Showing papers in "Contributions to Indian Sociology in 2007"
TL;DR: For instance, this paper pointed out that medical anthropology has often tended to employ dichotomous typologies, which results in a reductionist analysis that obliterates the complexities within medical anthropology.
Abstract: When engaging in cross-cultural comparisons, medical anthropology has often tended to employ dichotomous typologies. This results in a reductionist analysis that obliterates the complexities within...
48 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the tensions of neo-liberal development as experienced in contemporary West Bengal, culminating in recent struggles over land acquisition, through three modes of reflection: the political actions of a cultural group called Jana Sanskriti, the discourse and policy making of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), and David Harvey's conceptual distinction between expanded reproduction and accumulation by dispossession in his book, The New Imperialism.
Abstract: In this article, I examine the tensions of neo-liberal development as experienced in contemporary West Bengal, culminating in recent struggles over land acquisition. My analysis is conducted through three modes of reflection—the political actions of a cultural group called Jana Sanskriti, the discourse and policy making of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPM), and David Harvey's conceptual distinction between expanded reproduction and accumulation by dispossession in his book, The New Imperialism (2003). Harvey argues that processes of ‘expanded reproduction’ and ‘accumulation by dispossession’ are organically and historically linked. Yet, he sustains a dichotomy by arguing that the flight of capital following the robbery of public goods through privatisation is a worse problem than the insertion of capital for privatisation. I argue that the tensions of neo-liberal development at the historical level in West Bengal belie Harvey's dichotomies at the conceptual level. I show that Bengalis struggle ...
23 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that such discourse on food is a meta-discourse that reframes the symbolic meaning of food in the transnational context, which is then solidified through the acts of cooking and eating.
Abstract: Hindu transmigrants use discourse on diet as a way to maintain connections with India, as well as to construct Indian, Hindu and caste identities. In this article, I argue that such discourse on food is a meta-discourse that reframes the symbolic meaning of food in the transnational context. This article examines a transnational Hindu community's discourse on food, and pairs R.S. Khare's arguments about the communicative function of food in a South Asian context with transnational and performance theories, as well as with Arjun Appadurai's argument about the significance of imagination in creating lived realities. Through their narratives involving food, this community is actively engaged in shifting the meanings of what it eats to emphasise their connections with each other, and with India. Thus, a vegetarian diet and the use of ‘authentic’ Indian ingredients become the symbols of Indian identity through discourse, which is then solidified through the acts of cooking and eating. This article is based on ...
20 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the meaning and politics of kalarippayattu in contemporary Kerala are discussed, and a context for interpreting the different ways in which globalisation is reconfiguring kalarisppayanthu: a hitherto composite kalarippayattus is now being re-conceptualised as a bodily practice, a performing art and a competitive sport.
Abstract: How are we to understand the meaning and politics of kalarippayattu in contemporary Kerala? This article begins by outlining the meaning of kalarippayattu in the mythohistorical landscape of feudal south India and its place in contributing to the development of cultural identity in the nascent state of Kerala. This provides a context for interpreting the different ways in which globalisation is reconfiguring kalarippayattu: a hitherto composite kalarippayattu is now being re-conceptualised as a bodily practice, a performing art and a competitive sport. Drawing on the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty and the work of Walter Benjamin, this article argues that while kalarippayattu as a competitive sport and performing art is ‘non-auratic’ by virtue of its assimilation into the capitalist logic of instrumental rationality and objectification, kalarippayattu as a bodily practice continues to have ‘aura’. Thus, the radical kernel of kalarippayattu as a martial art lies in its politico-phenomenological depth as a b...
19 citations
TL;DR: This paper explored the different qualities of "home" and "homeland" as they are visualised in various films produced by Indian filmmakers between 1970 and 2001; on the one hand, by commercial Mumbai cinema, and on the other hand, overseas, non-commercial film directors.
Abstract: This article explores the different qualities of ‘home’ and ‘homeland’ as they are visualised in various films produced by Indian filmmakers between 1970 and 2001; on the one hand, by commercial Mumbai cinema, and on the other hand, overseas, non-commercial film directors. The key question is how notions such as longing and belonging to a country and cultural heritage are articulated and contested by Non-Resident Indians (NRIs). The article proposes that in terms of values and identification, there is a shift from national responsibility to familial loyalty to individually chosen habitats. The first section of the article examines three films that address the question of how Indians can uphold and rejuvenate patriotic values and loyalties towards their motherland and family traditions. This idea of a ‘portable identity’ is counterposed in the second section of the article, which examines two films about second-generation Indians living in North America who feel estranged by their parents’ traditions and t...
18 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines the process by which the Paraiyars, one of the Dalit communities of Tamil Nadu, South India, attempt to reconstruct their identity by revalorising the symbols of pollution that defined them as low and defiled into positive symbols of their culture.
Abstract: This article examines the process by which the Paraiyars, one of the Dalit communities of Tamil Nadu, South India, attempt to reconstruct their identity by revalorising the symbols of pollution that defined them as low and defiled into positive symbols of their culture. It argues that conflict, confrontation and radical rupture from the dominant community were essential for the formation of a new collective consciousness. Conflictual social relations between the Paraiyars and the Vanniyars, the dominant high-caste group in the village, became a resource and impetus that made the Paraiyars conscious of their stigmatised identity and persuaded them to form a new and positive self-identity that expressed aspirations for the future even as it memorialised past suffering. This article focuses on the resignification of the parai drum and the related symbols and myths that were used by the higher castes to define the Paraiyars as polluted and segregated.
16 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyse the history of weaving in a Chamar community on the outskirts of the city of Banaras, eastern UP and explore the recruitment of rural Chamar men as apprenti...
Abstract: In this article I analyse the history of weaving in a Chamar community on the outskirts of the city of Banaras, eastern Uttar Pradesh (UP). I explore the recruitment of rural Chamar men as apprenti...
14 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore local manifestations of Islamism in the one-time princely kingdom of Chitral, in northern Pakistan, and explore the ways in which this dynamic and locall...
Abstract: This article explores local manifestations of ‘Islamism’ in the one-time princely kingdom of Chitral, in northern Pakistan. Chitral's former princely family continues to exert significant political influence in the region today, whilst court-derived forms of status distinction alongside newer expressions of class difference are of central importance to Chitrali social life. Many Chitrali ‘men of piety’ (dashmanan) are critical about the continued power of the princes and claim that only they can deliver ‘simple’ Chitralis from the unIslamic legacies of their feudal past. Yet Chitrali Muslims reflect upon and engage with the Islamising messages of the dashmanan in multidimensional ways that are not defined instrumentally by the region's shifting system of status hierarchy alone. In particular, the vocal styles of Chitral's politically active dashmanan are widely said by Chitrali Muslims to reflect their animalistic and unrefined emotional dispositions. By exploring the ways in which this dynamic and locall...
12 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors look at intergenerational relations in two Chakkliyar neighbourhoods in rural Tamil Nadu and find that the cause of the elderly Chakkaliyars' tenuous subsistence lies not with negligent sons but with the way their vulnerabilities are built into the structure of the economy, society and polity.
Abstract: This article looks at intergenerational relations in two Chakkliyar neighbourhoods in rural Tamil Nadu. Post-1991 economic changes, together with longer-term changes in the rural economy and state policies, have significantly widened the customary ‘needs gap’ between younger and older generations by expanding the needs and aspirations of younger generations both absolutely and in comparison to the perceived needs of older people, whilst not providing them with the means to meet those needs. The declining demand for agricultural labour has not only constrained sons’ capacities to meet the needs of both their conjugal and natal families, but also severely undermined older people's livelihoods as they compete with younger people for agricultural work. The cause of the elderly Chakkliyars’ tenuous subsistence lies not with negligent sons but with the way their vulnerabilities are built into the structure of the economy, society and polity.
12 citations
TL;DR: International human rights regulations, norms for the treatment of prisoners and welfare state imperatives have helped mak... as mentioned in this paper, and have been institutionalised in numerous national and international regulatory bodies.
Abstract: International human rights regulations, norms for the treatment of prisoners and welfare state imperatives—institutionalised in numerous national and international regulatory bodies—have helped mak...
6 citations
TL;DR: The annual emergence of Holi cassette recordings in north India functions as the starting point for an investigation into issues of culture and social change, gender constructs, kin-ship norms, low... as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The annual emergence of Holi cassette recordings in north India functions as the starting point for an investigation into issues of culture and social change, gender constructs, kin-ship norms, low...