In Pursuit of Proof

A History of Identification Documents in India

Tarangini Sriraman (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

296 Seiten

2018
OUP India (Verlag)
978-0-19-946351-0 (ISBN)

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In Pursuit of Proof brings forth a hitherto unattempted history of claiming, making, and verifying identification documents in the urban margins of India and Delhi in particular. The book summons to life past and contemporary processes of bureaucratic recognition and administrative verification of subjects by locating them in the everyday material worlds of especially the poor. In attempting to illuminate the paper regimes of welfare that are now being radically transformed owing to the technological infrastructures of Aadhaar, the author resorts to eclectic forms of ethnography and archival research to delineate the pursuit of proof across various timescales. This piece of historical writing moves with methodological agility across moments as disparate as World War II, the Partition, 'Licence Raj', a forgotten but portentous enumeration initiative, and the production of a unique number. What however weaves this vast and ambitious narrative together is the book's intricate and layered exposition of a state whose welfare capacities of governing are drawn from popular practices of knowledge around documenting and proving identities.

Tarangini Sriraman teaches Politics and History at the School of Liberal Studies in Azim Premji University. She has previously been a Postdoctoral Visiting Fellow at Centre de Sciences Humaines, New Delhi and Visiting Associate Fellow, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi. She has received the Charles Wallace Research Grant, London, and the South Asian Studies Fellowship at Cornell University. Her work has been published in journals like EPW, Contributions to Indian Sociology, Indian Economic and Social History Review and South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal (SAMAJ). She lives with her husband who is a journalist in Bangalore.

List of Figures
Preface
List of Abbreviations

Introduction
1. A Wartime ID: The Early Ration Card
2. Emotions in the Time of 'License Raj'
3. Refugees and Their Displaced Documents of Identity
4. Making Proof in a Slum
5. The Document in the Digital
Conclusion

Glossary
Bibliography
Index
About the Author

Erscheinungsdatum	22.10.2018
Verlagsort	New Delhi
Sprache	englisch
Maße	148 x 224 mm
Gewicht	540 g
Themenwelt	Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Zeitgeschichte
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung ► Staat / Verwaltung
ISBN-10	0-19-946351-4 / 0199463514
ISBN-13	978-0-19-946351-0 / 9780199463510
Zustand	Neuware