Remaining Nameless: Names, Hiding, and Dislocation Among Delhi’s Runaways
In India, child runaways inhabiting urban space mobilize a complex set of naming strategies—both for themselves as individuals and for the category of person to which they see themselves belonging—as a component of strategies of evasion, dissimulation, and self-protection. In this widely-replicated...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Centre d’Etudes de l’Inde et de l’Asie du Sud
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| Series: | South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/samaj/4061 |
| _version_ | 1797316302102069248 |
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| author | Jonah Steinberg |
| author_facet | Jonah Steinberg |
| author_sort | Jonah Steinberg |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | In India, child runaways inhabiting urban space mobilize a complex set of naming strategies—both for themselves as individuals and for the category of person to which they see themselves belonging—as a component of strategies of evasion, dissimulation, and self-protection. In this widely-replicated mode of narrative praxis, iterated in similar ways throughout the Subcontinent (and beyond), personal names as deployed by ‘street children’ become fluid vehicles of strategic self-positioning to circumvent forms of power that seek to define, fix, and track the children. As any agent in public space threatens to temper their mobility and freedom, and potentially to make their location known to forces they wish to evade, these runaways may use dozens of names. The names are not used in unpatterned ways, but rather they are situationally-contingent. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-08T03:16:17Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-0d0e9bd8b0d742ae991943fe4254292f |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1960-6060 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-08T03:16:17Z |
| publisher | Centre d’Etudes de l’Inde et de l’Asie du Sud |
| record_format | Article |
| series | South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal |
| spelling | doaj.art-0d0e9bd8b0d742ae991943fe4254292f2024-02-12T15:38:38ZengCentre d’Etudes de l’Inde et de l’Asie du SudSouth Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal1960-60601210.4000/samaj.4061Remaining Nameless: Names, Hiding, and Dislocation Among Delhi’s RunawaysJonah SteinbergIn India, child runaways inhabiting urban space mobilize a complex set of naming strategies—both for themselves as individuals and for the category of person to which they see themselves belonging—as a component of strategies of evasion, dissimulation, and self-protection. In this widely-replicated mode of narrative praxis, iterated in similar ways throughout the Subcontinent (and beyond), personal names as deployed by ‘street children’ become fluid vehicles of strategic self-positioning to circumvent forms of power that seek to define, fix, and track the children. As any agent in public space threatens to temper their mobility and freedom, and potentially to make their location known to forces they wish to evade, these runaways may use dozens of names. The names are not used in unpatterned ways, but rather they are situationally-contingent.https://journals.openedition.org/samaj/4061IndiacitiesDelhistreet childrenrunawayspostcoloniality |
| spellingShingle | Jonah Steinberg Remaining Nameless: Names, Hiding, and Dislocation Among Delhi’s Runaways South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal India cities Delhi street children runaways postcoloniality |
| title | Remaining Nameless: Names, Hiding, and Dislocation Among Delhi’s Runaways |
| title_full | Remaining Nameless: Names, Hiding, and Dislocation Among Delhi’s Runaways |
| title_fullStr | Remaining Nameless: Names, Hiding, and Dislocation Among Delhi’s Runaways |
| title_full_unstemmed | Remaining Nameless: Names, Hiding, and Dislocation Among Delhi’s Runaways |
| title_short | Remaining Nameless: Names, Hiding, and Dislocation Among Delhi’s Runaways |
| title_sort | remaining nameless names hiding and dislocation among delhi s runaways |
| topic | India cities Delhi street children runaways postcoloniality |
| url | https://journals.openedition.org/samaj/4061 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT jonahsteinberg remainingnamelessnameshidinganddislocationamongdelhisrunaways |