Red Tape: Bureaucracy, Structural Violence, and Poverty in India (a John Hope Franklin Center Book) By Akhil Gupta
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This treaty on corruption in India is an anthropological study a great seminal work singular of its kind with no alternative An undeniable treasure for those working on the subject 0822351102 I really enjoyed this book Methodologically is where it shined Gupta s use of his own ethnographic work and triangulating it with novels and popular ethnographies was insightful and shows some of the strengths of anthropology as a discipline. Red tape meaning in business e disaggregating the state and calling into question its coherence Not much to comment there besides there needs to be a both and approach I think a turn to Philip Abrams Radcliffe Brown and Bourdieu are helpful in this regard Gupta s rebuttal to Agamben is a good one rather than the figure of homo sacer emerging out of the state of exception this is the norm for how bureaucratic states function The paradox he s trying to solve why do states whose goals are development and in some ways depend on the success of achieving development fail to end chronic poverty which kills millions ignores two key factors that are related surplus labor and urbanization without industrialization Or as Mike Davis describes outcast proletariat That is in the development of India there are structural limitations placed on the state that s a function of an uneven and integrated world system This is the limits of Gupta s fidelity to post structuralism tbh Anyways these are some immediate thoughts He does touch on my critique in the epilogue which makes me think this was brought up in reviews but who knows A good book and worth to be read for theorists of the state its limitations noted. Red tapetum lucidum Despite his use of post structuralist jargon I counted discourse showing up on 75 out of 290 pages lol his writing was clear and crisp with each paragraph containing one thought unit A true joy to read actually Had his writing style been of a slog it would ve been a 3 star 0822351102 Hugely important read for anthropologists of the state or those working on bureaucracy and social assistance in the context neoliberalism s Gupta interrogates the linkages between regimes of care structural violence and the production of arbitrariness through bureaucratic processes He questions why the deaths of the poor in India are not considered a crisis or scandal linking Agamben s homo sacer with the exposure of the marginalized to death. Red book binding tape Importantly such violence was enacted at the very scene of care In stressing the intimate connections between violence and caring and in rejecting narratives of the indifference or inattentiveness of that state I am trying to articulate the ethics and politics of care that is arbitrary in its consequences I am arguing that such arbitrariness is not itself arbitrary rather it is systematically produced by the very mechanisms that are meant to ameliorate social suffering 0822351102 It is not a story about why but how Great explanation on why the modern bureaucracy cannot fully actualize well intended welfare projects 0822351102 Red Tape is a powerful ethnographic exploration into the baffling coexistence of a welfare state and abject poverty in the state of India Through examination of three major themes Corruption Governmentality and Inscription Gupta helps us understand how structural violence operates through the bureaucratic procedures of to perpetuate extreme poverty and inequality. Kindle Red tapeworm As a student of policy deeply interested in the practicalities of State and society I have found most anthropological works dense and inaccessible a pity since they have many important lessons to convey us Akhil Gupta has succeeded in transcending the divide between esoteric anthropology and highly engaging narrative It is a book that will engage the policy maker citizens and the academics alike 0822351102 An eye opening ethnographic deep dive into why our conceptualizations of the state may be the very thing holding our scholarship back I definitely know I will be drawing upon this work for my thesis but I also have a few points of contention with his theoretical framework Mostly his methodology is outstanding something that is taken for granted now but almost cost him his tenureship Ah the open mindedness that is academia However his largest issue lies in the grainy expanse between his understanding of indifference and what in my eyes is simply watered down intention These are the methodological k nots I ll try to untie in my research but for now it s just good to acknowledge they exist 0822351102 In Gupta s ethnography the state works to actively define poverty using its own statistical methods contributing to the poor s isolation and normalizing their lower caste status high infant morality rate and the malnourishment of an entire social class of people in post colonial India By breaking down the problems of the state into corruption inscription and governmentality Gupta can provide an original account and analyses of the bureaucratic structure in India However at times the system appears too complex to effectively evaluate in a broad ethnography and one wonders how this in depth analyses ultimately matters to the poor That said Gupta provides the reader with a series of effective episodic examples that are generally helpful in keeping all of his ideas cohesive In Red Tape Gupta evaluates the mechanisms for the enactment of structural violence that are intimately bound to the normalization of poverty by the state in India 0822351102 I picked up thee book thinking it to be an ethnography of the infamous Indian Licence Raj or Red Tapism something like little anecdotes that very often are found in works and talks of pro reform people However the book is an attempt to study why Indian state allows people to be poor or in the Foucaultian poststructuralist framework used here imposes structural violence and kills the poor using tools of Biopolitics and some concepts from Subaltern studies Actual narrative from the field work are present but too far and between. Red tape price Despite accusing the Bureaucracy of doing the same the authors feels largely disconnected from India using terms like Freedom of Information Federal Government USD etc when local alternatives exists Whether this is effect of prolonged stays at Stanford or writing primarily for a Western audience I don t know The author dislikes reforms of post 1991 era for among other reasons their slow rate of growth and them being neoliberal orthodoxy No alternative are mentioned however The author also puts blackening of non Marathi langauge sign boards by Shiv Sena up their with Cross border terrorism and Naxalite as an existential threat to the nation 0822351102 Only read the intro and skimmed the rest An awesome read structural violence as a modern form of governmentality systemic arbitrariness as the mechanism of structural violence writing as another integral part of governmental violence enthnographic studies add strength to the argument how the subaltern experience the structural violence is the focus and kudos to Gupta weakness didn t talk too much about the language problem how to manage writing and communicating through media when your official languages are 300 0822351102 This is an excellent ethnography on how bureaucracy operates Gupta s incisive question on who the State is a central problem also for our times When we discuss the State we refer to an abstract entity as opposed to the State that we experience on an everyday basis without the obvious accompaniment of violence the writing Gupta s style should be framed for the analytical rigour and the lucidity of his prose He is exceptionally deft with weaving theory into his observations and this makes this book an engaging read I do think that the book is too long could have been trimmed better but that doesn t take away the rigour of the book 0822351102 Red Tape presents a major new theory of the state developed by the renowned anthropologist Akhil Gupta Seeking to understand the chronic and widespread poverty in India the world s fourth largest economy Gupta conceives of the relation between the state in India and the poor as one of structural violence Every year this violence kills between two and three million people especially women and girls and lower caste and indigenous peoples Yet India s poor are not disenfranchised they actively participate in the democratic project Nor is the state indifferent to the plight of the poor it sponsors many poverty amelioration programs. Red tape formal Gupta conducted ethnographic research among officials charged with coordinating development programs in rural Uttar Pradesh Drawing on that research he offers insightful analyses of corruption the significance of writing and written records and governmentality or the expansion of bureaucracies Those analyses underlie his argument that care is arbitrary in its consequences and that arbitrariness is systematically produced by the very mechanisms that are meant to ameliorate social suffering What must be explained is not only why government programs aimed at providing nutrition employment housing healthcare and education to poor people do not succeed in their objectives but also why when they do succeed they do so unevenly and erratically Akhil Gupta is Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Center for India and South Asia at the University of California Los Angeles He is the author of Postcolonial Developments Agriculture in the Making of Modern India and a coeditor of Culture Power Place Explorations in Critical Anthropology both also published by Duke University Press He is also a coeditor of The State in India after Liberalization Interdisciplinary Perspectives Anthropological Locations Boundaries and Grounds of a Field Science The Anthropology of the State A Reader and Caste and Outcast This long awaited book is a masterful achievement that offers a close look at the culture of bureaucracy in India and through this lens casts new light on structural violence liberalization and the paradox of misery in the midst of explosive economic growth Akhil Gupta s sensitive analysis of the everyday practices of writing recording filing and reporting at every level of the state in India joins a rich literature on the politics of inscription and marks a brilliant new benchmark for political anthropology in India and beyond Arjun Appadurai author of Fear of Small Numbers Why has the postcolonial state in India seemed so incapable of improving the life chances of the country s poor In his brilliant book Red Tape Akhil Gupta argues that the structural violence inherent in the state operates as a form of biopower in which normal bureaucratic procedures depoliticize the killing of the poor Whether exploring corruption literacy or population policy Gupta provides an utterly original account of the deadly operations of state power associated with the ascendancy of new industrial classes and of neoliberal practice in contemporary India A tour de force Michael Watts author of Silent Violence This is a landmark study of bureaucratic practices through which the state is actualized in the lives of the poor in India Akhil Gupta s theoretical sophistication and the ethnographic depth in this book demonstrate how South Asian studies continues to challenge and shape the direction of social theory This book is a stunning achievement Veena Das author of Life and Words Red Tape Bureaucracy Structural Violence and Poverty in India a John Hope Franklin Center Book.
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