The Normativity of the Governed. A Postcolonial Sketch

• Main Author: Michele Spanò
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Bologna 2017-12-01
• Series: Scienza & Politica
• Subjects: Normatività; Governmentalità; Diritto; Antropologia; Studi Postcoloniali
• Online Access: https://scienzaepolitica.unibo.it/article/view/7563

This essay articulates two heterodox approaches to the political realm: (I) normativity and (II) governmentality, and it applies this theoretical framework to postcolonial societies. Through a close reading of the work of some well-known postcolonial scholars, such as Partha Chatterjee and Ranabir Samaddar, the essay offers a sketch of what it proposes to call the «normativity of the governed». The ethnographic description of both public authorities and social actors in postcolonial contexts sheds light on a peculiar dimension of political negotiation. One that is forged by the “governed” through a strategic use of those very same discourses and practices, mainly legal, that governmental powers use in order to rule. In the end, the coupling of anthropology and normativity allows for a fresh and more comprehensive critique of the political itself.