann. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 223–54.
Carter Forrest. 1976 The Education of Little Tree. New York: Delacorte Press/E. Friede.
Chatterjee Partha. 1986 Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse? London: Zed Books.
Clifford James. 1986a Introduction: Partial truths. In Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, eds. James Clifford and George Marcus. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1– 26.
Clifford James. 1986b On ethnographic allegory. In Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, eds. James Clifford and George Marcus. Berkeley: University of California Press, 98– 121.
Dilks David. 1970 Achievement, vol. 1 of Curzon in India. New Delhi: Taplinger Publishing.
Dunleavy Patrick. 1996 Political behavior: Institutional and experiential approaches. In A New Handbook of Political Science, eds. Robert E. Goodin and Hans-Dieter Klingemann. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 276–93.
Edmonds David, and John Eidinow. 2001 Wittgenstein's Poker: The Story of a Ten-Minute Argument Between Two Great Philosophers. New York: Ecco/HarperCollins.
Forster E. M. 1978 A Passage to India. London: E. Arnold.
Gadamer Hans-Georg. 1989 Truth and Method, trans. J. Weinsheimer and D. G. Marshall. 2d rev. ed. New York: Seabury Press.
Gates Henry Louis,Jr. 1991 “Authenticity,” or the lessons of Little Tree. New York Times Book Review, 24 November 26– 30.Google Scholar
Geertz Clifford. 1973 The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York: Basic Books.
Geertz Clifford. 1988 Works and Lives: The Anthropologist as Author. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Geertz Clifford. 1995 After the Fact: Two Countries, Four Decades, One Anthropologist. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Grondin Jean. 2002 Gadamer's basic understanding of understanding. In The Cambridge Companion to Gadamer, ed. Robert J. Dostal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 36– 51.
Guha Ranajit, ed. [1982] Subaltern Studies 1: Writings on Southern Asian History and Society. Reprint edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Harris Russell. 2001 The Lafayette Studio and Princely India. New Delhi: Roli Books.
Jenkins Laura Dudley. 2003 Identity and Identification in India: Defining the Disadvantaged. London: Curzon Press.
Kipling Rudyard. 1989 “Pagett, M. P.” In Rudyard Kipling: Complete Verse. Definitive edition. New York: Anchor Press 26.
Kymlicka Will. 1996 Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Luhrmann T. M. 1989 Persuasions of the Witch's Craft: Ritual Magic in Contemporary England. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Luhrmann T. M. 2001 Ecstasy and despair: Ethnographic approaches to religious and psychiatric experience. Inaugural lecture for the Dean's Lecture Series, University of Chicago, 24 October.
Lurie Alison. 1967 Imaginary Friends. New York: Coward-McCann.
Macaulay Thomas. 2001 Minute on Indian education. In The Post-Colonial Studies Reader, eds. Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin. London: Routledge, 428–30.
Madan T. N. 1975 On living intimately with strangers. In Encounter and Experience: Personal Accounts of Fieldwork, eds. André Béteille and T. N. Madan. Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 131–56.
Madan T. N. 1994 On critical self-awareness. In Pathways: Approaches to the Study of Society in India. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 147–66.
Mahajan Gurpreet. 1998 Identities and Rights: Aspects of Liberal Democracy in India. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Mahajan Gurpreet. 2002 The Multicultural Path: Issues of Diversity and Discrimination in Democracy. New Delhi: Sage Publications.
Mason Philip. 1974 A Matter of Honour: An Account of the Indian Army, Its Officers and Men. London: Jonathan Cape.
Mayaram Shail. 1999 Recognizing whom? Multiculturalism, Muslim minority identity, and the Mers. In Multiculturalism, Liberalism, and Democracy, eds. Rajeev Bhargava, Amiya Kumar Bagchi, and R. Sudarshan. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
McCloskey Deirdre. 2000 How to Be Human Though an Economist. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
McCloskey Donald (Deirdre). 1990 If You're So Smart: The Narrative of Economic Expertise. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Miller Warren E. 1996 Political behavior, old and new. In A New Handbook of Political Science, eds. Robert E. Goodin and Hans-Dieter Klingemann. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 294– 309.
Nandy Ashis. 1988 The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self Under Colonialism. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Nandy Ashis. 2001 Time Warps: The Insistent Politics of Silent and Evasive Pasts. Delhi: Permanent Black.
New Yorker. 1997 Special fiction issue (India Focus), ed. Bill Buford. 23 and 30 June.
Parekh Bhikhu. 2000 Rethinking Multiculturalism: Cultural Diversity and Political Theory. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Polanyi Michael. 1962 Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Pye Lucian W. 1962 Politics, Personality, and Nation Building: Burma's Search for Identity. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Riggs Fred W. 1964 Administration in Developing Countries: The Theory of Prismatic Society. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Rosaldo Renato. 1989 Culture and Truth: The Remaking of Social Analysis. Boston: Beacon Press.
Rudolph Lloyd I., and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph. 1967 The Modernity of Tradition: Political Development in India. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Rudolph Susanne Hoeber, and Lloyd I. Rudolph. 1993 Modern hate: How ancient animosities get invented. The New Republic, 22 March, 24– 9.Google Scholar
Rudolph Susanne Hoeber, and Lloyd I. Rudolph. 2001 Living with difference in India: Legal pluralism and legal universalism in historical context. In Religion and Personal Law in Secular India: A Call to Judgment, ed. Gerald James Larson. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 36– 65.
Rudolph Susanne Hoeber, and Lloyd I. Rudolph. 2002a Living with multiculturalism: Universalism and particularism in an Indian historical context. In Engaging Cultural Differences: The Multicultural Challenge in Liberal Democracies, eds. Richard Shweder, Martha Minow, and Hazel Rose Markus. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 43– 62.
Rudolph Susanne Hoeber, and Lloyd I. Rudolph. 2002b The Nora and Edward Ryerson Lecture: Engaging subjective knowledge: Narratives of and by the self in the Amar Singh diary. The University of Chicago Record, 23 May, 2– 5.Google Scholar
Rudolph Susanne Hoeber, and Lloyd I. Rudolph. eds. 2002c Reversing the Gaze: Amar Singh's Diary, A Colonial Subject's Narrative of Imperial India, with Mohan Singh Kanota. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.
Scott James C. 1985 Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Scott James C. 1998 Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Sewell William H.,Jr. 1999 Geertz, cultural systems, and history: From synchrony to transformation. In The Fate of “Culture”: Geertz and Beyond, ed. Sherry B. Ortner. Berkeley: University of California Press, 35– 55.
Shweder Richard A. 1991 Thinking Through Cultures: Expeditions in Cultural Psychology. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Srinivas M. N. 1996 Indian anthropologists and the study of Indian culture. Economic and Political Weekly, 16 March, 656–7.Google Scholar
Strongman Luke. 2002 The Booker Prize and the Legacy of Empire. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Sundaram Chandar S. 1996 A grudging concession: The origins of the Indianization of the Indian armies, 1817–1917. Ph.D. diss., History Department, McGill University.
Tarlo Emma. 1996 Clothing Matters: Dress and Identity in India. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Taylor Charles. 1989 Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Taylor Charles. 1992 The politics of recognition. In Multiculturalism and “The Politics of Recognition,” ed. Amy Gutmann. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 25– 74.
Telegram No. 2012, Secretary of State to Viceroy. Telegram P., 18 November 1915, 7:00 p.m. Cambridge University Library, Hardinge Papers, v: l, 103. Correspondence re: European war, part I. Courtesy of DeWitt Ellinwood.
Toulmin Stephen. 2001 Return to Reason. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Turner, Victor. 1967 The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Wachterhauser Brice. 2002 Getting it right: Relativism, realism, and truth. In The Cambridge Companion to Gadamer, ed. Robert J. Dostal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 52– 78.
Weber Max. 1976 The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. Talcott Parsons. New York: Scribner.
Wedeen Lisa. 2002 Conceptualizing culture: Possibilities for political science. American Political Science Review 96: 4, 713–28.Google Scholar
Wendt Alexander. 1987 The agent-structure problem in international relations theory. International Organization 41: 3, 335–70.Google Scholar
Winch Peter. 1967 The Idea of a Social Science and Its Relation to Philosophy. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Wittgenstein Ludwig. 1953 Philosophical Investigations, trans. G. E. M. Anscombe. New York: Macmillan.
Young Iris Marion. 1990 Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Young Robert J. C. 2001 Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.