Genealogy of Colonial Discourse: Hindu Traditions and the Limits of European Representation

2009 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 563-589 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raf Gelders

In the aftermath of Edward Said's Orientalism (1978), European representations of Eastern cultures have returned to preoccupy the Western academy. Much of this work reiterates the point that nineteenth-century Orientalist scholarship was a corpus of knowledge that was implicated in and reinforced colonial state formation in India. The pivotal role of native informants in the production of colonial discourse and its subsequent use in servicing the material adjuncts of the colonial state notwithstanding, there has been some recognition in South Asian scholarship of the moot point that the colonial constructs themselves built upon an existing, precolonial European discourse on India and its indigenous culture. However, there is as yet little scholarly consensus or indeed literature on the core issues of how and when these edifices came to be formed, or the intellectual and cultural axes they drew from. This genealogy of colonial discourse is the subject of this essay. Its principal concerns are the formalization of a conceptual unit in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, called “Hinduism” today, and the larger reality of European culture and religion that shaped the contours of representation.

2009 ◽  
pp. 76-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. B. Rosser-Jr.

The article presents an overview of econophysics, its main issues, history and possible paths of future development. Descriptions of the subject, problems and methodology are provided. The questions are raised such as what the contribution of the new discipline to the core issues in economics is and whether the new methods and approaches could be applied in physics. The role of the interdisciplinary research which tends to become the main engine of development in econophysics is discussed in detail.


Global Jurist ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cesare Cavallini

Abstract Why might one argue that the arbitral tribunal should have the “competence” to rule, as of right, upon its own jurisdiction? Is this natural power consistent with the legitimacy of arbitration? Can it unquestionably achieve the greatest level of efficiency for the parties? Although a considerable body of literature has attempted to answer these questions, this article aims to address (and partially reframe) the core issues relating to arbitral jurisdiction by comparing different legal systems and operative solutions in order to search for new and valuable insights on the topic . There is no doubt, in fact, that the orthodox position traditionally starts from the assumption that access to the courts within parallel proceedings, which (also) questions the allocation of jurisdiction, is problematic also due to the risk of delaying tactics by one party. According to this line of reasoning, when the authority of the arbitrators is challenged, the balance between the legitimacy and the efficiency of the arbitration process could be conditioned by prejudices relating to the (necessary) interference of the courts with the power of the arbitral tribunal to determine its own potestas judicandi (or its lack thereof) on the merits. In an attempt to move on from the classical framing of this issue and towards a comparative evaluation of the rationales and values underlying domestic legislation on arbitral jurisdiction, considered also with reference to the provisions of the UNCITRAL Model Law, this article will seek to provide a solution that is rooted in the complementary role of the courts and of arbitral tribunals. The complementarity between arbitral tribunals and the courts will be shown to be key in securing the legitimacy of arbitration and the actual pre-eminence of this source of alternative private justice and, accordingly, also as a way of striking the optimum balance with the efficiency of the arbitration process.


2003 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 315-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shail Mayaram

AbstractDebate and controversy have bedevilled the subject of social banditry. The early writing on social banditry saw it as primitive rebellion, as prepolitical and antithetical to class consciousness. Another approach identified it with weak state formation. The literature on South Asia saw social banditry as absent having been eroded by the institutional structure of caste. This article examines and critiques some of these theses on banditry. It argues, firstly, that social banditry can be simultaneous with a phase of intensified state formation. The specific theme investigated here is the interaction of the king, peasant and bandit in an Indian kingdom under late colonialism. A window to this universe is opened up by a folk epic from the oral tradition of a community of Muslims called the Meos. Far from being prepolitical, banditry raises crucial questions with respect to authority and legitimacy. This narrative not only interrogates the legitimacy of kingship, it also challenges the authority of the colonial state. Secondly, the article challenges the argument of South Asian exceptionalism to banditry that is perhaps easier to refute. Thirdly, as this article demonstrates, banditry need not relate to a pre-industrial capitalist world. Our bandit narrative indicates the reverberations of industrialism and attendant exchange relations and institutions in the colony even though it belongs to an area of ‘indirect’ rule.


Evidence ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 140-200
Author(s):  
Roderick Munday

Titles in the Core Text series take the reader straight to the heart of the subject, providing focused, concise, and reliable guides for students at all levels. This chapter discusses the following: the right to begin; the role of the trial judge; the judge’s right to call a witness; examination-in-chief; hostile witnesses; cross-examination; re-examination; calling evidence relating to witnesses’ veracity; witness support; the Crown’s right to reopen its case; and special protections extended to various classes of witness in criminal cases. Many of the rules apply to civil and criminal proceedings alike. However, as elsewhere in this book, the accent will be on rules of criminal evidence.


2019 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 823-844
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Nwafor Mordi

This article critically examines Britain's postwar recruitment policy in Nigeria, 1945–53. It is a subject that has not been studied by scholars. As the Second World War drew to a close, the Nigerian colonial military had declared that it had sufficient illiterate, ‘pagan’ infantrymen of northern Nigerian ‘tribal,’ including Tiv, origin to meet any but unforeseen demands of troops for service in the South East Asia Command (SEAC). Yet, recruitment of the same category of infantrymen, as well as ex-servicemen, was resumed after the war. The critical/analytic historical method is deployed to interrogate Nigerian and British archival sources on the subject. The study shows that, unlike the case of the High Commission Territories Corps (HCTC), Nigeria's postwar recruitment was not meant for overseas deployment. It was primarily driven by Britain's objectives of restoring the army to its pre-war role of enforcing colonial law and order in furtherance of its resolve to maintain its colonial state in Nigeria despite postwar militant nationalism.


Author(s):  
Steve Hedley ◽  
Nicola Padfield
Keyword(s):  
The Core ◽  

Titles in the Core Text series take the reader straight to the heart of the subject, providing focused, concise, and reliable guides for students at all levels. This chapter examines tort for the protection of reputation. Reputation is protected principally by the tort of defamation. Defamation is almost unique among the torts: it is very often heard before a judge and jury, rather than a judge alone. The role of the jury is to determine matters of fact and to determine the level of damages. The chapter discusses liability; remedies; absolute defences; qualified defences; other torts protecting reputation; and reform of the law.


2013 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Yolanda Gamarra Chopo

The bibliography of Spanish international law textbooks is a good indicator of the evolution of the historiography of international law. Spanish historiography, with its own special features, was a recipient of the great debates concerning naturalism v. positivism and universalism v. particularism that flourished in European and American historiography in the nineteenth century. This study is articulated on four principal axes. The first states how the writings of the philosophes continued to dominate the way in which the subject was conceived in mid-nineteenth century Spain. Secondly, it explores the popularization and democratization of international law through the work of Concepcion Arenal and the heterodox thought of Rafael Maria de Labra. Thirdly, it examines the first textbooks of international law with their distinct natural law bias, but imbued with certain positivist elements. These textbooks trawled sixteenth century Spanish history, searching for the origins of international law and thus demonstrating the historical civilizing role of Spain, particularly in America. Fourthly, it considers the vision of institutionist, heterodox reformers and bourgeois liberals who proclaimed the universality of international law, not without some degree of ambivalence, and their defence of Spain as the object of civilization and also a civilizing subject. In conclusion, the article argues that the late development of textbooks was a consequence of the late institutionalization of the study of international law during the last decade of the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, the legacy of the nineteenth century survives in the most progressive of contemporary polemics for a new international law.


1976 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 142-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard W. Davis

It is far too early to talk with any real certainty about the mid-nineteenth century electoral structure. The very materials of which it was built are in dispute, let alone the shape of the edifice. A deference school of historians is challenging traditional notions of the growth of political individualism in the period, while so-called quantitative historians are beginning to question the assumptions and approach of both deference historians and traditionalists. Serious and detailed study of the questions involved has hardly begun. Still, some comment on the present state of the controversy may not be entirely out of place. An enduring interpretation can only be constructed of sound materials; and I am by no means certain of the soundness of some of those now being put forward for our use.W. O. Aydelotte, in a paper read a couple of years ago and soon to be published in a series of essays entitled The History of Parliamentary Behavior, notes the divergence of opinion among historians on the role of the electorate in shaping parliamentary opinion after 1832. As he rightly suggests, Norman Gash in his Politics in the Age of Peel appears to be of two minds on the subject, depending on whether one reads his introduction or his text. In the former Professor Gash stresses the increase of popular influence on Parliament, in the latter the continuance of traditional influences over the mass of the electorate. D. C. Moore comes down heavily on the side of the latter influences, contending that a relatively few leaders of what he has called “deference communities” represented effective electoral opinion, which was simply registered by the mass of the electorate.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (3.30) ◽  
pp. 99
Author(s):  
Al-Hanisham Mohd Khalid ◽  
Rohaida Nordi ◽  
Safinaz Mohd Hussein

Conserving indigenous knowledge (IK) has long been discussed in international fore for more than five decade. The core issues is there is unanimity among scholars, governments, indigenous peoples and local communities on whether and how issue of IK could be harmonise within intellectual property rights law framework particularly copyrights. This paper aims to highlight the issues of conserving indigenous knowledge since indigenous knowledge does not belong to one generation but all generations. Discussion will embark on from the perspective of intellectual property jurisprudence through the works of Henry Reynolds, James Tully and Will Kymlicka. The outcome of this paper demonstrates promising thought into the role of intergeneration justice in protecting indigenous peoples in Malaysia. It is the contention of this paper that perhaps such conditions could apply to traditional knowledge too in addressing the plight of indigenous peoples. 


2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 103-116
Author(s):  
Ambika Vishwanth

Challenges such as climate change, water and environment or even food security were not considered under the traditional security paradigm. In 1994, the UN Human Development report brought to the forefront the need to shift focus to the concept of people‟s security and identified several essentials including economic, health and environment security. Water, which lies at the core of these essentials did not find adequate prominence and while „water wars‟ was under the subject of academic scrutiny, the concept of water security as a global challenge did not receive adequate attention. Currently, water and its inextricable relationship to energy, food and development, and political stability is placed at the core of every security debate. In 2015, leaders at the WEF in Davos ranked water as the No.1 risk to societies. The paper explores how a change in attitude is required from policy makers to the end user.


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