Dia Da Costa
Biographic Data
| ID | 3686607 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Dia Da Costa |
| GIVEN NAMES | Dia |
| FAMILY NAME | Da Costa |
| SIGNATURE | DA COSTA D |
| AFFILIATIONS | Queen's University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 59 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Meet the Savarnas: Indian millennials whose mediocrity broke everything
Caste violence in the South Asian diaspora has become a growing site of anti-caste organizing, scholarship, memoir and film. Led by caste-oppressed people in India and the western diaspora, the res
Writing Castelessly
This article combines historical and life-writing approaches to demonstrate how caste is made invisible in histories and structures of education, canonical knowledge, and research. As a dominant-caste (savarna) Bengali academic, the author follows caste-oppressed feminists to offer a methodological intervention that challenges several ways in which castelessness is reproduced in feminist scholarship. The author asks why savarna write castelessly.…
Introduction: Cultural production under multiple colonialisms
In this introduction to the special journal issue, we elaborate a multiple colonialisms framework that allows us to examine the complex relationalities of multiple and converging colonial relations in historical and contemporary contexts within which cultural production does its work. Through examples of cultural production from the Americas and Asia, Special Issue contributors analyse rarely-recognized sites of colonialism that bear a palimpsest…
Eating heritage: Caste, colonialism, and the contestation of adivasi creativity
This paper uses a multiple colonialisms approach to study cultural production in India and argue that coloniality is not a casteless structure of violence. In discursive and planning rhetoric, ‘creativity is in India’s DNA.’ This discourse incites the poor to harness and develop their tangible and intangible cultural heritage in order to feed themselves. Foregrounding anti-caste, Dalit scholarship in conversation with extant formulations of decol…
Relational Poverty Politics: Forms, Struggles, and Possibilities
Acting up: Gender and theatre in India, 1979 onwards, by A. Mangai
Mangai’s Acting Up: Gender and Theatre in India, 1979 Onwards is a long overdue book for those confounded by the remarkable absence of feminist analysis of gender and politics in Indian theater. Ba
Politicizing Creative Economy: Activism and a Hunger Called Theater
Theorizing NGOs: States, feminisms and neoliberalism ed. by Victoria Bernal, Inderpal Grewal (review)
Reviewed by: Theorizing NGOs: States, feminisms and neoliberalism ed. by Victoria Bernal, Inderpal Grewal Dia Da Costa Theorizing NGOs: States, feminisms and neoliberalism Edited by Victoria Bernal and Inderpal Grewal. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press: 2014. One of the promises of theorizing is capturing the complexity of contextual difference in terms that readily resonate across space and time. In the 1990s, the story about nongovernmental o…
Sentimental Capitalism in Contemporary India: Art, Heritage, and Development in Ahmedabad, Gujarat
Using a critical cultural politics approach and deploying the concept of sentimental capitalism, this article problematizes the burgeoning creative economy discourse while analyzing spaces of art and heritage production in Ahmedabad, India. I situate the Cotton Exchange exhibit (April 2013) in an erstwhile mill in recent histories of mill closures, genocide, creative economy initiatives and development aspirations of revitalizing degraded space. …
Cruel Pessimism and Waiting for Belonging: Towards a Global Political Economy of Affect
Recent theorizations of affect have focused largely on Western historical, political and aesthetic contexts to distinguish between affect and emotion. Notably, these interventions offer new imaginaries to reinvigorate analysis of politics in the face of shrinking possibilities. However, much of this literature views affect as autonomous from emotion, while overlooking the political history of development and the differentiated relation to affect …
The 'rule of experts' in making a dynamic micro-insurance industry in India
India is reported to have the most dynamic micro-insurance market in the world and the largest weather-index insurance market among developing countries. This is interesting because, paradoxically, reports readily suggest that the primary hindrance for the industry is the widespread lack of effective demand for insurance. This paper seeks to identify, understand and problematize the paradox of resolutely promoting micro-insurance and its apparent…
Learning from labour: The space and work of activist theatre
Recent attempts to rethink labour history and contemporary labour struggles in India have variously memorialised the ‘lost worlds’ of industrial labour struggle and argued for stretching the terms of labour historiography, in part, by moving beyond the conceptual and political boundaries of the factory gate to take into account the complex configurations of labour, accumulation and struggle. This article contributes to this scholarship with a met…
Subjects of Struggle: Theatre as space of political economy
This article studies political theatre as a space of political economy. When conceptualising theatre as a space of political economy, it is important to maintain distinctions between three formulations of the relationship between culture and development: that capitalism is cultural, that cultural labour is a space of political economy, and that culture is capital today. While agreeing with the first two formulations, this article suggests an amen…
Introduction: Relocating culture in development and development in culture
This introduction situates the contributions of articles in this special issue within the so-called cultural turn of development. It examines relevant debates to locate ways in which this special issue goes beyond the decisive disregard for and the glib celebration of ‘culture’ in development thinking. Together the papers contribute to rethinking three key questions: 1) whether ‘culture’ ultimately constructs ideological security for the market e…
“Spoiled Sons” and “Sincere Daughters”: Schooling, Security, and Empowerment in Rural West Bengal, India
About the Contributors
The Poverty of the Global Order
This paper argues that the legitimacy of the global order depends not on economic progress alone, but on the progressive naturalization of its epistemological foundations, through 'new solutions' to old problems by states and development agencies. New solutions become methods of social control through which the dominant visions of what count as viable futures are reproduced. We critique efforts to humanize development (e.g., by the World Bank, Am…
Tensions of neo-liberal development: State discourse and dramatic oppositions in West Bengal
In this article, I examine the tensions of neo-liberal development as experienced in contemporary West Bengal, culminating in recent struggles over land acquisition. My analysis is conducted through three modes of reflection-the political actions of a cultural group called Jana Sanskriti, the discourse and policy making of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPM), and David Harvey's conceptual distinction between expanded reproduction and acc…
There's a Devil on Wayamba Beach: Social Dramas of Development and Citizenship in Northwest Sri Lanka
In this article we draw upon religious sermons, poetry and first-person accounts to show how rural Sri Lankans used localized meanings of security and sacrifice to mobilize against a project of national development. Using Victor Turner's concept of social drama and the idea that state officials and citizens relate as audiences of each others' actions, we bring the methodological lens of performance to the study of citizenship, development, and le…
The 'rule of experts' in making a dynamic micro-insurance industry in India
India is reported to have the most dynamic micro-insurance market in the world and the largest weather-index insurance market among developing countries. This is interesting because, paradoxically, reports readily suggest that the primary hindrance for the industry is the widespread lack of effective demand for insurance. This paper seeks to identify, understand and problematize the paradox of resolutely promoting micro-insurance and its apparent…
Tensions of neo-liberal development: State discourse and dramatic oppositions in West Bengal
In this article, I examine the tensions of neo-liberal development as experienced in contemporary West Bengal, culminating in recent struggles over land acquisition. My analysis is conducted through three modes of reflection-the political actions of a cultural group called Jana Sanskriti, the discourse and policy making of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPM), and David Harvey's conceptual distinction between expanded reproduction and acc…
The Poverty of the Global Order
This paper argues that the legitimacy of the global order depends not on economic progress alone, but on the progressive naturalization of its epistemological foundations, through 'new solutions' to old problems by states and development agencies. New solutions become methods of social control through which the dominant visions of what count as viable futures are reproduced. We critique efforts to humanize development (e.g., by the World Bank, Am…
There's a Devil on Wayamba Beach: Social Dramas of Development and Citizenship in Northwest Sri Lanka
In this article we draw upon religious sermons, poetry and first-person accounts to show how rural Sri Lankans used localized meanings of security and sacrifice to mobilize against a project of national development. Using Victor Turner's concept of social drama and the idea that state officials and citizens relate as audiences of each others' actions, we bring the methodological lens of performance to the study of citizenship, development, and le…
Introduction: Relocating culture in development and development in culture
This introduction situates the contributions of articles in this special issue within the so-called cultural turn of development. It examines relevant debates to locate ways in which this special issue goes beyond the decisive disregard for and the glib celebration of ‘culture’ in development thinking. Together the papers contribute to rethinking three key questions: 1) whether ‘culture’ ultimately constructs ideological security for the market e…
Learning from labour: The space and work of activist theatre
Recent attempts to rethink labour history and contemporary labour struggles in India have variously memorialised the ‘lost worlds’ of industrial labour struggle and argued for stretching the terms of labour historiography, in part, by moving beyond the conceptual and political boundaries of the factory gate to take into account the complex configurations of labour, accumulation and struggle. This article contributes to this scholarship with a met…
Sentimental Capitalism in Contemporary India: Art, Heritage, and Development in Ahmedabad, Gujarat
Using a critical cultural politics approach and deploying the concept of sentimental capitalism, this article problematizes the burgeoning creative economy discourse while analyzing spaces of art and heritage production in Ahmedabad, India. I situate the Cotton Exchange exhibit (April 2013) in an erstwhile mill in recent histories of mill closures, genocide, creative economy initiatives and development aspirations of revitalizing degraded space. …
Writing Castelessly
This article combines historical and life-writing approaches to demonstrate how caste is made invisible in histories and structures of education, canonical knowledge, and research. As a dominant-caste (savarna) Bengali academic, the author follows caste-oppressed feminists to offer a methodological intervention that challenges several ways in which castelessness is reproduced in feminist scholarship. The author asks why savarna write castelessly.…
Subjects of Struggle: Theatre as space of political economy
This article studies political theatre as a space of political economy. When conceptualising theatre as a space of political economy, it is important to maintain distinctions between three formulations of the relationship between culture and development: that capitalism is cultural, that cultural labour is a space of political economy, and that culture is capital today. While agreeing with the first two formulations, this article suggests an amen…
The Poverty of the Global Order
This paper argues that the legitimacy of the global order depends not on economic progress alone, but on the progressive naturalization of its epistemological foundations, through 'new solutions' to old problems by states and development agencies. New solutions become methods of social control through which the dominant visions of what count as viable futures are reproduced. We critique efforts to humanize development (e.g., by the World Bank, Am…
Tensions of neo-liberal development: State discourse and dramatic oppositions in West Bengal
In this article, I examine the tensions of neo-liberal development as experienced in contemporary West Bengal, culminating in recent struggles over land acquisition. My analysis is conducted through three modes of reflection-the political actions of a cultural group called Jana Sanskriti, the discourse and policy making of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPM), and David Harvey's conceptual distinction between expanded reproduction and acc…
There's a Devil on Wayamba Beach: Social Dramas of Development and Citizenship in Northwest Sri Lanka
In this article we draw upon religious sermons, poetry and first-person accounts to show how rural Sri Lankans used localized meanings of security and sacrifice to mobilize against a project of national development. Using Victor Turner's concept of social drama and the idea that state officials and citizens relate as audiences of each others' actions, we bring the methodological lens of performance to the study of citizenship, development, and le…
“Spoiled Sons” and “Sincere Daughters”: Schooling, Security, and Empowerment in Rural West Bengal, India
About the Contributors
Subjects of Struggle: Theatre as space of political economy
This article studies political theatre as a space of political economy. When conceptualising theatre as a space of political economy, it is important to maintain distinctions between three formulations of the relationship between culture and development: that capitalism is cultural, that cultural labour is a space of political economy, and that culture is capital today. While agreeing with the first two formulations, this article suggests an amen…
Introduction: Relocating culture in development and development in culture
This introduction situates the contributions of articles in this special issue within the so-called cultural turn of development. It examines relevant debates to locate ways in which this special issue goes beyond the decisive disregard for and the glib celebration of ‘culture’ in development thinking. Together the papers contribute to rethinking three key questions: 1) whether ‘culture’ ultimately constructs ideological security for the market e…
Learning from labour: The space and work of activist theatre
Recent attempts to rethink labour history and contemporary labour struggles in India have variously memorialised the ‘lost worlds’ of industrial labour struggle and argued for stretching the terms of labour historiography, in part, by moving beyond the conceptual and political boundaries of the factory gate to take into account the complex configurations of labour, accumulation and struggle. This article contributes to this scholarship with a met…
The 'rule of experts' in making a dynamic micro-insurance industry in India
India is reported to have the most dynamic micro-insurance market in the world and the largest weather-index insurance market among developing countries. This is interesting because, paradoxically, reports readily suggest that the primary hindrance for the industry is the widespread lack of effective demand for insurance. This paper seeks to identify, understand and problematize the paradox of resolutely promoting micro-insurance and its apparent…
Cruel Pessimism and Waiting for Belonging: Towards a Global Political Economy of Affect
Recent theorizations of affect have focused largely on Western historical, political and aesthetic contexts to distinguish between affect and emotion. Notably, these interventions offer new imaginaries to reinvigorate analysis of politics in the face of shrinking possibilities. However, much of this literature views affect as autonomous from emotion, while overlooking the political history of development and the differentiated relation to affect …
Theorizing NGOs: States, feminisms and neoliberalism ed. by Victoria Bernal, Inderpal Grewal (review)
Reviewed by: Theorizing NGOs: States, feminisms and neoliberalism ed. by Victoria Bernal, Inderpal Grewal Dia Da Costa Theorizing NGOs: States, feminisms and neoliberalism Edited by Victoria Bernal and Inderpal Grewal. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press: 2014. One of the promises of theorizing is capturing the complexity of contextual difference in terms that readily resonate across space and time. In the 1990s, the story about nongovernmental o…
Sentimental Capitalism in Contemporary India: Art, Heritage, and Development in Ahmedabad, Gujarat
Using a critical cultural politics approach and deploying the concept of sentimental capitalism, this article problematizes the burgeoning creative economy discourse while analyzing spaces of art and heritage production in Ahmedabad, India. I situate the Cotton Exchange exhibit (April 2013) in an erstwhile mill in recent histories of mill closures, genocide, creative economy initiatives and development aspirations of revitalizing degraded space. …
Politicizing Creative Economy: Activism and a Hunger Called Theater
Acting up: Gender and theatre in India, 1979 onwards, by A. Mangai
Mangai’s Acting Up: Gender and Theatre in India, 1979 Onwards is a long overdue book for those confounded by the remarkable absence of feminist analysis of gender and politics in Indian theater. Ba
Relational Poverty Politics: Forms, Struggles, and Possibilities
Introduction: Cultural production under multiple colonialisms
In this introduction to the special journal issue, we elaborate a multiple colonialisms framework that allows us to examine the complex relationalities of multiple and converging colonial relations in historical and contemporary contexts within which cultural production does its work. Through examples of cultural production from the Americas and Asia, Special Issue contributors analyse rarely-recognized sites of colonialism that bear a palimpsest…
Eating heritage: Caste, colonialism, and the contestation of adivasi creativity
This paper uses a multiple colonialisms approach to study cultural production in India and argue that coloniality is not a casteless structure of violence. In discursive and planning rhetoric, ‘creativity is in India’s DNA.’ This discourse incites the poor to harness and develop their tangible and intangible cultural heritage in order to feed themselves. Foregrounding anti-caste, Dalit scholarship in conversation with extant formulations of decol…
Writing Castelessly
This article combines historical and life-writing approaches to demonstrate how caste is made invisible in histories and structures of education, canonical knowledge, and research. As a dominant-caste (savarna) Bengali academic, the author follows caste-oppressed feminists to offer a methodological intervention that challenges several ways in which castelessness is reproduced in feminist scholarship. The author asks why savarna write castelessly.…
Meet the Savarnas: Indian millennials whose mediocrity broke everything
Caste violence in the South Asian diaspora has become a growing site of anti-caste organizing, scholarship, memoir and film. Led by caste-oppressed people in India and the western diaspora, the res
Political science (17 works) · Law (16 works) · Sociology (16 works) · Politics (15 works) · Gender Studies (9 works) · Law (9 works) · Political economy (7 works) · History (6 works) · Scholarship (6 works) · Anthropological Studies and Insights (5 works)