Developing Terra Nullius: colonialism, nationalism, and indigeneity in the Andaman Islands
This article explores in detail the legal structures and discursive framings informing the governance of one particular ‘backward’ region of India, the Andaman Islands. It traces the shifting patterns of occupation and development of the Islands in the colonial and post colonial periods, with a spec...
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| Format: | Article |
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Cambridge University Press
2017
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/50189/ |
| _version_ | 1848798179703652352 |
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| author | Sen, Uditi |
| author_facet | Sen, Uditi |
| author_sort | Sen, Uditi |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | This article explores in detail the legal structures and discursive framings informing the governance of one particular ‘backward’ region of India, the Andaman Islands. It traces the shifting patterns of occupation and development of the Islands in the colonial and post colonial periods, with a special focus on the changes wrought by independence in 1947 and the eventual history of planned development. It demonstrates how intersecting discourses of indigenous savagery/primitivism and the geographical emptiness was repeatedly mobilised in colonial era surveys and post-colonial policy documents. Post colonial visions of developing the Andaman Islands ushered in a settler-colonial governmentality, infused with genocidal fantasies of the ‘dying savage’. Laws professing to protect aboriginal Jarawas actually worked to unilaterally extend Indian sovereignty over the lands and bodies of a community clearly hostile to such incorporation. It questions the current exclusion of India from the global geographies of settler-colonialism and argues that the violent and continuing history of indigenous marginalisation in the Andaman Islands represents a de facto operation of a logic of terra nullius. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T20:15:40Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-50189 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T20:15:40Z |
| publishDate | 2017 |
| publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-501892020-05-04T19:08:57Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/50189/ Developing Terra Nullius: colonialism, nationalism, and indigeneity in the Andaman Islands Sen, Uditi This article explores in detail the legal structures and discursive framings informing the governance of one particular ‘backward’ region of India, the Andaman Islands. It traces the shifting patterns of occupation and development of the Islands in the colonial and post colonial periods, with a special focus on the changes wrought by independence in 1947 and the eventual history of planned development. It demonstrates how intersecting discourses of indigenous savagery/primitivism and the geographical emptiness was repeatedly mobilised in colonial era surveys and post-colonial policy documents. Post colonial visions of developing the Andaman Islands ushered in a settler-colonial governmentality, infused with genocidal fantasies of the ‘dying savage’. Laws professing to protect aboriginal Jarawas actually worked to unilaterally extend Indian sovereignty over the lands and bodies of a community clearly hostile to such incorporation. It questions the current exclusion of India from the global geographies of settler-colonialism and argues that the violent and continuing history of indigenous marginalisation in the Andaman Islands represents a de facto operation of a logic of terra nullius. Cambridge University Press 2017-09-29 Article PeerReviewed Sen, Uditi (2017) Developing Terra Nullius: colonialism, nationalism, and indigeneity in the Andaman Islands. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 59 (4). pp. 944-973. ISSN 1475-2999 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/comparative-studies-in-society-and-history/article/developing-terra-nullius-colonialism-nationalism-and-indigeneity-in-the-andaman-islands/8F0B5F996A88F1DB8E8B5D7B54AD8E8F doi:10.1017/S0010417517000330 doi:10.1017/S0010417517000330 |
| spellingShingle | Sen, Uditi Developing Terra Nullius: colonialism, nationalism, and indigeneity in the Andaman Islands |
| title | Developing Terra Nullius: colonialism, nationalism, and indigeneity in the Andaman Islands |
| title_full | Developing Terra Nullius: colonialism, nationalism, and indigeneity in the Andaman Islands |
| title_fullStr | Developing Terra Nullius: colonialism, nationalism, and indigeneity in the Andaman Islands |
| title_full_unstemmed | Developing Terra Nullius: colonialism, nationalism, and indigeneity in the Andaman Islands |
| title_short | Developing Terra Nullius: colonialism, nationalism, and indigeneity in the Andaman Islands |
| title_sort | developing terra nullius: colonialism, nationalism, and indigeneity in the andaman islands |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/50189/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/50189/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/50189/ |