Subaltern agency and the problems in the project of decolonization in the study of religion and liberal secularism

ABSTRACT

Decolonization has become an important process in the present-day academia. Reviewing Jakob De Roover’s new book, this article critically analyses the problems in the methodologies of the decolonization project. The article strongly argues for the need to avoid decontexualisation of historical and contemporary developments, and to take an intersectional approach that would ensure the recognition of subaltern agency.

Acknowledgement

Thanks to Dr Alison Jasper and Dr Zhe Gao for helpful discussions on this book, Mr Gustavo Mediolaza and Dr Bashir Saade for helping with access to additional reading materials.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 A similar issue can be found in another article by Roover and Balagangadhara on religious conversion. To look at conversion in India entirely from a legal perspective is unhelpful. Dalit Theology, Dalit Buddhism, etc. are embedded with intersectional issues that problematize the issue of conversion.

2 See, for instance, Whitehead, Judith. ‘Community Honour/Sexual Boundaries: A Discursive Analysis of the Criminalization of Devadāsi in Madras, India, 1920-1947.’ In Prostitution: On Whores, Hustlers and Johns, edited by James Elias, Vern L. Bullough, Veronica Elias, Gwen Brewer & Joycelyn Elders, 91–101. New York: Prometheus, 1998; Srinivasan, Amrit. Temple ‘Prostitution’ and Community Reform: An Examination of Ethnographic, Historical and Textual Contexts of the Devadasi of Tamil Nadu, South India. Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1984; Soneji, Davesh. ‘Living History, Performing Memory: Devadāsī Women in Telugu-Speaking South India.’ Dance Research Journal 36, no. 2 (2004).