India & Cambridge - Cambridge University Press India

FORTHCOMINGSaroj Nalini Arambam Parratt taught at universities inSouthern Africa and was an honorary professor of theUniversity of Manipur.c.295pp HBDevi or Dasi: SocialImagination andConstructed Realities ofGender in South AsiaSubhadra Mitra ChannaThe book is about genderconstruction in India. It theorizesgender in terms of modelsgeneralizing upon receivedwisdom from historical andcultural sources and lived realities.The generalized model has twopolar points – ‘Devi’ (goddess) andthe ‘Dasi’ (slave) – drawing upon two popular modes ofreferring to women in India, which provide the extremeswithin which a large amount of interpretation andvariability is possible. The main argument is that gendercannot be viewed as an independent variable situating itaway from the social and cultural realities of which it is onlyone aspect. Thus to understand gender constructions inIndia one has to interrogate it against the backdrop oforganizational, historical and political circumstances andalso realize that gender is a necessary methodological toolto explore complex social realities.The book would be of interest to academics, researchersand graduate students of South Asian History,Anthropology and Sociology.Subhadra Mitra Channa is a professor at Department ofAnthropology, University of Delhi.c. 200pp HBIslamic Reform inSouth AsiaFilippo Osella &Caroline Osella (eds)The authors in this volume discusscontemporary Islamic reformism inSouth Asia in some of its diversehistorical orientations andgeographical expressions.‘Reformism’ is particularlytroublesome as a term, in that itcovers broad trends stretchingback for more than two hundredyears. Still, ‘reformism’ can be usefulas a term in helping contributors to insist upon recognitionof the differences between projects of revival and renewaland such contemporary obsessions as ‘political Islam’,‘Islamic fundamentalism’ and so on. Urging a more nuancedexamination of all forms of reformism and their reception inpractice, the contributions here powerfully demonstrate thehistorical and geographical specificities of reform projects.In doing so, they challenge prevailing perspectives in whichsubstantially different traditions of reform are lumpedtogether into one reified category (often carelesslyshorthanded as ‘wah’habism’) and branded as extremist – ifnot altogether demonised as terrorist. Academic researchersand graduate students will find this book useful.Filippo Osella is Reader in Social Anthropology atUniversity of Sussex.Caroline Osella is Reader in Anthropology with referenceto South Asia at School of Oriental and African Studies,University of London.9781107031753 c. 480pp HBFighting Eviction: KatkariLand Rights andResearch-in ActionDaniel Buckles & RajeevKhedkar, with Bansi Ghevde &Dnyaneshwar PatilThe book engages readers in aprocess of reflection on what itmeans to do research ‘with’ peoplerather than ‘on’ people, byrecounting a collaborative inquirywith the Katkari, formerly called‘Criminal Tribe’ and so-called‘Primitive Tribal Group’ inMaharashtra, India.The book is designed to help readers learn aboutparticipatory action research progressively and with astrong narrative grounded in issues facing Adivasipopulations in South Asia and the real-life dilemmas ofengaged research. As such it is accessible to both graduateand undergraduate students in many disciplines.This includes all of the standard social science departmentsteaching methods and promoting field-based research.Daniel Buckles is Senior Research Associate and AdjunctResearch Professor at Department of Sociology andAnthropology, Carleton University, Canada.c. 200pp HBPolitical Thought inAction: The Bhagavad Gitaand Modern IndiaShruti Kapila & Faisal Devji (eds)This volume brings together agroup of intellectual and socialhistorians to discuss the way inwhich modern interpretations ofthe Gita have focused on war andviolence, rather than peace andstability, as a site for thinkingabout politics. The essays gatheredhere look at the Gita as aphilosophical and ethical text bothwithin South Asia and also on its ‘outward journey’ intowestern political debate. Though part of an ancient epictradition, the Gita did not achieve its current eminence untilvery recently. Its resurgence and reinterpretation, in short, iscoterminous with the formation of modern life and politics.But if modern commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita cannotbe described simply as participating in some ancient andcontinuing tradition, neither should they be seen merely asthe epiphenomena of an abstraction like capitalism thatsupposedly constitutes the true reality of Indian society.order online at www.cambridgeindia.org51