EPISTEMIC WOUNDED ATTACHMENTS: RECOVERING DEFINITIONAL SUBJECTIVITY THROUGH COLONIAL LIBRARIES

Postcolonial theorizing on empires and subjects focuses governance infrastructure as relevant geographies of relation. However, when governance-driven knowledge production migrates from colony to metropole, what postcolonial subjectivity formations are recovered colonial archives, particularly if these archives structured by epistemic difference? We theorize a wounded attachment library, or the construction through archival recovery, means transforming library into an academic discipline. Through case study Sikh studies, discipline originating out Sikhs, we argue that difference is transformed distancing tool which scholars pursue legibility Euro-American academy. contextualize ongoing investment in measures (for example, objectivity, distance, validity) how area region tied universal knowledge; result elision embodied valid framework for intellectual pursuit.