Reversing the Gaze

Reversing the Gaze Synopsis

This book contains selections from the diary of Amar Singh from the year 1898 to 1905, recording his sense of discovery and surprise at diverse sites: the Jodhpur Court, women's quarters of the Jodhpur Haveli, Lord Curzon's Imperial Cadet Corps. In daily negotitations with the British and Rajput counter-players, Amar Singh constructs a hybrid self, a Rajput nobleman and an Edwardian officer and gentleman. In an era that seems to be more at ease with subjective truths than objective knowledge, Amar Singh reverses gaze of the subaltern by playing participant, observer, informant, narrator, and author in a seemingly innocuous diary, written to 'keep [himself] amused'.

The new epilogue, entitled Engaging Subject Knowledge: Learning from Amar Singh's Diary Narratives of and by the Self, updates research on and brings together various aspects of ethnographic writings.