Politics beyond Dominance: Subaltern Power and World Making A Dissertation SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Quỳnh Như Phạm IN PARTIAL FUFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Raymond D. Duvall August 2018 © Quỳnh Như Phạm 2018 i Acknowledgements I am indebted to my family for being the source of strength, sustenance, and inspiration for me to complete this PhD and pursue everything else in life. As they patiently waited for me to finish graduate study, their love and bottomless support kept me going through ups and downs. My mother was always ready to help in ways huge and small. Every time I talked to my father, he would, without fail, encourage a single- minded focus on my study, and support whatever I did even as he cautioned me about potential risks. My sister Quyên and my two nieces, Nhím and Chíp, have been the springs of joy and laughter throughout. Special thanks to dear Chíp for volunteering to aid me in countless ways. And thanks to dì Hiền for offering her assistance in the early days of my preliminary fieldwork. At a place as freezing cold as Moscow, it is the people who have made it as warm and loving as Hà Nội. It is hard to keep the acknowledgements succinct when so many wonderful people have made this journey not only possible but also enjoyable and fulfilling. I thank every member of my dissertation committee for strongly encouraging me, from the beginning, to pursue the research question and focus that I was passionate about. I owe the deepest thanks to Bud Duvall, my advisor, whose incredible intellectual openness and acuity inspired me to both persist in the inquiries that were meaningful to me and think very carefully about the claims that I wished to make. He listened attentively, always, and has an uncanny talent for figuring out the heart of what I was trying to express. I am especially grateful to him for his immense generosity and patience in reading countless drafts of everything I have written in graduate school. His meticulous readings provided me with much needed feedback on conceptual formulations. And his thorough attention to everything on the page, right down to word choices and punctuation marks, saved me from the perils of a second language. Notwithstanding his demanding administrative responsibilities, Bud has been there for his advisees, providing us with remarkable care and support. He is an exemplary mentor, teacher, intellectual, and interlocutor, someone I can only aspire to emulate in everyday practices. I am grateful to my other committee members for their critical support as well: Ron Krebs, Nancy Luxon, Robert Nichols, and Vinay Gidwani. Ron welcomed conversations on my work and offered swift and helpful feedback. His questions helped me clarify and strengthen my arguments, especially for a broader audience. Nancy read closely my writings from seminars to ABD status, provided extensive and insightful feedback, and generously engaged my ideas for long hours in her office. At the University of Minnesota, she has taught me the most about writing, from being cognizant of the craft to carefully considering interlocutors and readers. I am thankful to Nancy not only for her incisive comments on my work but also for the invaluable advice she has given me on a wide range of matters. Robert has been wonderfully hospitable and perceptive in his readings as well as in our conversations. As a teacher, he is one of the best in providing conceptual guidance even as he highlighted what was significant beyond the conceptual in my project. Vinay is another model teacher and scholar with whom I had the opportunity to study at the University of Minnesota. His intellectual ii openness, analytical prowess, and encyclopedic references were both helpful and inspiring each time I discussed my research with him. Both in and outside the Department of Political Science, I had the fortune to learn from many amazing professors. Since the first year, Diyah Rachmi Larasati has been incredibly supportive and caring and made Minnesota feel like home. I could not have asked for a better host in Indonesia for inquiries on Bandung and agrarian politics. I am thankful to Richa Nagar for her tremendous encouragement and nurturing feedback on my work. Her energy was contagious in organizing the Race Caste Indigeneity workshops and planning future gatherings. Conversations with Ajay Skaria in and outside his seminars have been both illuminating and delightful thanks to his warmth and facility for elucidating dense theories in beautifully succinct and deceptively simple language. I thank Antonio Y. Vázquez-Arroyo for his memorable teaching of political theory, for conversations filled with candor and humor, and for all his advice and enthusiastic support since the first day I entered the program. It was a great pleasure for me to TA for August Nimtz, a true comrade who taught me a lot about Cuba and South Africa as well as the local history and politics of Minnesota. I was also lucky to TA for Daniel Kelliher who turns the classroom into a vibrant space of interactions and taught me by example what dedicated and spirited teaching means. I thank Shaden Tageldin whose seminar on Post/Colonial Translation made my first semester in grad school that much more exciting. And although I met Nick Jordan quite late, I really appreciate his support for this project. I wish I could have talked to and learned more from him about agroecology. For their indispensable work and assistance throughout the years, I thank the stellar staff of the Political Science Department: Jessie Eastman, Kyle Edwards, Alexis Cuttance, Tia Phan, Beth Ethier, and Sara Flannery. Jessie went above and beyond and helped everything fall into place. I have met very loving and special people in Minneapolis who have turned this place into a home for me. Elif Kalaycioglu and Misha Hadar are life partners whose company I cherish and who I can chat with for hours and hours and still feel like we are just beginning. María José Méndez – sister, co-author, half-a-decade-long roommate, partner in innumerable things – I can rely on her for anything. Qais Munhazim hosted gatherings that transported me to Việt Nam, with all the “back home” stories that we shared and the elaborate feasts - especially the bone marrow dish - that he spoiled me with. Speaking of home-like meals, I will remember fondly the delicious dishes that Diyah, Majo, Misha, Elif, Lalit, Qais, Max, Shiney, Ajay, Shai, Shahar, Gabby and Tiago have fed me over the years. It is both a strange occurrence and a unique blessing to closely connect with friends whom you feel you should have got to know way earlier. I can’t believe Abir and I didn’t talk much until the summer he was finishing his dissertation. Every now and then I would think back to that summer of all-day study sessions, brake-free bike rides, and convivial addas filled with his wise insights. It is incredulous that I entered grad school at the same time with Lalit and we didn’t adda endlessly till this past year. Heartfelt thanks to him for all his support and encouragement, for intense conversations and lovely walks, and for the best aloo gobi I’ve eaten J. Arif Hayat, I will dearly miss our camping in the library till midnight and eating yummy ribs and seafood on grass while watching ducks and the evening star. iii I started graduate school with a wonderful ICGC cohort, so the first Minnesota winter, despite the largest snowstorm on record in December, became very cozy amidst jovial gatherings with Joya John, Zikani Kaunda, Virgil Slade, and Chantal Figueroa. Many thanks to friends, comrades, and colleagues who have filled my time here with lively discussions, camaraderie, and laughter: Jason Vargas, Mark Hoffman, David Temin, Hùng Xuân Lê, Oanh Nguyễn, Anindita Chatterjee, Sayan Bhattacharya, Snigdha Kumar, Kriti Budhiraja, Anuradha Sajjanhar, Ketaki Jaywant, Beverly Fok, Shai Gortler, Shahar Globerman, Samarjit Ghosh, Tracey Blasenheim, Britt Van Paepeghem, Alex Steele, Sergio Valverde, Ismail Yaylaci, Fatıma Tuba, Haeri Kim, Surafel Abebe, Reem El-Radi, Alperen Evrin, Barış İne, Emily Mitamura, Paul Snell, Courtney Gildersleeve, Chase Hobbs-Morgan, Bryan Nakayama, Robert Asaadi, Chris Stone, Garrett Johnson, Harsha Anantharaman, Jayan Nair, and many others with whom I have taken seminars and hung out. Beyond graduate circles, I thank Carlyle Brown, Toàn, Quang, and Ngà for their warm hospitality and enjoyable get-togethers full of laughter in Minneapolis. I thank everyone in Bud’s dissertation group and in the Race Caste Indigeneity workshops for having read drafts of my writing and provided much needed feedback. Special thanks go to Naren Kumarakulasingam, Bikrum Gill, Túlio Zille, Adhemar Mercado, Akta Kaushal, Zahir Kolia, Majo, and Hima for close engagement, intense discussions, and challenging questions each time we read and respond to each other’s work. Endless chats with Naren anna have been particularly nourishing as we mull over politics, writing, and teaching. I am grateful to amazing teachers and friends from Vassar for continuing guidance, loving support, and boundless conversations. Thày Andy Bush generously read draft after draft of chapters and articles and often gave me profound insights into the heart of the matter. Whenever I have the chance to converse with Hoca Andy Davison, he listens and engages with extraordinary hermeneutical sensibility. Certain words, sentences, and concepts in this dissertation carry the teaching imprints of both dear Andys. Meeting up with Sam Opondo, Connie Ndonye Opondo, Katie Hite, Tim Koechlin, and Olga Bush makes visits to Vassar such a joy to look forward to. And keeping in touch with Jason, Khadija, Beyza, Keli and Tom means continual addas no matter where we are and what we are up to.