NUML journal of critical inquiry

Liberation or a Creative Balance?: A Case For Epistemologies of the South (ES)

2026-06-27T13:24:06+05:00

This paper is about a paradigmatic shift: from the until now dominant western-centric modernity to a plurality of non-western-centric modernities. Such a paradigmatic shift will call for new political, economic, cultural, social, and epistemic tools. In this paper I concentrate on the epistemic tools. I argue that the western-centric modernity is based on the epistemologies of the North and that the paradigmatic shift will call for new epistemologies which I designate as the epistemologies of the South (ES). This does not mean that the epistemologies of the North (EN) should be totally discarded. It means that some of its features are of great value to the extent that they are integrated in broader epistemic landscapes. For instance, western-centric modern science is a valid form of knowledge but it is not the only valid form of knowledge, as claimed by the epistemologies of the North.

Conflict of Interest: The author declares that there are no conflicts of interest related to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article, and that the data presented have not been fabricated or falsified.

Funding: This research did not receive any specific grant or financial support from public, commercial, or not-for profit funding agencies.

Participant Consent: The author confirms that Informed consent was obtained from all participants, and confidentiality was duly maintained.

Data Fabrication/Falsification Statement: The author declares that no data have been fabricated, falsified, or manipulated in this study.

Born Free, Chained by the Capitalist: Exploitation of Wildlife in Tania James's The Tusk that Did the Damage

2026-06-21T10:29:35+05:00

This paper aims to highlight the oppression of wild animals in Southern India in the wake of late capitalist patriarchal developments. Late capitalism with its exploitative tendencies marginalizes the Third World environment including wild animals. This study focuses on the intricate processes that are involved in transporting illegally procured animal parts from poachers to affluent buyers, involving individuals from diverse backgrounds in the commission and cover-up of the crime. Drawing upon Shiva's "maldevelopment" theory, Karen Emmerman's critique of animal sanctuaries, Catherine Doyle's analysis of captive elephants, and Fleischman's critique of forest policy implementation, this paper delves into the plight of the poached animals and critically analyses the novel The Tusk That Did the Damage by Tania James, from an ecofeminist perspective. By drawing insights from ecofeminist theory, this research investigates the exacerbation of animal trafficking in the contemporary Indian society as depicted in the novel The Tusk That did the Damage.

Conflict of Interest: The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest related to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article, and that the data presented have not been fabricated or falsified.

Funding: This research did not receive any specific grant or financial support from public, commercial, or not-for profit funding agencies.

Participant Consent: The authors confirm that Informed consent was obtained from all participants, and confidentiality was duly maintained.

Data Fabrication/Falsification Statement: The authors declare that no data have been fabricated, falsified, or manipulated in this study.

Governing Life and Beyond: The Politics of Survival in Mo Yan’s Shifu, You’ll Do Anything for a Laugh

2026-06-21T08:43:56+05:00

This paper examines selected short stories from Shifu, You’ll Do Anything for a Laugh written by Mo Yan and critically explores governance, survival, death, and the instability of human subjectivity set in post-socialist China. Mo Yan’s fiction highlights a system in which power operates through life, as well as the instrumentalization of death. Using theoretical frameworks of Michel Foucault’s concept of biopolitics and Achille Mbembe’s theory of necropolitics, the paper demonstrates how governance extends from the management of populations to the production of the living dead subjects whose bodies remain economically and politically valuable beyond death. A close textual analysis of four selected short stories is conducted to explore how biopolitical regimes initially produce surplus life, which gets abandoned later, and subsequently, the necropolitical structures transform death into an opportunity for extraction. Mo Yan also destabilizes the boundaries between human and nonhuman as a result of biopolitics, foregrounding human subjectivity as mutable under conditions of extreme deprivation and war-time trauma. The short stories critique modern governance as a system that exploits life, abandons life, cures life, and alters life, making the human body an unstable and negotiable category under the heavy surveillance.

Funding: This research did not receive any specific grant or financial support from public, commercial, or not-for profit funding agencies.

Participant Consent: The authors confirm that Informed consent was obtained from all participants, and confidentiality was duly maintained.

Data Fabrication/Falsification Statement: The authors declare that no data have been fabricated, falsified, or manipulated in this study.

Language, Power and Gendered Silence through Hegemonic Euphemism in Gul’s A Pathan Daughter

2026-06-21T06:01:23+05:00

Language shapes and is shaped by society. It is rarely neutral as it affects norms, perception, and veils power asymmetries. Euphemistic language often masks hegemony and inequalities particularly in patriarchal societies. This study examines the hegemonic function of euphemistic language in Gul’s A Pathan Daughter (2024). The researcher utilizes mixed method. AntConc 4.3.0 (Anthony, 2024) is used for frequency count and Lutz’s (2016) doublespeak framework is employed to examine how linguistic manipulation obscures gendered victimization and oppression. Findings of the study reveal that a persistent use of euphemistic language confines women within the walls of domesticity, while parental control is framed as compassionate guidance; obedience negotiated as honor, education labelled as dangerous, and impractical and forced marriage as a tradition. These linguistic manipulations are utilized to normalize obedience, neutralize resistance, and to internalize the patriarchal control. Euphemistic language operates as an effective weapon of hegemony as well as an internalized mode of compliance. The study exposes how patriarchal hegemony is sustained and inequalities are naturalized through everyday language in A Pathan Daughter (2024). The findings of this study add valuable insights to the context of sociolinguistics and feminist theory by providing a comprehensive and empirical data about the hegemonic function of euphemistic language in enforcing patriarchal control in certain Pakistani fiction.

Funding: This research did not receive any specific grant or financial support from public, commercial, or not-for profit funding agencies.

Participant Consent: The authors confirm that Informed consent was obtained from all participants, and confidentiality was duly maintained.

Data Fabrication/Falsification Statement: The authors declare that no data have been fabricated, falsified, or manipulated in this study.

Conformity and Crisis: Analyzing the Digital and Gendered Personae through Jung's Archetypes

2026-06-21T11:40:29+05:00

Historically, human psyche has been a subject of literary inquiry but the challenges of postmodern age require a renewal examination through which identity is constructed and maintained in society. This article applies Carl Jung’s Analytical Psychology to analyze the critical tension between the Persona (the social mask) and the Shadow (the repressed self) in the works of postmodern poets, Sherman Alexie and Warsan Shire. The study focuses on how cultural pressure shapes individual identity and hinders the process of individuation. Examining Alexie’s selected poems, the analysis identifies the digital Persona as a mechanism for chronic psychological stagnation and avoidance, while studying selected poems of Warsan Shire reveals psychological burden caused by imposed gendered Persona. The comparison establishes a structural dichotomy in the modern identity crisis; the passive failure of Ego and the triumph of Self through integration. Both poets conform that psychological wholeness in the twenty-first century is possible, but only through an integration of the adopted social role and the repressed self of an individual.

Funding: This research did not receive any specific grant or financial support from public, commercial, or not-for profit funding agencies.

Participant Consent: The author confirms that Informed consent was obtained from all participants, and confidentiality was duly maintained.

Data Fabrication/Falsification Statement: The author declares that no data have been fabricated, falsified, or manipulated in this study.