O'Casey's Postcolonial Dramaturgy

Andrea A. Lunsford and Lahoucine Ouzgane, eds. 2004. Crossing Borderlands: Composition and Postcolonial Studies. Pittsburgh Series in Composition, Literacy, and Culture. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. $ 54.95 hc. $ 22.95 sc. 296 pp.Noting that the 1998 special issue of JAC: A Journal of Composition Theory on postcolonialism and composition studies indicated a growing interest in a mutual exchange of ideas between the two fields, this volume of fourteen essays (some of which are revised versions of articles that appeared in that issue) endeavors to encourage and extend the dialogue. Crossing Borderlands challenges scholars and teachers in both fields to examine the ways in which the goals of their field of study could be better met through the recognition and crossing of borderlands between and practice, postcolonial studies and composition studies. Citing Gary A. Oison, Andrea A. Lunsford and Lahoucine Ouzgane, point to the frequent accusation that postcolonial studies too often focuses on high theory in order to suggest that just as composition studies has been equally generalized as consistently privileging practice over theory, the need to balance the two may provide a point of contact (3).This is not to say that the volume sustains an easy or simple distinction between and postcolonial studies versus practice and composition studies. Rather, Crossing Borderlands moves beyond these borders and identifies a common goal between the two fields: to empower the words and acts of those who have been marginalized. Although they take a variety of approaches to the material, each of the essays collected in this volume asks to what extent teaching postcolonial studies cannot be separated from teaching informed by postcolonial studies. Contributors call for increased recognition of the ways in which work in composition studies contributes to the formulation of pedagogies that are not only mindful of, but also enactments of, postcolonial in the space of the classroom, as well as a reconsideration of the project of postcolonial studies in order to understand how it can provide new ways of imagining and theorizing the institutional space of both the classroom and university.Crossing Borderlands provides a dynamic illustration of the changing face of English studies, in part because the essays struggle to define and locate the field of postcolonial studies within or in relation to it. Perspectives shift between the difficulty of binding postcolonial studies' interdisciplinarity to a definition solely based on either methodology or object of study, as in Deepika Bahri's essay, and an often implied definition that renders it interchangeable with or as a sub-field of literary studies. It is the application of this second definition that is perhaps the most interesting, as it locates the project of the collection within a heated discussion about the relationship between composition and literary studies. At the heart of this collection is a pressing question: given the shared commitments of postcolonial and composition studies, why hasn't there already been more mutual exchange between the two fields? Min-Zhan Lus polemical opening essay argues that one answer to this question is a product of the close association of postcolonial studies and literary studies: Given the historical dichotomizing of literature over composition and research over teaching, to proclaim oneself a radical worker inside English Studies requires one to confront the field's compulsion to bomb composition teachers into accepting the gifts of literary theories (10). Taking up what Lu calls the position of the ungrateful receiver (9), essays by Lunsford, Susan C. Jarratt, Martin Behr, and Jaime Armin Mejia demonstrate the necessary interchange between postcolonial and composition studies by rendering visible the structures of oppression that inhibit writers' agency and emphasizing the liberatory potential of writing. …

IN CYNTHIA SUGARS'S Home-Work: Postcolonialism, Pedagogy, and Canadian Literature, postcolonialism enables one mode of navigating contradictions of national literatures such as Canadian literature. And yet, as Neil Lazarus' Cambridge Companion to Postcolonial Literary Studies reveals, many of same tensions which animate struggle for Canadian literature, and many of contradictions which continue to haunt field, are also attendant upon field of postcolonial literary studies. Both Sugars and Lazarus collections are reappraisals of their respective fields at moments when these fields, against many odds and antagonisms, have finally achieved a level of institutional stability. In that sense, both collections provide timely opportunities to think through fields whose influences on English literary studies have not been limited by their relative youth. Given struggles for academic legitimacy from which fields such as Canadian literature and postcolonial literary studies have emerged with relative triumph, there is a surprising tone of disenchantment and weariness which undercuts both Sugars and Lazarus collections. I want to read this disenchantment not as product of inevitable growing pains, nor do I understand it within now too familiar lament over dangers of institutionalization; rather, I suggest that this disenchantment emerges from a sense of loss, loss of what we might think of as postcolonial futures. In 1986, citing Guyanese poet Martin Carter, Ngugi wa Thiong'o wrote in Decolonizing Mind that theme of his book, a book which has become one of foundational texts of postcolonial studies, emerges from all those men and women in South Africa, Namibia, Kenya, Zaire, Ivory Coast, El Salvador, Chile, Philippines, South Korea, Indonesia, Grenada, Fanon's 'Wretched of Earth,' who have declared loud and clear that they do not sleep to dream, 'but dream to change world' (3). It seems almost naive now to make such claims for work in postcolonial studies and Canadian literature. However, I suggest that both Sugars and Lazarus collections signal urgency of reclaiming postcolonial futures and language of dreaming. In this reclamation, I am not advocating a return to some perceived moment of origins, innocence, or intellectual purity. Rather, I hope to illustrate ways in which these reappraisals of postcolonial and Canadian literary studies are grounded in narratives of longing. Further, following work of David Scott, I suggest that we need to understand the ways in which expectation of--or longing for--particular futures helps to shape kind of problem past is constructed as for present (31). Thus, disenchantment I detect in both texts reveals that object of these longings comprise a narrative which looks forward through desires of looking back. In advocating reclamation of postcolonial futures, I am also asking for a reclamation of postcolonial pasts, of dreams, desires, and possibilities which mark postcolonial and Canadian literary studies. This disenchantment lies partly with ways in which institutionalization of these once relatively marginal fields of study has not necessarily resulted in contributions for genuine social change. There is also a sense, particularly in case of Lazarus volume, that these achievements have been won at cost of foundational commitments to radical politics such as Marxism and anticolonial nationalism. Resisting smug triumphalism and empty celebrations, both texts emphasize inadequacy of institutionalization and raise serious questions for trajectories of these fields. In both texts, there is a sense of a disjuncture between where Canadian literature and postcolonial studies began and where it is now. While this disjuncture might also be read under sign of progress, it nevertheless demands a narrative of origins. Sugars's Introduction to Home-Work provides one such narrative. …

As someone who entered the United States as a foreign student in the late 1980s, my academic career was intensely shaped by the then burgeoning discourses on colonialism and postcolonialism.1 The triumvirate of Said, Spivak, and Bhabha functioned like a citation machine; and despite Said’s Orientalism, South Asia, especially India, dominated as the colonial/ postcolonial site par excellence. Much of this had to do not just with the presence of many a South Asian scholar studying, writing, and teaching in U.S. universities but also with the fact that some of the most brilliant work was being undertaken on India: Lata Mani’s work on the discourses on sati, the work of the Subaltern Studies historians, Spivak’s “Can the Subaltern Speak?” and her famous essays on the Rani of Sirmur, and of course Bhabha’s legendary essays “Sly Civility” and “Signs Taken for Wonders.” The outpouring of anglophone fiction from South Asia, topped off by the publication of Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, made certain that there would be no dearth of work on South Asian (read Indian) postcolonial fiction, and even today, despite a fairer distribution of attention to other parts of the ex-colonial worlds, works on South Asia continue to dominate the scene. Much has been written about this privileging of South Asia (again, read India) and its incarnation as the quintessential postcolonial site, and I am not going to rehearse the debates here. But suffice it to say that while my teaching spans continents, my first book was part and parcel of the work on the discourse of gender and nationalism in colonial and postcolonial literary representations by British, Bengali, and anglophone South Asian writers. But, in another sense the book was comparative because it brought into play writers working in different languages, and I remember getting a report from Cambridge University Press asking me why there was no chapter on Rushdie.

Held at Lancaster University's Centre for Research (CeDR) in June 2009, this seminar was first of a summer series designed to foster in-depth exploration of topics within Cultural and promote dialogue with other areas of research.1 A Tripartite Approach to Postcolonialism began with a keynote presentation by Dr. Clare Barker (University of Birmingham) and Prof. Stuart Murray (University of Leeds), guest editors of forthcoming special issue of JLCDS on postcolonialism. Their presentation, Literatures and Materiality of offered a survey of relationship between postcolonial scholarship and Studies, while also making a series of critical interventions. In particular, speakers stressed need for a close engagement with local conditions of production of text, arguing that transcultural applicability of key theories and concepts from Cultural cannot be assumed. For example, they suggested that David T. Mitchell and Sharon L. Snyder's seminal concept of narrative prosthesis- developed in Narrative Prosthesis: and Dependencies of Discourse (2000)-invites analysis focusing on metaphorical meaning of individual character, neglecting idea of community central to many postcolonial narratives. speakers also argued that issues of care and cure may function very differently in postcolonial texts. Offering brief readings of works from a range of postcolonial contexts (including texts by Salman Rushdie, Ben Okri, Sahar Khalifeh, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, and Patricia Grace), Literatures and Materiality of Disability made a compelling case for contribution can make to postcolonial scholarship, and vice-versa. As with best work in Cultural Studies, this presentation actively sought to advance our understanding of not one but two fields. Drawing on but not requiring familiarity with previous work by both speakers-particularly notion of autistic presence and argument that a shift in reading strategies is required when engaging with postcolonial texts2-their presentation successfully balanced conceptual sophistication with accessibility for those less familiar with postcolonial studies. Sparking most discussion during post-presentation question session was issue of metaphor. Among points raised were whether there is a difference between metaphor and metaphorization, and need to ask what a character communicates about disability before level of metaphor. In fact, while postcolonial texts may make issue of metaphor a particularly pressing one, metaphor has been keenly discussed at various recent events, suggesting that, in UK Cultural at least, it is a hot topic. This was illustrated in next presentation, Shifting Perspective, Heightening Awareness: Weaving Dialogues Between Postcolonial Theory and Studies by Ana B. Pereira, a postgraduate student at Lancaster University. Her paper drew out parallels between postcolonial theories and Studies, before offering an in-depth reading of a classic text in postcolonial theory, Frantz Fanon's The Fact of Blackness (included in 1952 collection Black Skin, White Masks). Noting extent to which imagery of impaired body is used in Fanon's essay-in terms reminiscent of, though without reference to, Mitchell and Snyder's writing on disability as the master trope of human disqualification (3)- she stressed importance of bearing in mind the existence of interlocking systems of oppression. In same panel, Beatriz Miranda-Galarza of University of Leeds presented a paper examining relationship of disability to postcolonial issues from a Latin American perspective. Drawing upon both fieldwork and personal experience, 'Between a will to write and a body to be written': Disability, history and things that West forgot to say was an invitation to rethink western historical and theoretical account of disability that, she argued, has disabled contribution of those from other milieus. …

This chapter works towards a notion of postcolonial and development theories as locked in negotiation one with another around the relative importance of poverty and inequality. Prioritising global inequality, broadly speaking, postcolonial theory has incited and responded to changes in development theory, arguing repeatedly for shifts in its foci (from a focus on development agents and agency to a focus on subalterns and subalternity), its constructs (in particular constructs of teleological or linear histories) and its disciplinary centres (from a methodological focus on political and economic geographies to a methodological focus on cultural geographies). Ultimately, the chapter concludes that this negotiation is not a contest but a co-operation: postcolonial theory and development theory are each concerned with both poverty and inequality, and they negotiate to fundamentally address the latter, whilst not ignoring the reality of the former.

Postcolonial theory emerged in the late 1970s as a paradigm for examining the consequences and legacies of colonialism. With respect to sport for development and peace (SDP) theory, research and practice, this chapter introduces postcolonial theory, examines how ‘it’ has been and could be used. The first section discusses how postcolonial theory serves as a critical ‘history of the present’ and is connected to the concept and practice of ‘development’. The second section explores five concepts in postcolonial theory – discourse, hegemony, hybridity, agency, and the subaltern – that are relevant to SDP. The third section provides examples of postcolonial analyses of contemporary sport, highlighting several major contributions, especially in the understanding of cricket. A review of scholarship that explicitly applies postcolonial theory to the realm of sport, development and peace follows. A key question is how SDP might perpetuate or challenge inequalities in power, resources and influence. The fourth section tackles critiques and problems in using postcolonial theory in SDP, particularly around appropriate indicators for both qualitative and quantitative analysis. The chapter ends with suggestions for next steps, including more inclusive and accessible research as well as systematic efforts to imagine a future that both incorporates and transcends the postcolonial frame.

This paper examines distinctive measurements of post colonialism and analyzes the point of view of postcolonial scholars in a way that the concepts on post colonialism and colonialism within the modern scholarly dialog can be comprehended. The speculations and approaches to scholarly examination have made the discourse on post colonialism hot and far from being obviously true as the nations and journalists of the colonized countries have entered into a preface that's expected to be free for basic and imaginative dialogs. The perspective the paper has attempted is exploratory because it includes the basic viewpoints of the researchers such as Che Guevara, Rumina Sethi, Robert Youthful, Arif Dirlik, Amar Acheraiou, Aijaz Ahmad, and Homi Bhabha extending from Europe to Asia. Postcolonial scholars look for the reasons of what happens when two societies collide with each other. Their concern is repercussions of social struggle. Decolonization may be a preparation of vanishing colonizers from the lands they had colonized at a time and ruled on the local individuals. In spite of the fact that decolonization has wrapped up its course, the scholars lock in the perusers within the clash of civilization as experienced by the colonized and caused by the colonizers within the colonized countries within the post-colonial period. The article lays the streams on the issue i.e. post colonialism and its unmistakable flow as seen and conceived by the postcolonial scholars. The paper has utilized a topical approach to discuss post colonialism.

Since the 1980s, feminism and post-colonialism began to exchange and dialogue, forming a new interpretation space, that is, post-colonial feminist cultural theory. There is a very complicated relationship between post-colonialism and feminism, both in practice and theory. It was obvious that they have always been consistent as both cultural theories focus on the marginalization of the "other" that is marginalized by the ruling structure, consciously defending their interests. Post-structuralism is used to deny the common foundation of patriarchy and colonialism—the thinking mode of binary opposition. However, only in the most recent period, Postcolonialism and feminism "Running" is more "near", it is almost like an alliance. (The factor contributing to this alliance is that both parties recognize their limitations.) Furthermore, for quite some time there have been serious conflicts between these two equally famous critical theories. They have been deeply divided on issues, such as how to evaluate the third world women’s liberation, how to view the relationship between imperialism and feminism, and how to understand that colonialists use the standards of feminism to support their "civilization mission." This article has greatly benefited from the perspectives and materials of Leela Gandhi's Postcolonial Theory; A Critical Introduction.

In this article, I explore complex and contested interfaces between postcolonial and poststructural theories in the context of education, focusing on seemingly paradoxical epistemic demands related to justice and ethics. I start with a brief analysis of the heterogeneous and contested areas of poststructural and postcolonial theories in education, highlighting a common source of important insights in the works of Michel Foucault. Next, I present a concrete example of an academic incident that illustrates how politics of identity and ideas of justice/injustice, innocence, or complicity in harm can mobilize different epistemic demands, conceptualizations of ethics, and educational questions. In keeping with a postcolonial call to first provincialize and to subsequently deprovincialize Eurocentred disciplines, I offer a Quechua narrative as an alternative way to approach questions of justice and ethics, and conclude by suggesting the bridge as a metaphor for education and as a means to connect or to escape different difficult ethical imperatives in different realms of existence.

In recent years there have been several calls in professional and academic journals for healthcare personnel in Canada to raise the profile of postcolonial theory as a theoretical and explanatory framework for their practice with Indigenous people. In this paper I explore some of the challenges that are likely to confront those healthcare personnel in engaging with postcolonial theory in a training context. I consider these challenges in relation to three areas of conflict. First I consider conflicts around paradigms of knowledge, wherein postcolonial theory operates from a different base from most professional knowledge in health care. Second I consider conflicts of ideology, wherein postcolonial theory is largely at odds with Canada’s political and popular cultures. And finally I consider issues around the question of Canada’s legitimacy, which postcolonial theory puts in doubt. I suggest ways in which these conflicts might be addressed and managed in the training context, and also identify potential positive outcomes that would be enabling for healthcare personnel, and might also contribute to an improvement in Canada’s relationship with its indigenous peoples.

The Ethical Stakes of Critique Rahul Govind (bio) THE END OF THE WEST AND OTHER CAUTIONARY TALES BY SEAN MEIGHOO Columbia University Press, 2018 Sean Meighoo's The End of the West and Other Cautionary Tales opens with the following problematic: the concept of the West drives a certain form of Euro-centrism. However, Meighoo argues that many of the critiques of this very Euro-centrism are themselves complicit with their object of critique. The basis for this argument is that even these critiques presuppose a unitary concept and history of the West. Meighoo diagnoses this failure in a range of figures and texts from continental philosophy and postcolonial theory. While the demonstration of this failure forms a major portion of the book in the form of Parts II and III (136 pages of 222 pages) there is what might appear an unusual framing to these sections. Part I is a discussion of Martin Bernal's Black Athena and its critical reception, while the concluding part IV is a reading of "popular culture," more specifically a reading of the film Help! (starring the Beatles). Bernal's work is an apt introduction of the problematic of the West since the latter is often in-dissociable from Greece, and the concluding section on "popular culture" is meant to teach us ways to deconstruct the West, moving beyond the promises and practices of both continental philosophy and postcolonial theory. Before moving to a discussion of Meighoo's readings, it should be stated at the outset that the sections on continental philosophy and postcolonial theory (Parts II and III) are in fact readings of specific texts of Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Emmanuel Levinas, Jacques Derrida, Edward Said, Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Homi Bhaba, and [End Page 151] Trinh T. Minh-ha. There is an internal logic to this sequence. Meighoo begins with the need to dismantle the concept of the West and its Greek origins—in fact, the very concept of the origin—which was to have uniquely invented "philosophy, science and democracy." As he says: "The West binds together reason, progress and freedom in a way that remains absolutely unique to itself" (3). Within continental philosophy, Meighoo traces a shift from a "historical teleology" ("a discourse that celebrates the historical and technological progress of the West") to a "negative teleology" ("a counter discourse that laments its cultural and spiritual decline") (xi, repeated on 45). While Husserl and Heidegger embody this shift, this very shift is subtly reiterated in the texts of Levinas and Derrida. "Negative teleology" is reappropriated in postcolonial theory, an appropriation that is legible in the "critique of representation" (as a unique power of the West) in E. Said and C. T. Mohanty as much as in the "valorization of difference" in H. Bhaba and Trinh T. Minh-ha. Thus, even within negative teleology and its most radical appropriations, the subtle specter of a unitary West persists. It is in the face of this challenge that Meighoo proposes, in the concluding part IV, to alternate registers by reading the film Help!, in which he finds a "hyperbolic" practice of representation that might well be more subversive than the self-consciously critical practices of continental philosophy as much as postcolonial theory. The fundamental methodological and substantive issue is not merely the accuracy and persuasiveness of the specific readings of the various texts under discussion but also whether Meighoo is successful in integrating these different texts and in diagnosing them all with a singular conceptual defect: the persistence of the "West" in their analyses. Moreover, one has to simultaneously evaluate the value of the concluding section where an alternative—unburdened by this defect—is proposed in the reading of film. On both counts, this reviewer remains unconvinced. Since the book involves readings of texts, there is simply no other way to critically engage than to closely and critically follow Meighoo's tread; needless to say, this cannot but be selective. In part I, Meighoo admits that his discussion does not contribute any historical evidence to Bernal's work and its critical reception. Rather, the interest and investment lie in the "stakes" of the debate: "The significance of Bernal's Black Athena lies not so...

This essay discusses recent theoretical engagements in the fields of migration and postcolonial studies in Italy by examining their contribution to American and transatlantic studies. It focuses on cultural critiques and manifestations which seek an interrogation or revitalization of Italy’s cultural identity. The analysis draws on the many links between past and present, a confrontation of the histories of migration from and to the country. For instance, the Italian/American influence is remarkable on transforming views of Italian identity, particularly regarding (im)migration. The objective of this paper is twofold. On the one hand, it examines how artistic productions compel the Italian society to come to terms with the past. This phenomenon attests to a unique social and cultural transition in Italy, and represents a breeding research ground within Italian studies and the Anglo-dominated area of postcolonial and diaspora studies. On the other hand, the essay investigates how these changes enhance to the role of transatlantic migrations. In doing so, the significance of such cultural productions is framed within ongoing epistemological and scholarly endeavours. This is exemplified by the abundant number of publications, seminars, conferences and new curricula challenging, as well as advancing, contemporary debates on migration, multiculturalism, identity (Italian-ness) and memory.

In postcolonial literary studies the dominant emphasis has been on literature written in English, with the consequence that writing in the “vernacular” has been consistently marginalized. Literary traditions in local languages have not only flourished within national boundaries, they have related to social and political histories in significant ways. There is a need to bridge this gap through translations into English and across languages. In addition to fostering a context that promotes more translations, postcolonial scholarship must promote a more complex and nuanced understanding of the role and significance of translations in postcolonial studies. More theory and more translations are crucial to forging new directions.

Reviewed by: Empires of Vision: A Reader ed. by Martin Jay and Sumathi Ramaswamy Carla Manfredi Empires of Vision: A Reader. Edited by martin jay and sumathi ramaswamy. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2014. 688 pp. $119.95 (cloth); $32.95 (paper). Empires of Vision contributes to our understanding of the visual cultures of European imperialism and to their afterlives in postcolonial milieus. Thoughtfully edited by cultural historians Martin Jay and Sumathi Ramaswamy, the volume includes twenty-one reprinted essays and is divided into two sections: “The Imperial Optic” and “Postcolonial Looking.” The first section introduces five visual media within a trans-historical and global context that spans roughly five hundred years of imperialism. The second section focuses on the decades following decolonization and explores the different ways in which subaltern artists have responded to or “look[ed] back” (p. 3) at Europe. The selections offer a multitude of historical, regional, cultural, and theoretical perspectives, which will be of interest to an interdisciplinary readership. Although many of the volume’s selections will undoubtedly be familiar to seasoned scholars, they will provide graduate students with a solid grounding for future historical and theoretical research across the fields of imperialism, postcolonialism, visual and cultural studies, and art history. It is impossible to do justice to any book in a brief review let alone to extracts from twenty-one impressive pieces of scholarship. Thus, this review focuses on the editors’ contributions to Empires of Vision, which are bold reminders of what cross-disciplinary study can achieve: a recasting of conventional, written histories and a questioning of entrenched theoretical paradigms. In “The Work of Vision in the Age of European Empires,” Ramaswamy offers a sophisticated and lucid introduction to current critical approaches to colonialism and visual culture. The stakes of Empires of Vision are clearly defined: “The image is a site where new accounts of empire, the (post)colony, and Europe itself emerge and depart from—even challenge—the more familiar narrative line(s) of nonvisual histories” (p. 3). The volume, explains Ramaswamy, responds to and encourages a gradual academic reorientation. Despite the appearance of several recent visual culture anthologies, the study of art remains largely limited to art history; indeed, histories of colonialism and postcolonialism marginalize the integral role of visual culture in the production of colonial violence. Ramaswamy supports her claim with an anecdote about Edward Said, who confessed that “‘just to think about the visual arts generally sends me into a panic’” (p. 5). Panic becomes a productive metaphor for theorizing how images are often “disorderly” and “unpredictable” and sometimes “incoherent”; thus, Empires of [End Page 927] Vision offers alternative histories to those presented in official textual archives (pp. 5–6). If colonial and postcolonial studies have given short shrift to the visual arts, then visual culture studies also need to catch up. In conventional visual culture accounts, the presence of empire is still obscured, resulting in a European framework of visuality (p. 10). To illustrate this argument, Ramaswamy refers to a compelling 1996 “Visual Culture Questionnaire” published in the journal October: No one who responded to this questionnaire was a specialist in visual arts from regions other than Europe or the United States (pp. 10–11). Needless to say, the questionnaire highlights the importance of this collection, which will militate against parochialism (whether disciplinary or otherwise) and encourage interdisciplinary and interregional approaches to visuality and empire. In their introduction to part 1, “The Imperial Optic,” Ramaswamy and Jay trouble Eurocentric approaches to visual culture by underscoring the dynamic interactions between metropolitan technologies and indigenous traditions and practices. Thus, the “mutually constitutive relationship between empire and image-work” engendered new practices of seeing in and outside Europe (p. 25). Part 1 is divided into four sections, which deal with easel painting, mass-printed illustrations, cartography, and photography/film respectively. Anthropologist Deborah Poole’s influential notion of “visual economy” (1997) serves as an underlying concept for this part. The term “visual economy,” rather than “visual culture” is better suited to consider how images circulate within wide social, cultural, geographical, and imperial networks. In other words, individuals do not have to share a common (visual) culture in order to belong to the...

The colonial history of India is frequently associated with the British Empire, yet the French Empire also had a long-lasting and significant presence in India. Jessica Namakkal illuminates this important aspect of India’s colonial history and its legacy in her engaging book, which offers original insights and contributions to various disciplines, including French studies, colonial history, postcolonial studies, political science, and memory studies. Namakkal draws on a wide range of sources, perspectives, and original methodologies, including the study of archival material, the press of various nations, memoirs, interviews, visual media, and observations of the landscape and events taking place in contemporary Pondicherry, the former capital of the French Empire in India. The work highlights the complex entanglements, tensions, and rivalries between the British and French Empires that shaped India’s colonial history. The author offers detailed portraits of key figures who played important roles in defining the colonial history and the future of French India, such as Sri Aurobindo, Mira Alfassa, Édouard Goubert, and Raphael Ramanyya Dadala, tracing their actions and examining their thought. The volume also explores the complex interrelations between identity, nationality, ethnicity, and caste of residents of French India, and highlights the ways in which attitudes towards nationality shifted in tandem with the evolving policies and politics of the Empire. Namakkal casts light on the various migrant trajectories which arose as a consequence of the French Empire in India, including the experiences of those who migrated from Europe to French India, those who sought refuge from the British Empire in French Indian territories, and those who migrated from India to France after independence. Through an analysis of various case studies, Namakkal explores the plight of French nationals of Indian origin after independence, who were frequently alienated from both nations. She also provides fresh insight into the experiences and political significance of mixed-race residents of French India, offering a new perspective on the concept of ‘creolization’ in the context of Pondicherry. A particular strength of the work lies in its novel approach to the concept of decolonization. The author argues that decolonization in the context of French India is not merely to be equated with liberation and peace, but suggests that it engendered violence, and remains incomplete in various senses. Namakkal casts light on the ways in which various aspects of the colonial regime, including divisions and inequalities between local and foreign populations, and the oppression of indigenous populations, continue today in the form of the settlement of Auroville near Pondicherry, which, despite the utopian vision of its founder, Alfassa, ‘exemplifies the phenomenon of anticolonial colonialism, a key concept in understanding neocolonialism in a postcolonial world’ (p. 183). This thoroughly researched and thought-provoking book, which offers insights into a frequently neglected aspect of India’s colonial history, is ­especially valuable to scholars working in postcolonial, French, and South Asian studies.