Rethinking knowledge for development: Transnational knowledge professionals and the “new” India

Abstract

As questions of “knowledge economy” have come to the center of studies of the global political economy, the World Bank and other international organizations have begun promoting “knowledge for development” (K4D) in many postcolonial contexts over the last several years. These strategies toward broad goals of social and economic development presume a neoliberal orientation of the individual towards state and society. Using the example of contemporary urban India, this study examines the unexpected outcomes of imposing and legitimating the neoliberal political rationality that underpins K4D practices at individual and societal levels. Rather than having successfully produced a “new middle class,” as touted in media representations of India’s success, emphasis on K4D and a knowledge economy in India has had the effect of producing an elite with formidable economic strength, as well as the cultural dominance to re-imagine and negotiate meanings of Indianness. Here, I approach the knowledge economy as a “global assemblage” concretized and specified through the everyday practices of individuals, and aim to critique the assumptions of the knowledge economy by drawing on the articulations of contemporary Indian knowledge professionals.