ABSTRACT Combining historic and ethnographic approaches, this article analyzes the current production of colonial heritage in Puducherry, the former capital of French India. The aim is to explore the tensions and paradoxes that manifest themselves in postcolonial processes of marginalization and universalist claims surrounding the production of colonial heritage. Practices of heritage conservation and awareness have a colonial as well as postcolonial history of civilizing mission and claims to universal values, which create tensions in which some perspectives and positions are universalized, while others are marginalized. Importantly, this field extends beyond that of heritage itself to encompass a larger set of universalizing claims on cultural, moral, aesthetic, and political values. Puducherry, as a marginal colony of what in the context of India was a marginal colonial power, presents an interesting case of double historic marginalization and resulting postcolonial dynamics, as elements of this marginality recur in the present production of its heritage. A history of claims for universal values remains at play in the production of Indo-French colonial heritage surrounding Puducherry; although the dynamics of who is making claims on such values change in the postcolonial context. The ongoing processes of heritage conservation and attempts to produce “heritage awareness” about the Indo-French heritage of Puducherry show how this heritage not only concerns issues such as political independence, social memory, tourism, economic and urban development, but also turns on conceptualizations of citizenship and heritage as civilizing mission, caught up in historically changing patterns of post/colonial relations and identities.

中文翻译：

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边缘性与普遍性之间：印度本地治里法国殖民文化遗产、文明使命和公民身份的当前张力和悖论

摘要 本文结合历史和民族志方法，分析了法属印度前首都本地治里的殖民遗产的当前生产。目的是探索在围绕殖民遗产生产的边缘化和普遍主义主张的后殖民过程中表现出来的紧张和悖论。遗产保护和意识的实践具有殖民和后殖民文明使命和对普世价值主张的历史，这造成了一些观点和立场被普遍化，而另一些观点和立场被边缘化的紧张局势。重要的是，这个领域超越了遗产本身，涵盖了更多关于文化、道德、美学和政治价值的普遍化主张。本地治里，作为一个边缘殖民地，在印度的背景下是边缘殖民大国，呈现出双重历史边缘化和由此产生的后殖民动态的有趣案例，因为这种边缘性的元素在其遗产的当前生产中反复出现。在围绕本地治里的印法殖民遗产的生产过程中，普遍价值主张的历史仍在发挥作用。尽管在后殖民背景下，谁对这些价值观提出要求的动态发生了变化。正在进行的遗产保护过程以及对本地治里印法遗产产生“遗产意识”的尝试表明，该遗产不仅涉及政治独立、社会记忆、旅游、经济和城市发展等问题，而且还转变了概念化公民和遗产作为文明使命，