Description
Book SynopsisAfter India achieved independence from the British in 1947, France retained control of five scattered territories until 1962.
Unsettling Utopia presents a new account of the history of twentieth-century French India to show how colonial projects persisted beyond formal decolonization.
Trade ReviewExploring the decolonization of French India, Namakkal's lucid and innovative book brings together the history of state-led decolonization and the creation of utopias to reveal how both projects relied on regimes of labor, erasure, and territorial expansion that had much in common with the colonizing project. Engaging, ambitious, and deeply researched,
Unsettling Utopia brings new and important insights to our understanding of the temporal boundaries of colonialism and decolonization. -- Danna Agmon, author of
A Colonial Affair: Commerce, Conversion, and Scandal in French IndiaJessica Namakkal’s excellent book reveals hidden layers of Pondicherry’s feigned decolonization and ongoing recolonization. This tour de force is the kind of book you don't want to finish; it keeps you right on the edge of your seat, avidly turning the pages for more. -- Ari Gautier, author of
Le ThinnaiUnsettling Utopia is a fascinating book on the postcolonial history of French India as well as a provocative analysis of the structural relationships among colonial settlement, utopian thinking, and the incompleteness of decolonization. Namakkal’s immense effort to engage the far-flung transnational archives of French India inform this important book and the revealing light it sheds on the messy history of French imperialism in southern India and its spatial, social, and spiritual afterlives. -- Tariq Jazeel, author of
Sacred Modernity: Nature, Environment, and the Postcolonial Geographies of Sri Lankan NationhoodThis is by far and away the most scholarly, yet readable, account of the long twentieth century in Pondicherry/Puducherry. . . . This excellent book deserves to be read widely by historians, sociologists, geographers, political scientists and more. * H-Soz-Kult *
By looking through the lens of minor histories,
Unsettling Utopia is able to uncover and challenge the mythmaking exercises of former colonisers, the blind spots of the anticolonial nationalist movement, and the complicities of the postcolonial nation-state. * Himal Southasian *
Namakkal's book helped me examine my own experiences anew in the context of Pondicherry's colonial history. I heartily recommend this book to readers keen on understanding how the past continues into the present. * Hindustan Times *
Nuanced, rich, [with] extensive detail...this is by far and away the most scholarly, yet readable, account of the long twentieth century in Pondicherry/Puducherry. -- Andy Davies * H-Soz-Kult *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Chronology
Introduction: On Minor Borders and Colonial Time
Part 1: Making 1. Carceral Borders: Exile, Surveillance, and Subversion
2. The Future of French India: Decolonization and Settlement at the Borders
3. Making the Postcolonial Subject: Goondas, Refugees, and Citizens
Part 2: Unmaking4. Decolonial Crossings: Settlers, Migrants, Tourists
5. From the Ashram to Auroville: Utopia as Settlement
Conclusion: The Messiness of Colonialism
Appendix
Notes
Bibliography
Index
