This book presents multidisciplinary critical engagement in Tribe-British relations, the interfacing between colonial mind and tribal worldview, and some of their contemporary implications to conceptualise tribal space and mobilisation at national, regional, and native levels. The approach, argument, and theoretical underpinnings introduce a new perspective dimension of enquiry in tribal studies and enlarge its scope as a distinct academic discipline. It provides theoretical and methodological insights and an innovative analytical frame for a grand intellectual engagement beyond the boundary of conventional disciplines but within the interactive matrix of India’s social, cultural, political, religious, and economic space. The book is a pioneering work in the emerging field of tribal studies and a vital reference point for students and academics and non-academics alike who are engaged in tribal issues.

This book examines the representation of Birsa's political life, memory politics and the making of anticolonialism in contemporary Jharkhand. It offers contrasting features of political imaginations deployed in developing memorial landscapes. Framing of Birsa in the heroic narrative through a grand scale of memorialisation, often in the form of the built environment, curates a selective version. This isolates the scope of elaborating his political ideas outside the confines of atypical historical records and their relevance in the contemporary context. The book argues that everyday politics through affective sites such as memorials and statues produce political visions, emotions, and opportunities. It shows how such symbolic sites are often strategically placed and politically motivated to inscribe ideologies. This process outlines how the state and Adivasi use memory as a political tool to lay claims to the past of the Birsa Movement.

On social life and customs of Riang South Asian people; a study.

The book is set in the anthropologically much-neglected multi-ethnic interior of Highland Middle India. It is the result of fieldwork done over a period of more than a decade among the Ho, an indigenous community of approximately one million people, who have shared cultural norms and the space of the hilly region of the Chota Nagpur Plateau with other aboriginal (adivasi) and artisan communities for ages. The book explores the structured tapestry of Ho people’s relations and interrelatedness within their culture-specific sociocosmic universe ensuring their social reproduction in the present and affording them the means for and the awareness of living in a world of plenty. This world of abundance – with the Ho as its conceptual centre – includes the Ho’s dead, their complex spirit world and supreme deity, and their tribal and nontribal fellow humans, and it manifests itself in manifold facets of their lives: socially, ritually, economically, and linguistically. "This is an important piece of work. The ethnographic details in it are invaluable. The fieldwork is superb. What comes across so magnificently is that unique quality of the author's human and emotional contact and shared understanding with the people." MICHAEL YORKE: University College, London; Upside Films

This book tries to theorize the evolution of identity politics leading to separatist mentalities in India. Constructed ideas of identity have been posing a threat to humanity in the name of separatism. It is now one of the biggest threats to the Indian nation-building process. The Indian government has invested crores of rupees to secure the unity of India. In spite of that, many parts of India are now demanding separate statehood or sovereign nation-state. Demands vary according to the motif, mode and magnitude. But behind every demand for full or partial political autonomy, their remains some unequal treatment which occurs in the eco-socio-political sphere and separatist movements often take place. This Study revolves around two movements led by Rajbanshis and Gorkhas in the Northern part of West Bengal. In the tiny and strategically important North Bengal region, numerous movements are ongoing for getting separate statehood, some notables of which are 'Gorkhaland', 'Kamtapur', and 'Greater Cooch Bihar' movements. Why and how this area is facing this kind of activism is the main thrust of this study. With statistical data and historical references, the authenticity of the claim of 'marginalization' tried to validate. The question of Bengali hegemony and backwardness of North Bengal is also discussed elaborately. This book thus can be an ideal reference copy for the social scientists as well as administrative officials working in/on North Bengal/Northeast India/ ethno-regional separatist movements. This book covers the hundred-year history of movements of two important ethnic groups (Rajbanshis and Gorkhas) of India and touched three most crucial issues–viz. identity, marginality and separatism.

With reference to Karnataka, India.

On the Sundarbans delta of West Bengal, India; contributed articles.

Indigenous People and Nature: Insights for Social, Ecological, and Technological Sustainability examines today's environmental challenges in light of traditional knowledge, linking insights from geography, population, and environment from a wide range of regions around the globe. Organized in four parts, the book describes the foundations of human geography and its current research challenges, the intersections between environment and cultural diversity, addressing various type of ecosystem services and their interaction with the environment, the impacts of sustainability practices used by indigenous culture on the ecosystem, and conservation ecology and environment management. Using theoretical and applied insights from local communities around the world, this book helps geographers, demographers, environmentalists, economists, sociologists and urban planners tackle today's environmental problems from new perspectives. - Includes in-depth case studies across different geographic spaces - Contains contributions from a range of young to eminent scholars, researchers and policymakers - Highlights new insights from social science, environmental science and sustainable development - Synthesizes research on society, ecology and technology with sustainability, all in a single resource

This book provides a first-hand account of land conflict and power relations in one of the most resource-rich states in India — Jharkhand. Through the eyes of the state, corporate, and indigenous actors, it reveals how conflict over land in Jharkhand is firmly embedded in the ideological foundations of the key actors in the region. Based on thorough research on the ground and interviews with state, corporate, and indigenous actors, the book explores a host of themes such as: the need and efficacy of state-led modernisation programmes, the market as the best regulator, and ‘ideas’ of development. The volume highlights how land conflicts in Jharkhand will persist until the ideological differences are recognised and welcomed in hopes of making way for collaborative governance. This work will be a key intervention in the fields of area studies, especially South Asian studies, public policy, politics, and development studies.