The bungalow: The production of a global culture/ Anthony King/ 1984

King presents a cultural history of the Bungalow. He traces its growth and movement from its indigenous setting in India to the west primarily through the British. King writes that the idea of the Bungalow was modified by the British to suit their needs, and then exported to the colonized world in Africa and South East Asia. He ends the book with the coming of Bungalow to North America, and later being adopted in Australia.
King calls the omnipresence of the Bungalow all over the world as a 'global culture'.

In its original form, Bangala was a mud thatched hut in Bengal regions of India. Later on, the indigenous houses built in the region took on the same name. The British, however, modified the scale of the house, and set it in a different social and political setting to house their officials. During the later years of colonization, upward social mobility of the colonial elite allowed them to occupy similar houses "Bungalows" as the ones in which British officials lived. A large number of Bungalows were built to house both the growing colonial elites and the British officials.

This Indo-British product was exported to London, where there was excess capital and shortage of land in the city. The Bungalows came to occupy seaside locations, and emphasized a Bohemian lifestyle of the owner. With a demand for Bungalows, they started being prefabricated. With the advent of prefabricated  Bungalows at seaside locations,  zoning and land-use regulations were modified to accommodate them in London countryside. These dwellings came to represent working class British homes.

As British officials travelled to other colonies,  this Europeanized Bungalow form was exported to other British colonies like North Africa. King argues the widespread construction of Bungalows in Africa (Western Africa) changed the familial and social structure of the society forever. During urbanization, working class Africans who could not afford to live in Bungalows were forced to have nuclear families. This arrangement did not change after the independence.

In North America, the Bungalow appealed to reformers, bohemians, feminists given its history with being one with nature, and being more individualistic as opposed to community living and apartments. But post ww2 wealth and ostentatiousness made the Bungalow appear too austere and simple. But the California Bungalow gained attention all over the world.

The California bungalow became popular in Australia post 1920's. Since there was no prior indigenous urbanization, the form of the bungalow was adopted and modified to suit regional needs.

Colonizing Egypt / Timothy Mitchell/ 1991

Mitchell argues that the British orientalized the Egypt in the process of colonizing them.

In the first chapter, he gives a textual tour of the Paris exposition in 1851 were British put up 'Egypt' on display. Winding roads and dirty houses were recreated in the exhibition, and dirty looking Egyptians were brought in to pose and dance for the visitors to the exposition. He argues that Egypt was made into an 'object' that was put on display. The group of Egyptians who were visiting were disgusted by this and kept themselves away. In this exhibition not even colonial elites (like the king of Egypt) was made an exception. When the rulers encountered British description of themselves they strategically decided to Europeanize themselves, and accept that Egyptians needed to embrace modernity.

The later chapter, discuss the 19th century colonial projects which were carried out in a system called 'new order'. The British created a new military framework by drafting Egyptian peasants, and to ensure the peasants stayed in the barracks they created a 'model village' of western-style houses. Concurrently the colonial elites who had encountered their constructed image in Paris, went about westernizing the streets of Cairo and introduced western style education in the schools to instill self discipline in students. He explaining the actions of both the British and the colonial elite, Mitchell employs Foucault's idea of 'institutional/ disciplinary power' to discuss the human agency in making 'objectness'. Mitchell argues that these processes of westernization were rationalized under Islamic traditions. In colonizing Egypt, Mitchell argues that British and colonial elites constructed a new Egypt.

Historiographical engagement: Foucault (Power), Said (Orientalism)

The Politics of Design in French Colonial Urbanism / Gwendolyn Wright / 1991

Wright argues that urban design was strategically used as a tool to make colonialism more tolerable for colonized and more popular among colonizers. Analyzing three cities in French colonized North Africa: Indochina, Madagascar, and Morocco, she argues that urban culture was used in political endeavor.

She argues that the French modernized certain sections of the city like public health, industries,  and supported certain other aspects (like building and maintaining opulent palaces for Sultans) so that the traditional values are preserved.

Main argument: French used the colonies as laboratories where they could experiment urban planning strategies that could be eventually implemented in the metropole: Paris, Lyon etc. They saw the colonies as tabula rasa. As administrators were seeking to maintain colonies without having to use military, they used architects, urban planners, geographers etc to introduce urban planning measures in the colonies. Through this they hoped that the colonized people would become loyal and appreciative of the French, and the French planners could test planning methods.

Contradictory methods were suggested in doing this. The early 19 century method called "assimilation" which was more heavy handed and hegemonic. French planners introduced standardized buildings, simplified geometric forms, and the city was imagined as a unified whole rather than as haphazard organic growth. French predominance in language, laws, and military dominance by destroying indigenous cities. As this process came under attack, primarily for moral reaons in the early 20th century, a  second process called "association", that tried to respect indigenous traditions and architecture, and aimed to maintain a balance between modernization and preservation was introduced -- "laboratory for colonial life and conservatory for oriental life".

Morocco: Herbert Luatey - association - dual city - preserving the indigenous city with mosques and winding streets, and constructing an outer neighborhood for colonial officials. There was a no-construction zone between the two settlements - "sanitary corridor". The French quarters had large roads, sanitation, zoning guidelines but used Moroccan motifs in design and used to indigenous climatological design solutions. Habous districts were newly created as harmonious districts to accommodate growing population. These provided some facilities that old Arab cities lacked like sanitation and thoroughfares, but were still inherently Moroccan in cultural form. This became the western setting for tourism.

Indochina (Vietnam): Here too they wanted to strike a balance between modernization and preserving local architecture and culture. But the architects and planners only had superficial knowledge of the cultural differences. Herbard outlined a zoning plan that restricted uses for different districts in the city. But here the restriction and segregation was not not based on military dominance but relied on modern industry, financial development, cultural tolerance.

Madagascar: This island had resisted colonization for 100 years by refusing to built inland roads. But French abolished slavery, and forcibly put former slaves who migrated to cities to build roads. Seeing the success of Morocco and Indochina they wanted to follow a balanced model without disturbing local traditions unnecessarily. But since malaria and plague were major concerns they built wide roads outside the native city - cordon sanitaire - to segregate the population. But this separation did not help prevent mosquitoes, and the next governor general implemented standardized building with concrete, and uniform buildings were built for both Madagascar workers and French officials in place of old indigenous buildings.

Comments: Local voice is lost as Wright only narrates the story of French colonial urbanism and politics using references from French architects and planners. Were the lessons learnt in the colonies used in the metropole? What was the fate of these colonial designs post the nations' independence? How did the dual city model affect the natives' lives?

Worship and Conflict under Colonial Rule: A South Indian Case/ Arjun Appadurai/ 1981

Appadurai presents a 200 year ethnohistory of a South Indian temple (Parthasarathy Temple in Triplicane, Madras). Following anthropologist Clifford Geertz theories on ethnography and social and cultural systems, Appadurai argues that "alterations in social structure, over time, interact dialectically with a fundamentally unaltered cultural system." He critiques that while several monographs have noted the economic, political, and cultural workings of the temple, these relations have not been analyzed or synthesized. Historians, he says, adopt a "loose-leaf" model where they juxtapose the workings of different parts of temple, but there has not been a study of the temple as a "south Indian institute" from "inside". Hence, his study, links the historical past of the temple with the ethnographic present.

The first chapter begins with the primary argument of the book that there has not been any cultural change in the temple in the last two centuries, while the social system of the temple has reasonably changed. During British rule and in the post independent years, the power residing in the temple has been complicated and authoritative relations have become fragmented in the temple. In short, while the deity in the temple is still accepted as the supreme  authoritative power, there are conflicts about how the power of this authority has to be managed in everyday affairs. He argues that the questions of power and authority is not limited to the domain of rule (the entire cosmos symbolized in a temple) but also extends to the process -- a redistributive process. He sees worship as a redistributive process, and analyses it with the terminologies of economic anthology -- reciprocity and redistribution. While gift-giving in expectation of reciprocity is one side of Hindu worship, he suggests, redistribution is the other. The deity (even its image, at that) is imagined to be "chief" who will give out justices and assume the redistributive role. In the material world this translates  to redistributing the gifts given by "donors"to the deity (food items are dispersed among public, a part  of the donation goes to priests etc.)

The second part of the first chapter discusses several complaints filed by priests and donors claiming their share in the ritual / distributive process of the temple. These citations, Appadurai writes, indicated the fragility in the consciousness of the priests about redistribution. While kings were traditionally seen as "protectors" of the temple, and had the obligation to mitigate conflicts and oversee the redistributive processes of the temple, with the arrival of the British, the conflict resolution became highly complicated. As the role of kings disappeared and the administration of the temple moved from dominant Brahmins (Thenkalai) to State government, the power structure of the temple changed from a hierarchical pyramid to a "complicated set of "honorable" shares in the divine polity of the deity." (61)

The second chapter discusses the role and authority the kings possessed in maintaining of the temple. Through several textual evidences and inscriptional readings, Appadurai suggests that the Parthasarathy temple was highly involved in royal participation and had organized sectarian involvement. Being under British jurisdiction for a century, he argues, resulted in sub-sectarian conflicts over power.

The third chapter, very interestingly, presents three key ways in which temple administration changed under British jurisdiction. First, since British merchants did not view the temples as necessary for their authority (unlike Kings), their interaction with brahmin priests stopped. Second, while kings stayed away from daily activities of the temple and would only involved themselves in resolving conflicts, British stayed away from conflict resolution and gradually got more involved in everyday temple activities. Three, unlike royal system which had both administrative and judicial branches under the same arm, British system often had contradictions involving the two. He examines two conflicts that resulted in prolonged interaction of the temple with the State. In both cases, the cause of the conflict was complicated by the involvement of the British instead of arbitrating amongst the conflicting parties (in the case where which sub-sect of Brahmins should recite prayers in the temple, British decided to cancel prayer recitation until the case was resolved) The revenue flow was centralized and the everyday activities of the temple were made more dependent on the British treasury. Until the British state was called in for arbitration, the temple had maintained much of its affairs. But by 1826, the temple was taken over by the British due to the "explosive nature" of the conflict, and inherent contradictions between the ideas of "protection" and "subordination" in English bureaucratic policy.

The fourth chapter examines the period between 1826 and 1848 where British gradually withdrew its power from temples after reaching the Zenith (in 1820's). Appadurai writes that this withdrawal of power gave rise to new sectarian politics, exacerbation of conflicts over temples, and changed prior notions of 'protection' and 'subordination' in English bureaucracy. After the British withdrew power and appointed trustees to manage the temple, there were several litigations from brahmins and non-brahmins on who should assume power and what compensations they should receive. At this time, the term 'Thenkalai' acquired local and constitutional connotations shedding its sectarian underpinnings.

The fifth chapter of the book discusses the interactions of these litigants with the British judicial system, and the appropriation of the British system to suit Indian purposes. "Because the activities of Hindu kings in respect to temples were "administrative" and not "legislative," and because their resolutions were context specific and not absorbed into a general body of evolving case law, it is no surprise that a "law of endowments" had not been developed." (169). The contrast between traditional way of conflict resolution and British judicial system of using codified law resulted in much more conflict than resolution.

In the final chapter, Appadurai uses this historical analysis of the past to understand the present day workings of the temple and its complex web of power relations. He argues that today the temple has remnants of pre-British King model, British secularization model, and the post-British judiciary model, along with an influence of the modern day political party (DMK party mandated that all prayers have to be recited in Tamil instead of age-old Sanskrit thus breaking the requirements to have Brahmin priests only). He frames the contemporary temple through Geertz's model of distinguishing between 'culture' and 'social structure', and argues that " the set of ideas and symbols that focus on the sovereign personality of the deity constitute the "cultural system" of the temple." and the questions of authority on who will control the temple constitute the "social structure". While the cultural system has remained the same in the last 200 years, the social structure has undergone important changes (220).

Cross question from readings: How would Partha Chatterjee respond to Appadurai's theory of British being called upon as arbitrators in temple disputes and the locals placing British officers in place of kings, as authorities in the redistributive processes of the temple? Chatterjee argues this to be the "spiritual realm" of the natives where they detested any interference from the colonizers. 

Can the Subaltern Speak? / Gayatri Chakraborty Spivak/ 1988

Spivak begins the essay by critiquing Foucault and Deluze who are inattentive to their own position of power in narrating a third world subject, and are ignorant of the implications of transplanting western ideological theories into colonial discourse of oppression. In a debate, Foucault and Deluze emphasized on the "counter-productiveness to reduce the networks of power/desire/interest because they are so heterogeneous and the need for intellectuals to disclose their knowledge and know the discourse of the Other." Yet, she writes, "they systematically ignore the question of ideology and their own implication in intellectual and economic history" (66). She argues that the representation of 'subalterns' by western intellectuals is one that they have unconsciously created themselves by falsely pretending to be "transparent" (The example given is of Foucault where in an interview at an "unguarded moment" he gives away the pretense). She argues the knowledge production in the west is also a commodity having deep roots in social, economic and institutional capital. Spivak questions the use of the terms, 'Maoist' and ' the worker's struggle' by French theorists in their discourse of revolution. She criticizes the usage of these essentialist terms as they assume a cultural solidarity for a heterogeneous group. Foucault and Deluze, she argues, represent the Other through their own cultural system. The second part of the essay clarifies the meaning of Subject and Subjectivity in Subaltern studies as compared to the Marxist Subject. She argues that colonial Subject is a heterogenous entity and cannot be understood as an undivided consciousness striving for the same things. She writes, "My view is that radical practice should attend to this double session of representations rather than reintroduce the individual subject through totalizing concepts of power and desire" (74).

In arguing against Foucault's narrative of the epistemic violence as being located in late 18th century Europe, Spivak uses examples from 17th and 18th century colonial India. First, she examines the British reformation of traditional legal system in India that was based on Hindu Dharmashastra that used Shruti, Smruti, Shastra, Vyavahara as four tools in settling disputes. The codification of these traditional laws in accordance to British value system is symbolic of the epistemic violence by the colonizers. Accompanied by suppression of Sanskrit in the overhauled educational system, a version of history was gradually established where Brahmins were shown to have same intentions as the British in writing down the laws in 'high culture' Sanskrit and making them rigid and inaccessible to lower castes, peasants, and tribals. Here, she argues, that while Foucault and Deluze propose that the 'oppressed' in the first-world can speak or revolt, they do because they have access to socialized capital (Foucault) and know their conditions, whereas the subaltern of the third world cannot.

The final part of the essay uses the example of Sati practice in 18th century India and the suicide of an Indian woman to further explain the notions of epistemic violence in the colonized nation. Indian women were initially 'spoken for' by the learned Brahmins (men) who inscribed the importance of Sati (widows committing suicide by jumping into the burning pyre of their dead husband), and indirectly controlled what an 'ideal Hindu woman', 'a good wife' should and shouldn't do. Here, even though several Indian narratives portray women as voluntarily wanting to commit suicide post their husband's death, one should be aware that these women were a part of intrinsic belief system that was circulated through generations by power yielding Brahmins (brown men). As Spivak's often misunderstood and controversial sentence - "White men saving brown women from brown men" - suggests, at the end of 18th century, British reformers noticing this barbaric practice banned the practice of Sati, much to the anger of brown men. The larger point of this example is to showcase that women who belonged to the lowest strata of the subaltern, had absolutely no agency. First, they were ‘spoken for’ by the Brahmins, and then by the British. They could not speak. Additionally, as the suicide of Bhuvaneswari indicates, despite trying to displace the sanctioned hegemonic narrative, the subaltern as female cannot even be heard or read.


Paragraph Summary:
Spivak's question is not one that looks for a binary answer, but it rather is an enquiry into the agency of a subaltern and whether it is possible for a subaltern to speak. Even as she answers her own question negatively, she presents a four-fold argument on the nature and perceptions of the colonial Subaltern by the western world, by calling intellectual behemoths as her witnesses.
a) Western theorists impose their own value system when examining the Subaltern. b) The Subject cannot be described in Marxian terms as an undivided personality. It has to be understood as "divided and dislocated subjects whose parts are not continuous or coherent with each other". c) Earlier explorations of the Subaltern studies Collective examined the colonial Subject as a coherent whole and suppressed the heterogeneity of the subaltern consciousness. She cautions the subaltern theorists that the voice of the Subaltern is being heard through a group of intellectuals, which can seem like French theorists' who speak for oppressed groups using essentialist terms of 'workers' or 'maoists'. d) Using the example of British codifying Hindu laws and legal system, she argues that "epistemic violence" -- a complete overhaul of the episteme -- is not located in Europe at the end of 18th century as Foucault identifies, but rather is present in the epistemic violence carried out by Europe in the nations it colonized. 

The Nation and its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories / Partha Chatterjee /1993

Partha Chatterji challenges the euro centric model of nationalism and argues that nationalism in the colony preceded the political claims and stemmed from 19th century projects of cultural differentiation and identity formation.

Chapter 1 "Whose Imagined Communities" objects to Anderson's argument that historical experience of nationalism in Europe and America had supplied the template for nationalism (as a modular form) to the colonized world. The central argument of the book, and the primary objection to Anderson's theory is summarized by his asking if the rest of the world has to choose their imagined communities based on the modular forms created and presented to them by Europe and the Americas, "what do they have left to imagine?". He asks, whether history has decreed the postcolonial world to be perpetual consumers of modernity, and whether even the imaginations of the postcolonial world should remain colonized.  Chatterji breaks from popular nationalist epistemology by arguing that nationalism should not be understood as a political movement. He argues that anti-colonial nationalism has to be thought of as the true beginning of nationalism in the colony. He suggests two domains exist in anti-colonial nationalism -- the material and the spiritual. The material domain was where the west has superiority and the East wanted to imitate it, and the spiritual was the inner cultural identity which was unique to the colony. Since the natives objected to the colonizers interfering and changing this spiritual side as early as 1870's in India, he argues that nationalism was already present then. Here, he suggests that by protecting its inner domain the nation was already being sovereign even as the state was colonized.
He discusses four areas in the spiritual domain that transformed nationalism by inserting it into the public sphere and were constituted by the processes and forms of modern colonial state. Agreeing with Anderson that print-capitalism was the key factor in spread of nationalism, Chatterjee discusses the use of Bengali language by Bengali elites as a tool for asserting the inner domain of nationalism, adapting of Sanskrit plays to popularize a new art form - bengali drama, the creation of new secondary schools where bengali was generalized and normalized the native language, and finally the unique 'modernization' of Indian women where they worked in the public sphere but had to display the sings of national tradition making her different from 'modern western women'.

In arguing that nationalism in India was not based no "derivation" but on"differentiation" he presents examples in chapter 2- 11 to showcase how the nationalist project strived to maintain sovereignty over the inner spiritual realm and keep the colonizers from conquering it. While it was agreed that the West had superiority in the material realm, and East could imitate it, they strived to keep western influences out of the spiritual realm.

Chapter 2 deals with the making of colonial state and the various instances where the colonial"other" was created. Colonial difference -- 'of representing the "other" as inferior and radically different -- was used to justify colonial rule.
Chapter 3 discusses the creation a new sphere in the domain of private -- the new strata  "middle class" -which would both be subordinate to an elite class, and dominate over lower-castes. Chatterjee presents the 'middle-class' as agents of nationalist modernity but carrying unique markers of cultural differences to distinguish them from the West - "The culture of middle-class... is in its overwhelming cultural content, Hindu."
Chapters 4 and 5 traces the nationalist project of writing India's history as a cohesive 'classical' one to imagine/create a central identity and to justify the demands of independence. He writes, nationalist history has a clear agenda and was thought out to have a clear beginning and an end -- begins with the subcontinent's centuries of glorious past and ends with its decline due to the Islamic invasion. He notes the exclusion of several people in this 'classical history' - women, lower-castes, Jains, Buddhists etc.. and questions, if there can ever be one single pre-history of India that could be considered a "national history"?
Chapters 6 and 7 presents the "women's question". Being a central issue in the controversial reformation of mid 19th century, the nationalists sought to rationalize and reform the nature of women in their inner domain without the interference of the colonizers. Evan as the "new woman" differed from 'common' woman with her education and bourgeois virtues, she still carried "signs" of her spiritual domain in her dress, social demeanor, religiosity etc.. thus maintaining a clear distinction from "western modern woman." He argues women themselves wrote against traditional gender biases in their memoirs and family histories even though are rare to be seen in public archives.
Chapter 8 draws from the arguments of Subaltern scholars and focusses on the peasant rebellion and struggles in the mid 19th century, and the role of peasants in the formation of a distinct nationalism through folklore, puzzles, and songs which was markedly different from both Indian bourgeois and western politics. Referring Ranajit Guha's work on peasant insurgency, Chatterjee argues that understanding the reasons how peasants reacted radically in their opposition of the colonial compared to their "educated" compatriots tells an alternative history of India that is fundamental to understand arising consciousness in a colonial state.
Chapter 9 discusses the nature of caste in relation to the identity of lower castes, and the various ways in which caste was challenged in both the private and public realms in the colonial state.
The two final chapters bring back the discussion to the ideas of 'community'. Chapter 10 is a discussion of Capitalism, national planning, and the place of communities in making of a nation. He suggests the changes in capitalism in modern nation-state of India followed the Gramscian passive revolution model where bourgeois hegemony does not get established in the 'classical way.

Comments: Following Chatterjee's argument that there cannot be a single modular form of nationalism, but every colony imagines/creates its own version of nationalism that stems from factors distinct to the region, it is surprising that Chatterjee presents all his examples from Bengal in his discussion of "Indian" nationalism. Can Bengal be a proxy for India? How was the women's question resolved in Chennai? Did northwestern India find a common language amidst all of its different dialects?