Ajay Gandhi

Bio: Ajay Gandhi is an academic researcher from Max Planck Society. The author has contributed to research in topics: Crowds & Bazaar. The author has an hindex of 8, co-authored 20 publications receiving 149 citations. Previous affiliations of Ajay Gandhi include Yale University & Leiden University.

Developing compliance and resistance: the state, transnational social movements and tribal peoples contesting India's Narmada project

Abstract: In this article I conceptualize a conflict over the Narmada damming project in central India by highlighting particular spatial fields and larger trajectories of political interaction. The Narmada project's maintenance and destabilization is evinced in a range of processes, including conflict over afforestation in tribal villages, protest narratives over resettlement in regional centres, and transnational lobbying of donor agencies. The interpenetration of social practices by different scales, and the mobility of discourses are emphasized. Further, I examine how organizational and social decisions such as implementing a rehabilitation programme, accepting state compensation and participating in public protest point to the contingent nature of power, revealing both complicity and disarticulation between involved parties. Descriptive points and commentary focus on the Indian riparian states implementing the project; the Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save the Narmada Movement); and affected adivasi (tribal) communities in the Narmada Valley.

Standing still and cutting in line : the culture of the queue in India

Abstract: The queue, or the line, is a defining feature of modern life. This paper examines this ubiquitous form in India as a species of comportment. It offers an ethnographic assessment of queues in Delhi. They are grouped into two types: the ‘massified’ queue, drawing on Jean-Paul Sartre’s work; and the ‘interactional’ queue, framed by Erving Goffman’s writings. The paper discusses heavily policed queues, whose linear and serial character is produced by institutional authority. These forms suggest that elites engineer such comportment as a sign of rational distribution and civic order. The paper then illustrates the interactional dynamics of queues from within. Queues are shown to be sites of subtle signalling, where social entitlements are contextually processed. The queue’s enforcement via external authority is thus leavened by auto-generated adaptations. By offering a fine-grained description of how queuing unfolds, the paper seeks to illuminate political norms and public conduct in a postcolonial democratic milieu.

Introduction to crowds and conviviality: Ethnographies of the South Asian city

Abstract: In this introduction to the special issue of Ethnography, we argue that the South Asian city is not an inert backdrop to the lives of its various inhabitants. Living cities change and morph, their ...

The Hermeneutics of the Bazaar: Sincerity's Elusiveness in Delhi

Abstract: This paper presents an ethnographic study of a redevelopment controversy in Delhi's old city. It considers the perspectives of traders, hawkers, politicians and officials on the proposed revamping of the Meena Bazaar. The paper illustrates how hermeneutic and aesthetic dimensions suffuse public and political life in India. Specifically, sincere intentions, evoked in speech and performance, are seen as a prerequisite of public presentation and as a locus of interpretive scrutiny. In an ambiguous and indeterminate milieu, promises and motives are probingly assessed, often in ironic and dramaturgical form. The paper foregrounds the ‘hermeneutics of the bazaar’, an interpretive sensitivity to intentionality, and ‘structured sincerity’, the efficacy, and reflexive steering, of performed conviction.

The end of history and the last man : kemenangan kapitalisme dn demokrasi liberal / oleh Francis Fukuyama, penerjemah M.H. Amrullah

Abstract: 20th anniversary edition of "The End of History and the Last Man", a landmark of political philosophy by Francis Fukuyama, author of "The Origins of Political Order". With the fall of Berlin Wall in 1989 the threat of the Cold War which had dominated the second half of the twentieth century vanished. And with it the West looked to the future with optimism but renewed uncertainty. "The End of History and the Last Man" was the first book to offer a picture of what the new century would look like. Boldly outlining the challenges and problems to face modern liberal democracies, Frances Fukuyama examined what had just happened and then speculated what was going to come next. Tackling religious fundamentalism, politics, scientific progress, ethical codes and war, "The End of History and the Last Man" remains a compelling work to this day, provoking argument and debate among its readers. "Awesome ...a landmark ...profoundly realistic and important ...supremely timely and cogent ...the first book to fully fathom the depth and range of the changes now sweeping through the world." (George Gilder, "The Washington"). Post Francis Fukuyama was born in Chicago in 1952. His work includes "America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy" and "After the Neo Cons: Where the Right went Wrong". He now lives in Washington D.C. with his wife and children, where he also works as a part time photographer.

Critical Events: An Anthropological Perspective on Contemporary India.

Abstract: Identifying key events in the history of contemporary India - Partition, sati, minority rights, the Bhopal industrial disaster, the nature of the Indian state - Veena Das describes the implications of these occurrences within the framework of anthropological knowledge. Her attempt here is to produce an ethnography of contemporary India which is sensitive to both world historical processes and the inner life of individuals. The critical events that Professor Das analyzes have all instituted new sorts of action which have, in turn, redefined traditional categories such as codes of purity and honour; the meaning of martyrdom; and the construction of a heroic life. The author shows how these new forms took shape and were appropriated by a variety of political actors such as caste groups, religious communities, women's groups, and the nation as a whole.