Whither utopia?

ABSTRACT

The universal township called Auroville, a few kilometres from the erstwhile seat of French rule in India, Pondicherry, has been much in the news since 2021. Internal squabbles over ecology and governance have claimed all recent attention, but prior to these upheavals, 2021 was marked by publication of two major books on Auroville: the first, a memoir of growing up through Auroville's early years by journalist Akash Kapur, and the second, a conventional academic monograph on the process of decolonization and the creation of ‘French utopias’ by Duke University's Jessica Namakkal. This article is a critical review of these two very different texts which are united nonetheless by their treatment of Auroville as a kind of ‘utopia.’ The review raises questions about the typically rationalist biases that undergird such works on communities with avowed spiritual goals, and reflects on the consequences of superimposing extant frameworks onto contexts which outline their own alternative epistemologies. It also draws attention to the authors’ respective positionings vis-à-vis Auroville, and reflects on the implications for each narrative as it is constructed.

KEYWORDS:

• Auroville
• spirituality
• utopia
• French colonization
• decolonization

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Deepa S. Reddy

Deepa S. Reddy teaches anthropology, gender studies and cross-cultural studies at the University of Houston-Clear Lake. She has researched and/or published on topics ranging from women's activism and political Hinduism to caste-race-ethnicity and bioethics, blood donation, ethnographic methodologies, and air quality and environmental governance. Her book, Religious Identity and Political Destiny, was published in 2006. She blogs about food, local ingredients and culinary-cultural practices on paticheri.com.