Showing papers in "Contributions to Indian Sociology in 2010"
TL;DR: The authors examines the argument that people in India are strongly oriented towards litigation in court as against other forms of negotiation or advising and draws on the ethnography of a court case followed in a district court of Himachal Pradesh, showing how even in serious criminal cases where no private compromise is allowed, it often happens that all the prosecution witnesses deny before the judge what they are supposed to have previously stated to the police.
Abstract: This article examines the argument that people in India are strongly oriented towards litigation in court as against other forms of negotiation or advising. In spite of the centrality of the court system to Indian public life, the flow of cases arriving at court does not reflect any such fixed preference. Going to court may simply be a choice which the parties make in the first instance, but which will eventually be abandoned in favour of private forms of compromise. By drawing on the ethnography of a court case followed in a district court of Himachal Pradesh, this contribution will show how even in serious criminal cases where no private compromise is allowed, it often happens that all the prosecution witnesses deny before the judge what they are supposed to have previously stated to the police. The analysis of court interactions and out-of-court narratives will show how nonofficial forms of conciliation may internally unsettle the rules of evidence followed in criminal proceedings.
35 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors pointed out that this expansion does not necessarily lead to greater democratic participation for the very idea of the "public" has been challenged in the last two decades.
Abstract: Indian media has witnessed an unprecedented growth over the last two decades. This expansion does not necessarily lead to greater democratic participation for the very idea of the ‘public’ has unde...
35 citations
TL;DR: Pocock and Dumont were both deeply influenced by Evans-Pritchard as discussed by the authors, but much of their difference is explained by Pocock's prior loyalty to the teachings of the literary critic, F.R. Leavis.
Abstract: David Pocock (1928-2007) co-founded this journal with Louis Dumont, and it is easy to assume that they were intellectually more ‘like-minded’ than we believe was really the case. In the first part of this appreciation we offer some biographical and intellectual context for Pocock’s career. In the second, we identify the principal ways in which his sociological project did converge with Dumont’s and the respects in which it seems fundamentally different. Both were deeply influenced by Evans-Pritchard; but much of their difference is explained, we suggest, by Pocock’s prior loyalty to the teachings of the literary critic, F.R. Leavis. For good or ill, Pocock’s more reflexive preoccupations and his concern with the moral complexity of social life chime better with, and indeed anticipate, subsequent theoretical trends in the discipline.
18 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors draw attention to the culture of compromise that underwrites rape prosecutions, and this aspect of rape prosecutions has not been sufficiently discussed either within the women's movement or within the general public.
Abstract: This article draws attention to the culture of compromise that underwrites rape prosecutions. This aspect of rape prosecutions has not been sufficiently discussed either within the women’s movement...
18 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a sample of forty Naxalite armed cadre met with across Jharkhand and parts of Bihar in 2003 was categorised into three motivational profiles: Committed, Opportunists and Drifters.
Abstract: Who are the Naxalites today? What drives them to take on a life that, even given the adversity of their prior life conditions, seems very bleak? What are the real tenets of the ideology that make it possible for them to kill? Why are they prepared to die for it? This article is an attempt to bring out the standpoint of foot soldiers of the Naxalite movement. It categorises a sample of forty Naxalite armed cadre met with across Jharkhand and parts of Bihar in 2003 into three motivational profiles: Committed, Opportunists and Drifters. The Drifters make up most of the Naxalite armed cadre and reflect their changing spirit.
13 citations
TL;DR: For almost a century from 1860, regional theatre was the foremost arena for the negotiation of upper-caste cultural dominance within the making of a middle-class Maharashtrian identity as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: For almost a century from 1860, regional theatre was the foremost arena for the negotiation of upper-caste cultural dominance within the making of a middle-class Maharashtrian identity. Although emerging forms of Marathi middle-class theatre such as the sangeet natak were nourished by lower-caste performative genres like the lavani and the tamasha, the interests of lower-caste performing communities have been successfully marginalised within the regional cultural sphere. Significantly, the influence of sangeet-natak between 1880 and the 1920s was linked to its emergence as a viable format that addressed critical gaps within the dynamics of the regional sphere. This article explores these processes of cultural ascendance and marginalisation by considering the formal, organisational and ideological manoeuvres through which upper-caste agents were able to establish the normative categories, institutional networks and theatrical practices that rendered lower-caste performance forms apparently irrelevant and invisible.
13 citations
TL;DR: The emergence of a modern public sphere is attributed, in part, to the expansion of the print media, with newspapers playing a key role in the formation of an imagined community as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The emergence of a modern public sphere is attributed, in part, to the expansion of the print media, with newspapers playing a key role in the formation of an ‘imagined community’, usually imagined...
9 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore the cultures of urban spaces and consumerism at the economic and cultural margins of the city, focusing on the involvement of residents of the erstwhile Nangla Matchi slum in Delhi in the activities of the'multilevel marketing' company Revolution Forever (RF).
Abstract: This article explores the cultures of urban spaces and consumerism at the economic and cultural margins of the city. Building upon contemporary research on the efflorescence of consumerism in the wake of economic 'liberalisation', it focuses on the involvement of residents of the erstwhile Nangla Matchi 'slum' in Delhi in the activities of the 'multilevel marketing' company Revolution Forever (RF). The discussion proceeds through presenting a series of ethnographic vignettes relating to those who 'work' for the company as well as 'seminar' sessions organised by it. The article suggests that poor people's work as agents of RF allows us to explore their relationships with imagined and real spaces, commitment to the notion of 'free enterprise'and the ways in which the company's operational methods reproduce and reinforce the unstable worlds of the urban poor.
7 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, two contexts of matrilineal kinship, among the Mosuo of Yunan (China) and the Khasi of Meghalaya (India), have been studied.
Abstract: As Patricia Uberoi’s work has shown, the ‘family’ is a key site on which questions of culture, identity and authenticity are played out. This article looks at two contexts of matrilineal kinship, among the Mosuo of Yunan (China) and the Khasi of Meghalaya (India), and traces the different trajectories the matrilineal system has undergone. In the Mosuo case, matrilineal kinship is enlisted and strengthened in the service of tourism. It also serves as a marker of Mosuo identity against dominant nationalities. In the Khasi case on the other hand, Khasi identity politics has involved a more conflicted approach to the Khasi matrilineal system, with some people wanting it to give way to patriliny in the name of progress, and others wishing to preserve it. In both cases, it is the women who bear the burden of upholding identity.
6 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines the imagined communities and self-images that foster and are fostered by this form of globalised media capitalism, through the commodification of cultural identity, and argues that the establishment of a televisual regime is also accompanied by performed communities, whose political valence has remained largely unarticulated and unacknowledged.
Abstract: A busy industrial centre in a prosperous agricultural state, the town of Ludhiana in Punjab has been a porous site for both overseas migration and an influx of workers from other parts of the country. In the early 2000s, in the wake of economic reforms in India, the city was celebrating a new sense of cultural identity, not only at the regional (Punjabi) level, but also—unexpectedly—at the level of the city itself. How did this recent self-reflexive public culture link up with the simultaneous consolidation of cable TV networks in the city? This article examines the imagined communities and self-images that foster and are fostered by this form of globalised media capitalism, through the commodification of cultural identity. At the same time, however, it argues that the establishment of a televisual regime is also accompanied by performed communities, whose political valence has remained largely unarticulated and unacknowledged. The interactions between these virtual and performative communities have unfol...
5 citations
TL;DR: This paper found that young Indians describe themselves as "fans" of cricketers, movie stars, and even Mahatma Gandhi, while female Indian and Australian respondents noted their cooking skills and interests, as well as their ent...
Abstract: Between 2000 and 2007, as part of a larger study in ten countries, questionnaires were administered to largely middle-class respondents in seven cities in India, China, Japan and Australia. Although the Indian and Chinese samples are small, particularly in relation to the population of these two most numerous countries in the world, a comparison of the ways in which young people described themselves offers intriguing insights concerning the gendered nature of identity, the extent to which aspects of self-identification are globally borrowed or locally particular and the preoccupations and concerns of young people in these four countries. Some similarities between the samples are born of interconnected colonial histories, for example, the young Indian and Australian males who enjoy or play cricket. Young Indians describe themselves as ‘fans’: fans of cricketers, movie stars, even of Mahatma Gandhi. More female Indian than Australian respondents noted their cooking skills and interests, as well as their ent...
TL;DR: Pocock's previously unpublished Inaugural Lecture on "The Point of Death" marked his promotion to a Personal Chair at the University of Sussex and was delivered on 3rd May 1977 as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: David Pocock’s previously unpublished Inaugural Lecture on ‘The point of death’ marked his promotion to a Personal Chair at the University of Sussex and was delivered on 3rd May 1977. Pocock generously gave Parry a copy of his text while the latter was writing up material on death in Banares, and as far as we know, this is the only hard copy that has survived (though an audio recording of the lecture itself is listed in the Sussex University Library catalogue). It was written for verbal presentation and, at points, has a somewhat elliptical quality (though that is also true of much that Pocock published). The main text has been edited as lightly as possible and only with a view to occasionally clarifying its meaning. The comments and references in the footnotes have all been added by us. We are grateful to David Pocock’s executors, Paul and Susan Yates, for permission to include his lecture alongside our own appreciation of him. The justification for doing so is its enduring interest—both as a still highl...
TL;DR: In this paper, the shifting focus from mother to father as arbiter of national belonging in recent family socials is discussed, with particular attention paid to the narrative and performative strategies involved in converting the father and images of the father to a more open social and multicultural design.
Abstract: This article contributes to one of Patricia Uberoi's research interests, how family films address identity conflicts in globalising India. It seeks to highlight the symbolic changes in narrative structure brought about by the shifting focus from mother to father as arbiter of national belonging in recent family socials'. Particular attention is paid to the narrative and performative strategies involved in converting the father and images of the father to a more open social and multicultural design. The article analyses rhetorical modes of self-presentation and assertion, playful and ambiguous forms of characterisation and performance, and genre mixage such as inducting stunt scenes into family socials, as key resources for resolving identity conflicts and engaging spectator interest. Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (Aditya Chopra, 1995) and Kal Ho Na Ho (Nikhil Advani, 2004) are the main works used to analyse these changes, and special attention is devoted to the performance style of the emblematic star, Shah Rukh Khan, in traversing a plethora of identity questions.