Introduction

摘要

To return to the question of what is different in the South Asian history of technology, one can perhaps reiterate that the technology stories from India mirror the range of conventions within which much of South Asian historiography has come to rest. These are visible in a sustained analysis of how technology is caught up in colonial relations; an attention to development and modernization through a scrutiny of the new socio-economic order that the postcolonial state has sought to build; a focus on the subjectivities of classes and identities; and an attention to global flows of knowledge and frictions they encounter.42 Writing within those conventions, the contributions to this issue reflect the methodological eclecticism, theoretical debts, and the ethical commitment to asking questions of exclusion that are considered routine in South Asia. Given such commitments, it is then no surprise that scholars of South Asian technology do not stop by simply demonstrating that technology is an instrument for domination. Indeed, that is where the analysis starts to shape up. This changing thrust of analytical work is apparent in decreasing interest in "introduction" of new technologies by the colonial authorities or in any straightforward narrative of "transfer" of technology or "technological assistance" from the global north. Instead, scholars have invested their energy in exploring the specific ways the colonial context or the postcolonial condition facilitated the operation of power and met with subversive acts. Similarly, they routinely start by going behind the claims of modernization and development by embedding their analysis of the latter tropes in questions of resource distribution and claims of justice. There are now specialist STS journals open to embracing key innovations of South Asian historiography. Within U.S. aca-demia, there is a critical mass of scholars who are willing to attend to crossover interests. The timing could not be better for historians to harness the productive tension of concepts and methods in STS and South Asian Studies. Tapping into the generative potential of such tensions is the goal of this volume.