Visualizing Vigilance in the Generalized Representation of the Nomad

Abstract

Reflecting on the generic construction of the nomad through discursive imaginaries and regulatory forms of control, this work engages in the interpretation of vigilance through the acknowledgment of its connectedness to the politics and practice of visuality. Based on essentialized interpretations of identity, ahistorical accounts of mobility, and stereotypical representations of difference, generalized nomadic representations legitimize measures of vigilance and subject formation. By reflecting on the representation of the Banjara community in Rajasthan, India, and their contexts of socioeconomic discrimination, the article thus emphasizes how acts of vigilance in the form of measures of classification and discipline operate in relation to imaginaries of normative order and social distinction, to engage in the structural reproduction of distance, difference and (in)visibility.