Summary/Abstract |
Several anthropological essays in this issue of South Asia, each engaging the figure of hysteria, are reviewed through the relation of phenomena typified as hysterical to accusations of these being counterfeit or ‘duplicate’. A conceptual vocabulary to analyse the essays draws from the author’s work on India’s Aadhaar biometric identification platform as a means to transform a nation into a database and govern through an array of technical practices termed ‘de-duplication’. De-duplication emerges as a useful way to attend to the stakes in the enunciation or refusal of the hysterical symptom.
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