Frontier commodification: governing land, labour and leisure in Darjeeling, India

TY - JOUR

T1 - Frontier commodification

T2 - governing land, labour and leisure in Darjeeling, India

AU - Bennike, Rune Bolding

PY - 2017/4/3

Y1 - 2017/4/3

N2 - In the contemporary global imagination, Darjeeling typically figures on two accounts: as a unique tourism site replete with colonial heritage and picturesque nature, and as the productive origin for some of the world's most exclusive teas. In this commodified and consumable form, Darjeeling is part of a wide array of frontier places that are increasingly incorporated into the circuits of global capitalism. In the present article, I argue that Darjeeling is in fact an early and emblematic example of such incorporation. By connecting emerging literature on the pre-colonial history of the area with a critical reading of colonial sources, I trace the shifts and erasures that enabled Darjeeling's commodification—a process that involved its transformation from a ‘wild’ Himalayan frontier into a speculative wasteland and, ultimately, into a picturesque and productive ‘summer place’. Reading through a range of material and representational interventions, I uncover the particular assemblage of government and capital that enabled this transformation and highlight its potential resonances with contemporary cases of frontier commodification in South Asia and beyond.

AB - In the contemporary global imagination, Darjeeling typically figures on two accounts: as a unique tourism site replete with colonial heritage and picturesque nature, and as the productive origin for some of the world's most exclusive teas. In this commodified and consumable form, Darjeeling is part of a wide array of frontier places that are increasingly incorporated into the circuits of global capitalism. In the present article, I argue that Darjeeling is in fact an early and emblematic example of such incorporation. By connecting emerging literature on the pre-colonial history of the area with a critical reading of colonial sources, I trace the shifts and erasures that enabled Darjeeling's commodification—a process that involved its transformation from a ‘wild’ Himalayan frontier into a speculative wasteland and, ultimately, into a picturesque and productive ‘summer place’. Reading through a range of material and representational interventions, I uncover the particular assemblage of government and capital that enabled this transformation and highlight its potential resonances with contemporary cases of frontier commodification in South Asia and beyond.

KW - Faculty of Science

KW - Commodification

KW - Darjeeling

KW - Frontier

KW - Landscape

KW - Land

KW - Tourism

U2 - 10.1080/00856401.2017.1289618

DO - 10.1080/00856401.2017.1289618

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0085-6401

VL - 40

SP - 256

EP - 271

JO - South Asia: Journal of South Asia Studies

JF - South Asia: Journal of South Asia Studies

IS - 2

ER -