Publication
Precarity as a Mode of Enquiry
| Summary: | This chapter extends the original understanding of precarity as a concept, taking it from its economic roots, describing a largely Eurocentric, post-Fordist diminishing of labour and livelihood securities, to an urban Indian context where not just livelihoods are precaritized, but increasingly lifeworlds. We offer a review of the development of the concept of precarity as a mode of enquiry and use two novels—Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness and Jeet Thayil’s Narcopolis—to illustrate the agency and political potential of precarity noted by various scholars working on this concept. Our reading of these novels finds that the textual spaces of fiction usefully open up the concept of precarity for scrutiny, including the precarity of home and the slow violence of precarity on identities, communal bonds and societal fabric. |
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| Main Authors: | Lau, Lisa |
| Other Authors: | Mendes, Ana Cristina |
| Subject: | Postcolonial studies India Precarity South Asian literatures in English Indian writing in English Arundhati Roy Jeet Thayil Social agency Urban studies |
| Year: | 2022 |
| Country: | Portugal |
| Document type: | book part |
| Access type: | restricted access |
| Associated institution: | Universidade de Lisboa |
| Language: | English |
| Origin: | Repositório da Universidade de Lisboa |
| Summary: | This chapter extends the original understanding of precarity as a concept, taking it from its economic roots, describing a largely Eurocentric, post-Fordist diminishing of labour and livelihood securities, to an urban Indian context where not just livelihoods are precaritized, but increasingly lifeworlds. We offer a review of the development of the concept of precarity as a mode of enquiry and use two novels—Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness and Jeet Thayil’s Narcopolis—to illustrate the agency and political potential of precarity noted by various scholars working on this concept. Our reading of these novels finds that the textual spaces of fiction usefully open up the concept of precarity for scrutiny, including the precarity of home and the slow violence of precarity on identities, communal bonds and societal fabric. |
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