The history and historiography of culture and society in colonial North India emphasizes the grow... more The history and historiography of culture and society in colonial North India emphasizes the growing rigidity of disciplinary and professional forms of public participation, mediated in most cases by more notions of class, caste, region and nation. 1 The ordering of information into specific forms of knowledge in this period was characterized by the involvement of newly emergent societies, regulatory boards, sophisticated trading networks and communal affiliations, all of which had a role in determining relevance and meaning. However, despite the measures of social and political control exercised over the production and dissemination of information and services in this period, there is ample evidence of individuals working outside of existing power structures while still making significant contributions within it. One such individual was Yashoda Devi, a traditionally trained Ayurvedic doctor and writer, who ran several private clinics with her husband and had a very long and active publishing career beginning in 1910 and lasting until the late 1930s. As a self-proclaimed Ayurvedic practitioner, Yashoda Devi existed on the periphery of the medical establishment, separate from practitioners who adopted biomedical approaches to medicine. 2 At the same time,
This essay surveys a broad landscape of studies that take up the preparation, imbibing, and distr... more This essay surveys a broad landscape of studies that take up the preparation, imbibing, and distribution of food in significant ways, focusing on the way in which the field of food studies in South Asia is cohering in recent scholarship. It begins with histories of the imperial period that frame food around imperial encounter and then move on to studies that address the crises of food through famine and their political aftermath. It then turns to the postcolonial, globalized context of making food Indian in a large‐scale market and concludes with thoughts on where food studies and food cultures are headed. Ultimately, food is determined to have symbolic and pragmatic meaning as an icon of national presence in the greater world, a tool for assessing social relations, a measure of taste and values, a challenge for the political and environmental systems of a geo‐economic space. As eating in India has taken on new political dimensions that have arisen from the synchronous rise of both neoliberal practices of political economy and the rise of Hindu fascism, the anxieties articulated through the cultures of food at work in the region are revealed.
In 1927, the American journalist Katherine Mayo (1867-1940) published a text entitled Mother Indi... more In 1927, the American journalist Katherine Mayo (1867-1940) published a text entitled Mother India, a scathing critique of the" social ills" that plagued women in the Indian subcontinent, exposing their" depraved sexuality" and their unhygienic intimate practices, ...
The history and historiography of culture and society in colonial North India emphasizes the grow... more The history and historiography of culture and society in colonial North India emphasizes the growing rigidity of disciplinary and professional forms of public participation, mediated in most cases by more notions of class, caste, region and nation. 1 The ordering of information into specific forms of knowledge in this period was characterized by the involvement of newly emergent societies, regulatory boards, sophisticated trading networks and communal affiliations, all of which had a role in determining relevance and meaning. However, despite the measures of social and political control exercised over the production and dissemination of information and services in this period, there is ample evidence of individuals working outside of existing power structures while still making significant contributions within it. One such individual was Yashoda Devi, a traditionally trained Ayurvedic doctor and writer, who ran several private clinics with her husband and had a very long and active publishing career beginning in 1910 and lasting until the late 1930s. As a self-proclaimed Ayurvedic practitioner, Yashoda Devi existed on the periphery of the medical establishment, separate from practitioners who adopted biomedical approaches to medicine. 2 At the same time,
This essay surveys a broad landscape of studies that take up the preparation, imbibing, and distr... more This essay surveys a broad landscape of studies that take up the preparation, imbibing, and distribution of food in significant ways, focusing on the way in which the field of food studies in South Asia is cohering in recent scholarship. It begins with histories of the imperial period that frame food around imperial encounter and then move on to studies that address the crises of food through famine and their political aftermath. It then turns to the postcolonial, globalized context of making food Indian in a large‐scale market and concludes with thoughts on where food studies and food cultures are headed. Ultimately, food is determined to have symbolic and pragmatic meaning as an icon of national presence in the greater world, a tool for assessing social relations, a measure of taste and values, a challenge for the political and environmental systems of a geo‐economic space. As eating in India has taken on new political dimensions that have arisen from the synchronous rise of both neoliberal practices of political economy and the rise of Hindu fascism, the anxieties articulated through the cultures of food at work in the region are revealed.
In 1927, the American journalist Katherine Mayo (1867-1940) published a text entitled Mother Indi... more In 1927, the American journalist Katherine Mayo (1867-1940) published a text entitled Mother India, a scathing critique of the" social ills" that plagued women in the Indian subcontinent, exposing their" depraved sexuality" and their unhygienic intimate practices, ...
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