Overview

This collection of essays aims at a critical re-engagement, within anthropological discourse, with the concept of the 'village'. Going against the grain of contemporary anthropological trends, this collection of essays revisits and re-situates the 'village' in the social and humanistic study of India. The essays show in various ways that, regardless of the loss of villages in contemporary Western academic discourse, villagers in fact continue to shape not only the land through their labour, but also shape their own and others' political, social, economic, ritual and imaginary lives. Thus, the village proves to be an aspect of world-shaping activity not only within and between villages, but also far beyond. The contributors use a broadly interpretive approach to address how villages matter in relation to a variety of regional and global practices, including irrigation, democracy, religious movements, nationalism, ecology, labour migration, political movements, military service, and cinematic representation. The contributors show, in no uncertain terms, that villages in India and elsewhere have been and continue to be vibrant grounds for the production of culture, sociality, environments, bodies, and persons. Several essays also address anthropology's forfeiture of the village as a subject of study in an era of globalization.

Full Product Details

Author:   Diane Mines (Dr, Dr, Appalachian State University, USA) ,  Nicolas Yazgi (Dr, Dr, Universite de Neuchatel, Switzerland)
Publisher:   OUP India
Imprint:   OUP India
Dimensions:   Width: 14.70cm , Height: 2.60cm , Length: 22.40cm
Weight:   0.586kg
ISBN:  

9780198063339

ISBN 10:   0198063334
Pages:   304
Publication Date:   December 2010
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Undergraduate ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Awaiting stock  
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Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION: DO VILLAGES MATTER? (DIANE P. MINES AND NICOLAS YAZGI); ; SECTION I: CONTEXTS; ; 1. Lost and Found: Villages Between Anthropology and History (Saurabh Dube); ; SECTION II: CRAFTING SELVES, OTHERS, AND SOCIETY; ; 2. Villages on the Campaign Trail (Nicolas Yazgi); ; 3. Villages Agency (William S. Sax); ; 4. Why Sacred Groves Matter: Post-romantic Claim (Anne Grodzins Gold); ; 5. The Man Makes the Village Makes the Man: The Story of Varandan, the Common Irrigator of a Village in Northern Tamil Nadu (Bettina Weiz); ; 6. Sect and the Quotidian in Village Life (Ishita Banerjee-Dube); ; 7. A Village as Hermeneutcial Lens: Spaces of Rural Hindu-Muslim Interactions (Peter Gottschalk); SECTION III: PROJECTIONS; ; 8. From Village to Shantytown: Poverty and Mobility in the Popular Films of the New India (Ronald Inden); ; 9. The Village in Cinema (M. Madhava Prasad); ; 10. Arms and the World: Village Apshinge (Maharashtra) Bounding and Extending Where (Lee I. Schelsinger); SECTION IV: COMPARATIVE EPISTIMOLOGIES; ; 11. The Rural Community, Or the Disappearing Act of French Anthropology (Octave Debary); ; 12. The Village as Frontier in Africa (Deborah Durham); ; AFTERWORD (E. VALENTINE DANIEL); REFERENCES

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Author Information

Diane P. Mines is Associate Professor of Anthropology, Appalachian State University, USA. Nicolas Yazgi is Researcher, Centre de Recherches Ethnologiques (CRE) Universite de Neuchatel, Switzerland

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