Paper short abstract:

Cultural rights issues in the Indian diaspora focus on claims to knowledge rather than claims to artefacts. The affective and material dimensions of this epistemo-patrimony are explored.

Paper long abstract:

There are undeniably, calls by Indians for the repatriation of objects (such as the Koh-i-noor diamond). Other objects have been repatriated and have been the centre of ritualized homecomings (eg. The return of Guru Gobind Singh's sacred weapons in 1966, which was documented by Mildred Archer). Nevertheless, what is most striking about the politics of ownership in the Indian diaspora is its focus on issues of knowledge and enunciation. Diasporic pressure groups are largely concerned with "knowledge" rather than "artefacts". This has been dramatized by recent controversies surrounding the work of scholars such as James Laine and Wendy Doniger. This paper explores the reasons for this and suggests that an affective and material epistemo-patrimony is articulated in these contests over enunciative authority.