Unforeignness: Commonwealth rule and imperial citizenship

Abstract

This article introduces Anglocentric unforeignness and postcolonial unforeignness as organising signifiers and objects of historical inquiry. Expressions of unforeignness offer terms of Commonwealth pluralism-solidarism by configuring, rather than overcoming, imperial citizenship and colonial self-government. Anglocentric unforeignness strived for common political agendas and affective unity across, and for, the “White” British Empire. In contrast, postcolonial unforeignness projected Commonwealth agendas that were irreducible to Anglocentric ends. These articulations of unforeignness are traced through divergent ways of imagining India as part of a Commonwealth. The first section of the article develops the parameters for inquiry by drawing upon Colin Koopman’s notion of ‘problematisation’. Second, Ramchandra Ghanesh Pradhan’s critique of Lionel Curtis’s imperial federation is discussed. The critique reveals an early twentieth century iteration of postcolonial unforeignness. Third, the article investigates when Jawaharlal Nehru’s terms of Commonwealth association and dominion state building preserved imperial administration. This illustrates a configuration of postcolonial unforeignness during India’s dominion period.

I am grateful to the three anonymous reviewers, the editors for CRIA, Engin Isin, Raia Prokhovnik, and Meghan Tinsley for providing constructive comments on earlier drafts.

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Zaki Nahaboo

Zaki Nahaboo is Lecturer in Sociology at Birmingham City University, UK. His research interests include legacies of imperial citizenship in former crown colonies, the politics of migration, and postcolonial theory. He is co-author of Migrants, Borders and the European Question: The Calais Jungle (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021). Email: [email protected]