Discursive Formation of Reality: A Foucauldian Perspective of Mitra Phukan's The Collector's Wife.

The availability of the "real" is more important to us than the actual "real," as propounded by Foucault in his The Archaeology of Knowledge. Although he did not reject the "real" outright, Foucault argued how reality is a result of, more than anything else, discursive formation. In Mitra Phukan's The Collector's Wife (2005) also we see how a particular notion that the northeastern part of India is clash-trodden and insurgency-ridden gets circulated and popularized through various layers and at the exclusion of some other notions, altering the perception of the region. This paper tries to excavate those exclusionary concepts, critiquing that popular perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]