Colonial Durabilities and Anticolonial Conundrums

Modern settings and individual perspectives are commonly inextricably entangled with the hegemonic logics of long-standing global inequalities, so that the boundaries between oppressive force and subjugated subject can be difficult if not impossible to identify. We discuss strategies for considering modern-day material culture from an anticolonial perspective that acknowledges this entanglement. To build our argument, we provide descriptions and interpretations of five contemporary objects that have been shaped simultaneously by histories of colonization and processes of neocolonial and neoliberal exploitation in the present. The objects we discuss, all located in either Delhi or Kolkata – the two previous capital cities of the British Raj – are (1) ceramic gargoyle drainpipes on a still in-use, colonial-era built railroad workers’ cottage; (2) a vandalized fifteenth-century Islamic monument; (3) terracotta figurines that are being leveraged as part of a state heritage craft initiative program; (4) a baby boy’s shirt featuring a repeating Apple company logo pattern; and (5) a British-themed pub. Together, we feel these items serve as examples of colonial durabilities in modern-day India – durabilities which, while informed by history, are remade and maintained by diverse subjects in the present. We argue that anticolonial contemporary archaeologists must strive to identify and critique all those who seek to perpetuate and legitimize the forms of exploitative privilege embodied by these objects.