Hematologies: The Political Life of Blood in India

by Jacob Copeman, Dwaipayan Banerjee

Overview

In this ground-breaking account of the political economy and cultural meaning of blood in contemporary India, Jacob Copeman and Dwaipayan Banerjee examine how the giving and receiving of blood has shaped social and political life. Hematologies traces how the substance congeals political ideologies, biomedical rationalities, and activist practices.

Using examples from anti-colonial appeals to blood sacrifice as a political philosophy to contemporary portraits of political leaders drawn with blood, from the use of the substance by Bhopali children as a material of activism to biomedical anxieties and aporias about the excess and lack of donation, Hematologies broaches how political life in India has been shaped through the use of blood and through contestations about blood. As such, the authors offer new entryways into thinking about politics and economy through a "bloodscape of difference": different sovereignties; different proportionalities; and different temporalities. These entryways allow the authors to explore the relation between blood's utopic flows and political clottings as it moves through time and space, conjuring new kinds of social collectivities while reanimating older forms, and always in a reflexive relation to norms that guide its proper flow.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501745096
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	12/15/2019
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Jacob Copeman is Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh. He is author of Veins of Devotion.

Dwaipayan Banerjee is Assistant Professor in the program on Science, Technology, and Society at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Follow him on X @dwai_banerjee.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
1. Bloodscape of Difference
2. Sovereignty and Blood
3. Substantial Activisms
4. Hemo Economicus: From Blood Sacrifice to Blood Science?
5. The Broken World of Transfusion
6. Blood in the Time of the Civic
7. Hematic Futures
Notes
References
Index

What People are Saying About This

Veena Das

"A splendid achievement. This book is unparalleled in its ability to show how the political absorbs the techno-scientific over various scales and temporalities in contemporary India."

Veena Das

A splendid achievement. This book is unparalleled in its ability to show how the political absorbs the techno-scientific over various scales and temporalities in contemporary India.

Emily Martin

This book is an extraordinary exploration of the multitudes of meanings and uses of blood in northern India. A surprising and compelling account of interest to anyone who has ever bled, menstruated, or claims to be related to others by 'blood.'

Joseph Alter

Jacob Copeman and Dwaipayan Banerjee have written a deeply insightful book on the potent symbolism and political significance of blood.

Stefan Helmreich

This revelatory book brings us a thoroughly political hematology, not only tracking economies of sacrifice, extraction, and spillage, but also thinking through blood as a medium for writing, for protest, and for the telling of historical time.

Rachel Berger

Hematologies is an astute, learned, and ground-breaking account of the political economy and cultural meaning of blood in contemporary India, the product of a powerful, cogent collaboration between two prominent and exciting thinkers.

Editorial Reviews

This is a ground-breaking treatise which taps into and opens up a new vein of perceiving blood as something more than just a substance, while engaging in a refined and expert discussion of anthropology's social theory.

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

"Jacob Copeman and Dwaipayan Banerjee have written a deeply insightful book on the potent symbolism and political significance of blood."

Joseph Alter

"Hematologies is an astute, learned, and ground-breaking account of the political economy and cultural meaning of blood in contemporary India, the product of a powerful, cogent collaboration between two prominent and exciting thinkers."

Rachel Berger

"This revelatory book brings us a thoroughly political hematology, not only tracking economies of sacrifice, extraction, and spillage, but also thinking through blood as a medium for writing, for protest, and for the telling of historical time"

Stefan Helmreich

"This book is an extraordinary exploration of the multitudes of meanings and uses of blood in northern India. Its breadth and range make the questions it raises of wide interest, from blood as a donation, as a means to political protest, as a sign of modernity or patriotism"

Emily Martin

"This book is unparalleled in its ability to show how the political absorbs the techno-scientific over various scales and temporalities in contemporary India. The authors take breath-taking risks with the plethora of objects and contexts they dwell on but manage to land on the ground each time. A splendid achievement."

Veena Das

"Hematologies is an astute, learned, and ground-breaking account of the political economy and cultural meaning of blood in contemporary India, the product of a powerful, cogent collaboration between two prominent and exciting thinkers."

--Rachel Berger, Concordia University, author of Ayurveda Made Modern

"Jacob Copeman and Dwaipayan Banerjee have written a deeply insightful book on the potent symbolism and political significance of blood."

--Joseph Alter, University of Pittsburgh, author of Gandhi's Body

"This book is an extraordinary exploration of the multitudes of meanings and uses of blood in northern India. Its breadth and range make the questions it raises of wide interest, from blood as a donation, as a means to political protest, as a sign of modernity or patriotism"

--Emily Martin, New York University

"This book is unparalleled in its ability to show how the political absorbs the techno-scientific over various scales and temporalities in contemporary India. The authors take breath-taking risks with the plethora of objects and contexts they dwell on but manage to land on the ground each time. A splendid achievement."

--Veena Das, Johns Hopkins University

"This revelatory book brings us a thoroughly political hematology, not only tracking economies of sacrifice, extraction, and spillage, but also thinking through blood as a medium for writing, for protest, and for the telling of historical time"

--Stefan Helmreich, MIT

From the Publisher