1. IMPARTIAL REGIMES OF TRUTH.
- Author
-
Mongia, Radhika V.
- Subjects
INQUIRY (Theory of knowledge) ,THEORY of knowledge ,SOCIOLOGY ,EMIGRATION & immigration ,DEBATE ,LABOR policy - Abstract
This essay is concerned with one of the most mundane, routine, yet significant practices of modern society: the inquiry. Approaching the inquiry as, simultaneously, a mechanism for the evaluation and adjudication of truth, and as a method of information collection and compilation, the paper argues that the inquiry is a key apparatus for the production of a regime of truth governed by the liberal notion of 'impartiality'. In making this argument, the paper provides a detailed case study of the numerous colonial inquiries into the nineteenth-century migration of indentured Indian labour: It outlines how, as a method of information collection and compilation, these inquiries formed a discursive field defining the parameters of the debates on indenture. In addition, it demonstrates how, as an apparatus for the production of truth, the continual appearance of the inquiry served to shore up the notion of 'impartial' truth, thereby enabling the system of indenture for almost a century. The resonances between the status of the inquiry with regard to indentured migration and a host of current practices become evident through the paper, as specific effects of power attach to the 'impartial truth' produced by the apparatus of the inquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2004
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