@article{204c479db79d4927ad26c6acaac50bad,
title = "Introduction: Making Sense of Empire",
abstract = "This essay serves as an introduction to a special section on the senses in late colonial India. Participating in the act of decolonising sensory studies, this collection explores the intersections between post-colonial studies and sensory studies by paying particular attention to the sensorium of the colonised. In the historical and geographical context of colonial South Asia, the senses are embedded in acts of distinction across race, caste, class, and bodily and gender hierarchies. The collection intervenes by paying attention to the relationship between power and sense perception as it finds register in media, scientific practices and literature of the period. Across the section, we suggest that making sense of empire is also to make sense of the sensory regimes of empire that have resonances in the contemporary.",
keywords = "Decolonising, empire, India, post-colonial studies, power, sense perception, sensory regime, sensory studies",
author = "V. Duggal and C. Hoene",
note = "Funding Information: The articles in this special section all started out as papers delivered at the {\textquoteleft}Empire and the Senses{\textquoteright} workshop at the University of Kent, in Canterbury, in June 2019. The necessary funds were provided by the Leverhulme Trust (ECF-2016-362), the University of Kent{\textquoteright}s Researcher Development Fund, Incentivisation Fund, and the GCRF Fortuity Fund, and by the Centre for Postcolonial Studies. Our heartfelt gratitude to all the funders, and to the School of English at the University of Kent for hosting the workshop. As co-organisers of this workshop, we thank all the participants, in no particular order, for their excellent papers and stimulating debates: Muzna Rahman, Saptarshi Chaudhuri, Shivani Kapoor, Mobeen Hussain, Anita Cherian, Moushumi Bhowmik, Priyanka Basu and Claire Chambers. Thanks, too, to the colleagues at Kent who listened to some or all of the papers and provided feedback, and to Emily Manktelow for her input and collaboration at the very beginning. We are grateful to the many anonymous South Asia reviewers who helped improve this collection with their detailed and thought-provoking feedback. Our heartfelt thanks to Kama Maclean, Vivien Seyler and Imran Ahmed at South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies for their expert support, and to Kama Maclean and Shivani Kapoor for their thoughtful feedback on the introduction. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2021 South Asian Studies Association of Australia.",
year = "2021",
month = sep,
day = "3",
doi = "10.1080/00856401.2021.1970382",
language = "English",
volume = "44",
pages = "903--912",
journal = "South Asia: Journal of South Asia Studies",
issn = "0085-6401",
publisher = "Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group",
number = "5",
}