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Between a name and a number: The story of a colonial erasure
Topics: Cultural Geography
, Social Theory
, Asia
Keywords: Colonial history, South Asia, Politics of Memory, Erasure Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract Day: Monday Session Start / End Time: 2/28/2022 11:20 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/28/2022 12:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) Room: Virtual 1
Authors:
Abdul Aijaz, Indiana University Bloomington
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Abstract
During ethnographic and archival research centered around a village known by its number in the colonial hydro-social arrangement, 42LBD—as with most canal colony villages in Pakistan—I discovered that this village actually had a name, long buried in the colonial archive: Hamzapur. The first Land Settlement Record (1921) for the 42nd village on the Lower Bari Doab Canal states “the village has been named after the ancestor of the original settlers.” But nobody in the village seems to know if it ever had a name. One wonder why the name did not stick though the village is still inhabited by the descendant of the first settlers. In seeking answer to this question, this essay explores the multiple implications of the colonial authority to name and narrate, and the politics of memory instantiated in the archive and lived between a name and a number.
Between a name and a number: The story of a colonial erasure