Questions of Modernity by Timothy Mitchell and Lila Abu-Lughod* In May 1993 a group of cholar of the Middle East and South A ia met in Cairo for a conference on "Que tion of Modernity: Strategie for Po tOrientali t Scholar hip on South A ia and the Middle Ea t." The meeting brought together peciali t on two region that the border of area tudie u ually keep apart, to explore que tion common to the two area ari ing out of current critique of the cholarhip of Orientali m and the di cour e of modernity. ** South A ia and the Middle Ea t are region that exemplify orne of the mo t pre ing and paradoxical feature of contemporary global ociety: the ten ion between uppo edly ecular regime and the religiou ba i of political allegiance; between the apparent tability of po t-colonial national boundarie and the fragility of communal harmony; between 0 ten ibly democratic form and the realitie of oligarchic rule; between the technology of armament and pace indu trie and the poverty of pea ant agriculture; between the profe ional advancement of women and their taking on the veil; between the flow of touri ts and the di placement of refugee ; between the importing of con umer luxurie and the export of labor migrant; and between the flouri hing of film, televi ion, and video indu trie and the per i tence of rna illiteracy. Such contradiction have commonly been explained in term of the contra t between tradition and modernity, the two condition coexi ting temporarily a the former gave way to the latter. Yet recent cholar hip ha hown not imply that the traditional ha refu ed to give way, but that practice that were called traditional are often better under tood a the product of recent hi torical condition . The traditional and the modem are two outcome of the arne proce . Modernity, moreover, i now expo ed to all kind of po t-modern cri i and critique. Individuali m, eculari m, cience, culture, and nationhood are no longer the certaintie they once eemed. They can be diagno ed a political con truction that have • Tim thy Mitchell i an iate profe r in the Depanment of Politi at ew York Univ rltity; Lil Abu-Lughod i an iate profe r in the Department of Anthropology. al t ew Yon. Univer-
lIy. ee the auth rlt¡ note at the end of thi anicl . DECE lBER
1993
produced particular hi tori cal form of power, elf-identity, exclu ion, and ubjection. Thi awarene ha demanded the development of new theoretical trategie in hi tory and the ocial cience . Once the pre-modem and the modem are no longer taken a given , with hi tory a a unilinear movement of development from one to the other and politic a the imple re olving of contradiction between the two, we can analyze modernity not a an hi torical condition but a a political project. Thi project can be een a a proce of con tructing, grouping and devaluing certain identitie and activitie a traditional by placing them in ubordinate oppo ition to another group con tructed and privileged a the modem.
Examining the traditional/modern construction The aim of the Cairo conference wa to examine how thi traditional/modem con truction wa created within South A ian and Middle Ea tern ocietie how it i u tained or challenged today, and wha~ form of ubjectivity and ocial identity are its re ult. By comparing South A ian and Middle Ea tern ca e we hoped to focu and deepen the e que tion , in the belief that, while regional experti e i nece ary, many of the a umption about modernity that govern re earch on particular region of the world are u tained by the barrier that area tudie maintain between them. Fifteen participant prepared paper for the conference. We grouped their pre entation around three theme: knowledge, nationhood, and ubaltern . The fir t group of papers examined the con titution of cientific and ocial- cientific knowledge in the colonial and po t-colonial tate, exploring ca e that included biomedicine, development di cour e, economic , and political cience. The econd et of paper dealt with i ue concerning the con truction of nationhood. The paper drew on ource including literature, cinema, televi ion programming, and the minutiae of cultural tyle to examine problem of gender identity, dome ticity, eculari m, and citizen hip in the creation of modem political identitie . The final group of paper examined the formation of ubaltern group in the colonial period, rai ing que tion about cla formation and examining form of identity and exclu ion created by the reordering and repre entation of rural and national pace. ITEM
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