A Companion to the Anthropology of India

A Companion to the Anthropology of India offers a broad overview of the rapidly evolving scholarship on Indian society from the earliest area studies to views of India′s globalization in the twenty–first century. Contributions by leading experts present up–to–date, comprehensive coverage of key topics that include developments in population and life expectancy, civil society, social–moral relationships, caste and communalism, youth and consumerism, the new urban middle class, environment and health, tourism, public and religious cultures, politics and law.

The broad variety of topics on Indian society is balanced with the larger global issues –– demographic, economic, social, cultural, political, religious, and others –– that have transformed the country since the end of colonization. Illuminating the continuity and diversity of Indian culture, A Companion to the Anthropology of India offers important insights into the myriad ways social scientists describe and analyze Indian society and its unique brand of modernity.

Notes on Contributors.

Acknowledgments.

Introduction (Isabelle Clark–Decès).

Part I: Caste and Class in Liberal India.

1. Demography for Anthropologists: Populations, Castes and Classes (Christophe Guilmoto).

2. Caste, Class and Untouchability (Robert Deliege).

3. Great Expectations: Youth in Contemporary India (Craig Jeffrey).

4. The Modern Transformation of an Old Elite: The Case of the Tamil Brahmans (Christopher J. Fuller).

5. Caste and Collective Memory in South India (Zoe E. Headley).

Part II: Cities, Cosmopolitan Styles and Urban Critics.

6. "How to Sit, How to Stand": Bodily Practice and the New Urban Middle Class (Meredith Lindsay McGuire). 

7. Global Dancing in Kolkata (Pallabi Chakravorty).

8. Yoga, Modernity and the Middle–Class: Locating the Body in a World of Desire (Joseph S. Alter).

9. Tourism in India: The Moral Economy of Gender in Banaras (Jenny Huberman).

10. Crafts, Artisans and the Nation–State in Delhi (Mira Mohsini).

11. Crowds, Congestion, Conviviality: The Enduring Life of the Old City (Ajay Gandhi).

Part III: Cultures and Religions in the Making.

12. Optic–Clash: Modes of Visuality in India (Shaila Bhatti & Christopher Pinney).

13. Hindu–Muslim Relations and the War on Terror (Philippa Williams).

14. Religious Synthesis at a Muslim Shrine (Parvis Ghassem–Fachandi).

15. Christianity: Culture, Identity, and Agency (Mathew N. Schmalz).

Part IV: Communalism, Nationalism and Terrorism.

16. The Politics of Communalism and Caste (Ornit Shani).

17. Violence, Aggression, and Militancy: Re–Examining Gender, and Non–Liberal Politics (Tarini Bedi). 

18. India Burning: The Maoist Revolution (Alpa Shah).

Part V: Law, Governance and Civil Society.

19. Courts of Law and Legal Practice (Daniela Berti).

20. Encounters Killings: The Routinization of State Violence (Beatrice Jauregui).

21. Civil Society and Politics: An Anthropological Perspective (John Harriss).

22. Discourses of Citizenship and Criminality in Clean, Green Delhi (Yaffa Truelove and Emma Mawdsley).

23. Toward an Anthropology of Water in Mumbai s Settlements (Nikhil Anand).

Part VI: From Global India to the Ethnography of Change.

24. Transnational India: Diaspora and Migration in the Anthropology of South Asia (Leo Coleman).

25. India Responds to the HIV/AIDS Pandemic: Unintended Consequences of Global Health Initiatives (Cecilia Van Hollen).  

26. Cultures of the Psyche, Politics of Illness (Sarah Pinto).

27. Ways of Aging (Sarah Lamb).

28. The Decline of Dravidian Kinship in Local Perspectives (Isabelle Clark–Decès).

Isabelle Clark–Decès is Professor of Anthropology and the Director of the Program in South Asian Studies at Princeton University. Her books include The Encounter Never Ends: Return to the Field of Tamil Rituals (2007).

"This volume provides a useful framework for and discussion of the complexity and range of recently published research on the anthropologies of the Indian subcontinent in the era of globalization . . . Summing up: Essential. All libraries supporting graduate and undergraduate programs in anthropology, sociology, and history." (Choice, 1July 2011)