Telling histories of the future: the imaginaries of Indian technoscience

When, in 1947, India became independent, its archetypal citizen-subject was the farmer; 60 years later it was the software engineer. Increasingly central, rather than marginal, in global economic networks, India's popular image at the beginning of the twenty-first century is of a postcolonial n...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inIdentities (Yverdon, Switzerland) Vol. 23; no. 3; pp. 276 - 293
Main Author Philip, Kavita
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Abingdon Routledge 03.05.2016
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
21st century
Asian history
Computer software
Decolonization
Ehrlich
Entrepreneurship
Friedman
India
Information technology
leapfrogging
Nationalism
science
Subjectivity
technology
India
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Summary:When, in 1947, India became independent, its archetypal citizen-subject was the farmer; 60 years later it was the software engineer. Increasingly central, rather than marginal, in global economic networks, India's popular image at the beginning of the twenty-first century is of a postcolonial nation that has successfully used technology to leapfrog over its historical legacy of underdevelopment. This shift in ideal citizen archetypes, from farmer to digital entrepreneur, has brought with it new assumptions about the role of information technology in shaping citizenly behaviour and nationalist subjectivity. This paper reads the contradictory aesthetics of this arrival by interrogating popular technological tropes.
ISSN:1070-289X
1547-3384
DOI:10.1080/1070289X.2015.1034129