India (Anthropology)

Disconnecting Experience: Making World-Class Roads In Mumbai

by Nikhil Anand

2006. Economic and Political Weekly 41: 3422-3429.

Rethinking Postcolonial Democracy: An Examination of the Politics of Lower-Caste Empowerment in North India

by Jeffrey Witsoe

Corruption as Power: Caste and the Political Imagination of the Postcolonial State

by Jeffrey Witsoe

Everyday Corruption and the Political Mediation of the Indian State: An Ethnographic Exploration of Brokers in Bihar

by Jeffrey Witsoe

Health Reform in India: From Private to Public - Plans for the Future

by Tanja Ahlin

A mini-statement for CAHG initiative at AAA meeting in Montreal, Canada, 2011.

Material flow accounting of an Indian village

by Bruno Kestemont

We are presenting material flow accounting and related indicators for an Indian adivasis village. It gives a point of... more We are presenting material flow accounting and related indicators for an Indian adivasis village. It gives a point of comparison with modern nation-wide material flow accounting. The aim is to test the feasibility of indicators of dematerialization of the economy in poor economies.The total material requirement (TMR) of Sarowar (excluding air and water), USA, Japan, Germany and The Netherlands is respectively about 5, 84, 46, 86 and 84 tons per capita per year. The eco-efficiency using Purchasing Power Parity is respectively 18, 3, 3, 4 and 3 kg $-1. We discuss the use of ratios of non-substitutable factors in dematerialization assessment

Seeking the Tribe: Ethno-politics in Darjeeling and Sikkim

by Sara Shneiderman

Goddesses of Consumerism: An Interpretivist Study of Young Female Consumers in Contemporary India

by Anoop Bhogal

"Very Bombay": Contending with the Global in an Indian Advertising Agency

by William Mazzarella

Internet X-Ray: E-Governance, Transparency and the Politics of Immediation in India

by William Mazzarella

"A Different Kind of Flesh": Public Obscenity, Globalization, and the Mumbai Dance Bar Ban

by William Mazzarella

"Beautiful Balloon": The Digital Divide and the Charisma of New Media in India

by William Mazzarella

The Obscenity of Censorship: Re-thinking a Middle Class Technology

by William Mazzarella

"REALITY MUST IMPROVE": The Perversity of Expertise and the Belatedness of Indian Development Television

by William Mazzarella

Herders of Indian and European cattle share their predominant allele for Lactase Persistence

by Marta Mirazon Lahr

Romero IG, Mallick CB, Liebert A, Crivellaro F, Chaubey G, Itan Y, Metspalu M, Eaaswarkhanth M, Pitchappan R, Villems R, Reich D, Singh L, Thangaraj K, Thomas MG, Swallow DM, Mirazon Lahr M & Kivisild T (2011) Herders of Indian and European cattle share their predominant allele for Lactase persistence. Molecular Biology and Evolution, Advance Publication Aug 2011.

'India Is Racist, And Happy About It' - Outlook Magazine June 2009

by Diepiriye Kuku-Siemons

Outlook (India) Magazine June 2009

A first-person narrative attached to a cover-story/series on race in India today. Also interviewed for 'Our True... more A first-person narrative attached to a cover-story/series on race in India today. Also interviewed for 'Our True Colors' by Debarshi Dasgupta

The State, the Rebel and the Chief: Public Authority and Land Disputes in Assam, India

by Nel Vandekerckhove

published in 'Development & Change', 2011.

Based upon the ethnographic study of two land disputes in the rural Assamese district of Karbi Anglong (India), this... more Based upon the ethnographic study of two land disputes in the rural Assamese district of Karbi Anglong (India), this article challenges the idea that the entry of new institutional players, with their multiple sets of rules, inevitably leads to open institutional conflict. Although a wide range of political actors are involved in the regulation of land tenure in Karbi Anglong, they cannot be regarded as institutional structures ready to undercut one another. As in other parts of Northeast India, none of the claimants of public power involved —‘the state’, ‘the rebel’ or ‘the chief’— attain full sovereignty, which forces them to exercise authority predominantly through practices of negotiation and accommodation, and only selective contestation. If open institutional conflict does occur, as in the Dhansiri forest and the Singhason plateau cases studied here, this is due to the fact that one of the institutional players has overstretched and attempted to exercise authority beyond its realm of power. This article thus argues for a more agency-oriented method of analysis in the study of land relations. The focus on everyday interactions between ‘the state’, ‘the rebel’ and ‘the chief’ in Karbi Anglong is a first attempt in that regard.

We Are Sons of This Soil”. The Endless Battle over Indigenous Homelands in Assam, India

by Nel Vandekerckhove

published in 'Critical Asian Studies', 2009.

Since the 1990s, the upsurge of multiple “sons-of-the-soil” conflicts all over the world has reopened academic debate... more Since the 1990s, the upsurge of multiple “sons-of-the-soil” conflicts all over the world has reopened academic debate about the rise of nativism, the role of ethnicity, and the alleged crisis of citizenship within the postcolonial state. Often the renewed claim for belonging versus exclusion under the vernacular of “autochthony” is seen as a reactionary attempt to counter the de-rooting of identity within the neoliberal globalizing context. This article makes the case that at the base of many homeland disputes lie too powerfully territorialized (ethnic) identities and the enduring but highly selective reaffirmation of such “natural” geo-cultural links — by both local political agents and state. In the Indian state of Assam, the struggle over indigenous homelands has not been a cry for closure within the engulfing globalizing world, but the result of sustained, yet ambivalent politics of identification, classification, and ethnographic mapping through which the colony and post-colony have sought to reshape the political landscape of India’s Northeast. This selective but highly mobilizing politics of autochthony has not only extolled fierce struggle between “indigenous” and “fake autochthon” communities over the protection and demarcation of indigenous homeland, it has also engendered fierce conflict amongst autochthon groups about the degree of indigeneity required to claim a separate homeland of their own.

“Culture, Climate, and Corpulence: Exploring the Fragile British Body in India." Work in Progress - DO NOT CITE WITHOUT PERMISSION

by Christopher E. Forth

Farmers’ access to resources via networks in remote rural areas with mobile phone reception: Creating a resource battery for a mountain tribe in south India

by Petr Matous ペトゥル・マトウシュ

Inhabitants of the most remote areas tend to have low access to information and resources potentially contributing to... more Inhabitants of the most remote areas tend to have low access to information and resources potentially contributing to well-being. Ongoing expansion of ICTs deeper into rural areas is expected to improve this situation by enabling them to contact geographically distant others. We interviewed 79 women and men in an indigenous tribe in the mountains of Tamil Nadu, India, where explosively expanding mobile phone signal entered prior to other types of infrastructure, and we inductively developed a scale for assessment of the inhabitants’ overall access to valued resources through their personal networks. It was found that the mobiles contributed primarily to the maintenance of existing networks and to speedier mobilization of already accessible resources. However, since the phone owners called only with people whom they already knew well, they did not expand their networks nor increased their overall access resources.

Keywords: remote rural areas, mobile phones, personal networks, individual social capital, social capital measurement, India