Summary
Contents
Subject index
This book will make you revisit the ‘minority question’ as it has been understood, conventionally.
This book subjects to scrutiny some of the well-established social science concepts such as minority, ethnicity, inclusion, exclusion, and self-determination, among others. The purpose of the enquiry is neither to debunk these concepts nor to highlight their relevance/irrelevance, but merely to guard against their unselective usage by scholars. The work is an endeavor to address some of the questions that animate current scholarship on minority and minoritization. In doing so, the book draws upon European and Indian experiences of cultural diversities as these regions are two of the most culturally diverse regions in the world and engage with diversity from within a democratic framework.
The Fragmented Minor: Tamil Identity and the Politics of Authenticity
The Fragmented Minor: Tamil Identity and the Politics of Authenticity
The production of identity almost always requires an oppositional narrative. Framed against the creation of a major or minor other, it often draws on the legitimacy of an alternative history, using origin myths and cosmogonies which run parallel to, and are often more “original” than and clearly separated from the Other. The veracity of “authenticity,” thus, becomes crucial to the very basis of an identity. This chapter primarily deals with the theoretical and ideological construction and production of “minor-ness” both as a category and an identity marker. In keeping with this main thrust, I examine mythologized imaginaries and origin narratives of Tamil identity and the intersections ...
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