Epistemo-patrimony: speaking and owning in the Indian diaspora.

Noting the relative absence of claims for the restitution of cultural heritage objects by diasporic Indians in North America and Europe, this paper explores the heated contestation over what might be called 'epistemo-patrimony'. This term describes the knowledge forms and enunciatory protocols through which India and Hinduism can be constituted as proper objects. Recent interventions by the Infinity Foundation are examined through analogy with the debate between John Searle and Jacques Derrida, and it is suggested that epistemo-patrimony is the ground on which the nature and threat of iteration are fought. The general lesson that emerges from this - namely that all discourses and practices around the nation endlessly confront the impossibility of repetition without difference -- is christened iter(n)ation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]