“…India became a subordinate agricultural colony under the dominance of metropolitan, industrial Britain; its basic cultural institutions were disempowered and fixed in unchanging “traditional” forms; its “civil society” was subjected to the suzerainty of a military despotic state. (1999:397)A focus on the global inceptions of capital thus discloses the modern empire as “an agent of both modernization and traditionalization, of both global integration and regional peripheralization,” which served to “deepen the social forms of ‘backwardness’ it simultaneously sought to reform” (Sartori :642).…”
Recent critical analyses of global land grabs have variously invoked global capitalism and neocolonialism to account for this trend. One line of inquiry approaches land grabs as instances of “primitive accumulation of capital” whereby lands in the Global South are “enclosed” and brought within the ambit of global capitalism. Another perspective invokes the history of Anglo‐American colonialism for critiquing the developmentalist discourse that depicts Africa as the “last frontier” to be tamed by the techno‐industrial civilization of the North. This essay integrates these two perspectives by elaborating capitalism as an irreducibly colonial formation with global inceptions. I begin with a discussion of “primitive accumulation” and, counter to many, question the suitability of “enclosure” for interpreting land grabs. The second section delves into the theoretical origins of primitive accumulation, proposing to situate it in a global and colonial genealogy of capitalism. A final section charts the theoretical and historical contours of this global genealogy and arrives at a more capacious reconceptualization of primitive accumulation. I conclude by reflecting on the implications of contemporary land grabs for in situ displacement, the fungibility of land, and new enclosures in the contemporary reconfiguration of global value chains.
“…India became a subordinate agricultural colony under the dominance of metropolitan, industrial Britain; its basic cultural institutions were disempowered and fixed in unchanging “traditional” forms; its “civil society” was subjected to the suzerainty of a military despotic state. (1999:397)A focus on the global inceptions of capital thus discloses the modern empire as “an agent of both modernization and traditionalization, of both global integration and regional peripheralization,” which served to “deepen the social forms of ‘backwardness’ it simultaneously sought to reform” (Sartori :642).…”
Recent critical analyses of global land grabs have variously invoked global capitalism and neocolonialism to account for this trend. One line of inquiry approaches land grabs as instances of “primitive accumulation of capital” whereby lands in the Global South are “enclosed” and brought within the ambit of global capitalism. Another perspective invokes the history of Anglo‐American colonialism for critiquing the developmentalist discourse that depicts Africa as the “last frontier” to be tamed by the techno‐industrial civilization of the North. This essay integrates these two perspectives by elaborating capitalism as an irreducibly colonial formation with global inceptions. I begin with a discussion of “primitive accumulation” and, counter to many, question the suitability of “enclosure” for interpreting land grabs. The second section delves into the theoretical origins of primitive accumulation, proposing to situate it in a global and colonial genealogy of capitalism. A final section charts the theoretical and historical contours of this global genealogy and arrives at a more capacious reconceptualization of primitive accumulation. I conclude by reflecting on the implications of contemporary land grabs for in situ displacement, the fungibility of land, and new enclosures in the contemporary reconfiguration of global value chains.
“…The same goes for secularism. Some recent works that consider the complexities of the liberal tradition in colonial India include Bayly (2011), Mantena (2010), Mehta (1999) and Sartori (2006Sartori ( , 2008; for a more general discussion of liberalism and autonomy see Mendus (1986-7) and essays collected in Christman (1989) and Taylor (2005). On secularism, see Asad (2003), Casanova (1994) and Sullivan (2005).…”
The trope in which conversion -especially of non-Western people to Christianity -is envisioned as a type of conquest is one many scholars have found compelling. This article examines the implicit moral psychology behind the idea that conversion is a 'colonization of consciousness', which it identifies as rooted in a secular liberal model of the self and of religion. The appeal of the conversion-as-conquest trope lies in its focus on power, but by building secular liberal assumptions into its theoretical optic it remains ironically blind to some of the most pervasive ways power operates todaynamely, through the production of secular truths about religion, and by authorizing 'autonomous' secular subjectivities as normative. Drawing on examples from the author's research on Pentecostal conversion in Indian slums, and on a national context where violent anti-conversion activism is prevalent, the article argues that while both conversion and opposition to it entail power, this power is not well understood on the model of mental colonization, or 'resistance' by uncolonized subjectivities.
“…If analytical and sociolegal jurisprudence today have historical roots in liberal and late imperial ideologies, respectively, then we might ask whether this historicism of progress has survived. In an obvious sense, it has not since few people believe European models of law are seen as the ‘end of history’. Yet jurisprudence uses concepts of law that have their own deep, parochial histories in European thought.…”
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