Isabelle Clark-Dec - A Companion to the Anthropology of India

A Companion to the Anthropology of India

The Blackwell Companions to Anthropology offer a series of comprehensive syntheses of the traditional subdisciplines, primary subjects, and geographic areas of inquiry for the field. Taken together, the series represents both a contemporary survey of anthropology and a cutting edge guide to the emerging research and intellectual trends in the field as a whole.

1. A Companion to Linguistic Anthropology edited by Alessandro Duranti

2. A Companion to the Anthropology of Politics edited by David Nugent and Joan Vincent

3. A Companion to the Anthropology of American Indians edited by Thomas Biolsi

4. A Companion to Psychological Anthropology edited by Conerly Casey and Robert B. Edgerton

5. A Companion to the Anthropology of Japan edited by Jennifer Robertson

6. A Companion to Latin American Anthropology edited by Deborah Poole

7. A Companion to Biological Anthropology edited by Clark Larsen (hardback only)

8. A Companion to the Anthropology of India edited by Isabelle Clark-Decs

Forthcoming in 2011

A Companion to Medical Anthropology edited by Merrill Singer and Pamela I. Erickson

A Companion to Cognitive Anthropology edited by David B, Kronenfeld, Giovanni Bennardo, Victor de Munck, and Michael D. Fischer

A Companion to the Anthropology of Education edited by Bradley A. U. Levinson and Mica Pollack

A Companion to Cultural Resource Management edited by Thomas King

A Companion to Forensic Anthropology edited by Dennis Dirkmaat

A Companion to the Anthropology of Europe edited by Ullrich Kockel, Mirad Nic Craith, and Jonas Frykman

This edition first published 2011
2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd except for editorial material and organization
2011 Isabelle Clark-Decs

Blackwell Publishing was acquired by John Wiley & Sons in February 2007. Blackwells publishing program has been merged with Wileys global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business to form Wiley-Blackwell.

Registered Office
John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ,
United Kingdom

Editorial Offices
350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA
9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK
The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK

For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services, and for information about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at www.wiley.com/wiley-blackwell.

The right of Isabelle Clark-Decs to be identified as the author of the editorial material in this work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books.

Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A Companion to the Anthropology of India / edited by Isabelle Clark-Decs.

p. cm. (Blackwell Companions to Anthropology ; 8)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4051-9892-9 (hardback)

1. IndiaSocial conditions. 2. IndiaEconomic conditions. 3. IndiaPopulation. 4. AnthropologyIndia. I. Clark- Decs, Isabelle, 1956- , editor of compilation. II. Guilmoto, Christophe Demography for Anthropologists.

HN683.C585 2011

301.0954dc22

2010044401

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Notes on Contributors

Joseph S. Alter has conducted academic research in India since 1981. He teaches anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh and has published a number of books, including The Wrestlers Body, Knowing Dil Das, Gandhis Body, and Yoga in Modern India. Beyond the study of yoga in contemporary practice his interests include the cultural history of Nature Cure as a system of medicine and the natural history of animals in the human imagination.

Nikhil Anand is a doctoral candidate in Anthropology at Stanford University. His research focuses on the political ecology of urban infrastructures, and the social and material relations that they entail. Nikhil has previously published articles on a range of urban/environmental issues in journals that include Economic and Political Weekly and Conservation and Society. Engaged in a variety of pedagogic and activist projects in Mumbai since 1999, he directed a collaborative documentary film project, Ek Dozen Paani, in 2008. Nikhil has a Masters degree in Environmental Science from Yale University, and is a Research Associate at Partners for Urban Knowledge, Action and Research.

Tarini Bedi is the Associate Director of the South Asia Language and Area Center and the Committee on Southern Asian Studies at the University of Chicago. She has a PhD in Cultural Anthropology and an MA in Political Science and is interested in questions of gender and urban patronage, urban labor, performative politics and popular culture. She is currently working on two book-length projects, one on Shiv Sena women and the other on Muslim taxi-drivers and urban change in the city of Mumbai.

Daniela Berti is a social anthropologist, Research Fellow at CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique), Paris. She is a member of the Center for Himalayan Studies, Paris, and carries out her fieldwork in North India. Her main works focus on ritual interactions, on politico-ritual roles and practices formerly associated with kingship, on Hindutvas entrenchment in local society, and on ethnography of Indian law courts. She is currently coordinating with Gilles Tarabout the Joint Programme on Justice and Governance in India and South Asia (www.just-india.net).

Shaila Bhatti is currently an ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Anthropology at University College London. Over the last decade she has conducted ethnographic research on museums in India and Pakistan, with doctoral research focusing on the Lahore Museum in Pakistan. Her research and publications explore the history of the museum as well as its contemporary significance as moments of cultural and visual encounters for society in the subcontinent in terms of collections, curatorial activities, exhibition practices, and visitor interpretation. Her interests extend beyond museum anthropology to include the material and visual culture of South Asia and understanding local notions of cultural heritage, history, and identity.