Pub Date : 2023-12-10DOI: 10.1177/02627280231215467
Harinath Silveru, Laxman Rao Sankineni
This article presents and discusses empirical evidence of the socio-economic status of the Kummari potter community in Telangana to highlight the continued primacy of the traditional caste-based occupation as a livelihood option for many Kummari households. Taking a holistic perspective, the research documents the current challenges faced by the community, covering the entire cycle of pottery-making, including input sourcing, production, adoption of new technology and marketing. The article also identifies core policy interventions that need urgent attention in the form of state support, complemented with collectivisation, technology diffusion and capacity-building of the artisans.
{"title":"Pottery in Telangana: Empirical Evidence of Current and Future Challenges","authors":"Harinath Silveru, Laxman Rao Sankineni","doi":"10.1177/02627280231215467","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02627280231215467","url":null,"abstract":"This article presents and discusses empirical evidence of the socio-economic status of the Kummari potter community in Telangana to highlight the continued primacy of the traditional caste-based occupation as a livelihood option for many Kummari households. Taking a holistic perspective, the research documents the current challenges faced by the community, covering the entire cycle of pottery-making, including input sourcing, production, adoption of new technology and marketing. The article also identifies core policy interventions that need urgent attention in the form of state support, complemented with collectivisation, technology diffusion and capacity-building of the artisans.","PeriodicalId":44525,"journal":{"name":"South Asia Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138982878","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-10DOI: 10.1177/02627280231215460
Anamika Ajay
This article explores an understudied aspect of women’s transnational labour migration, namely how left-behind men negotiate the changes in their status in the domestic and public spheres when their daughters or wives migrate for work and become primary earners in the family. A case study of Syrian Christians in a village in Central Kerala with a long history of women’s transnational labour migration demonstrates how left-behind men refashion their masculine identities by reasserting their role as family protectors when they lose their traditional role as family providers. The article illustrates how left-behind men employ diverse social and discursive practices in domestic and community spheres to reconstruct their gendered sense of self and resist the social stigma of failed masculinity. It also demonstrates how the Church, which continues to be a dominant institution influencing the personal and political lives of Syrian Christians, has become an arena for left-behind men to reassert their patriarchal status at home and in the community.
{"title":"Transnational Labour Migration and the Renegotiation of Masculinity by Left-Behind Men in Kerala","authors":"Anamika Ajay","doi":"10.1177/02627280231215460","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02627280231215460","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores an understudied aspect of women’s transnational labour migration, namely how left-behind men negotiate the changes in their status in the domestic and public spheres when their daughters or wives migrate for work and become primary earners in the family. A case study of Syrian Christians in a village in Central Kerala with a long history of women’s transnational labour migration demonstrates how left-behind men refashion their masculine identities by reasserting their role as family protectors when they lose their traditional role as family providers. The article illustrates how left-behind men employ diverse social and discursive practices in domestic and community spheres to reconstruct their gendered sense of self and resist the social stigma of failed masculinity. It also demonstrates how the Church, which continues to be a dominant institution influencing the personal and political lives of Syrian Christians, has become an arena for left-behind men to reassert their patriarchal status at home and in the community.","PeriodicalId":44525,"journal":{"name":"South Asia Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138982863","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-10DOI: 10.1177/02627280231215465
K. G. Dasthagir
This article retraces the emergence of contemporary water governance in Pondicherry/Puducherry as a case study to illustrate how new forms or shades of participatory management strategies have recently been created to address the water crisis in a South Indian locality close to the sea. The article first examines evidence of earlier self-governing institutions, engaging premodern agrarian communities in managing sustainable water resource development. It then contrasts this with how manufactured risks produced in the Anthropocene through modernisation and urbanisation processes created serious local water crises that demanded urgent action and prudent management strategies. The analysis articulates how the resulting new shades of management in the form of private-public partnerships of collective action constitute effective new forms of participatory local water governance.
{"title":"Water Governance in Puducherry","authors":"K. G. Dasthagir","doi":"10.1177/02627280231215465","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02627280231215465","url":null,"abstract":"This article retraces the emergence of contemporary water governance in Pondicherry/Puducherry as a case study to illustrate how new forms or shades of participatory management strategies have recently been created to address the water crisis in a South Indian locality close to the sea. The article first examines evidence of earlier self-governing institutions, engaging premodern agrarian communities in managing sustainable water resource development. It then contrasts this with how manufactured risks produced in the Anthropocene through modernisation and urbanisation processes created serious local water crises that demanded urgent action and prudent management strategies. The analysis articulates how the resulting new shades of management in the form of private-public partnerships of collective action constitute effective new forms of participatory local water governance.","PeriodicalId":44525,"journal":{"name":"South Asia Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138982734","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-10DOI: 10.1177/02627280231215468
Raju Chalwadi
This article explores patterns of caste solidarity and religious practices among North Indian Dalits in Mumbai during the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing from ethnographic data, it demonstrates how respondents experienced specific vulnerabilities due to their ethnic and caste identities. Following this, solidarities based on caste emerged to strengthen social cohesion and offer a sense of future possibilities. Additionally, on account of the ontological insecurity caused by the pandemic, a renewed collective sense of religiosity emerged, helping local people to manage their precarious existence and mitigating pain. The article concludes by arguing that community solidarity and religious re-assurance mechanisms, given the absence of state support, were their only hope to cope with the pandemic and to navigate COVID-19.
{"title":"Caste Solidarity and Religiosity among Mumbai Dalits during the Covid Pandemic","authors":"Raju Chalwadi","doi":"10.1177/02627280231215468","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02627280231215468","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores patterns of caste solidarity and religious practices among North Indian Dalits in Mumbai during the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing from ethnographic data, it demonstrates how respondents experienced specific vulnerabilities due to their ethnic and caste identities. Following this, solidarities based on caste emerged to strengthen social cohesion and offer a sense of future possibilities. Additionally, on account of the ontological insecurity caused by the pandemic, a renewed collective sense of religiosity emerged, helping local people to manage their precarious existence and mitigating pain. The article concludes by arguing that community solidarity and religious re-assurance mechanisms, given the absence of state support, were their only hope to cope with the pandemic and to navigate COVID-19.","PeriodicalId":44525,"journal":{"name":"South Asia Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138982557","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-10DOI: 10.1177/02627280231215466
Md. Mahmudul Hasan
The intensely precarious integration in many parts of Bangladesh between life, rivers and water has been reflected in the country’s river novels that describe the experiences of fishermen and riparian peasants. Among river systems in Bangladesh, the Padma (the Ganges in India) has inspired the greatest number of artists and their writing. Humayun Kabir’s Men and Rivers (1945) stands out as a climate document on the life of the peasantry, whose survival and livelihoods are entwined with this river. However, this novel has remained inadequately known and has not garnered sufficient critical attention in recent years. Filling a lacuna in South Asian literary studies, and combining such studies with climate change discourses, this article discusses Kabir’s novel as a document depicting the environmental challenges faced in Bangladesh, exploring why this literary work has not received prominent coverage.
{"title":"Climate Migration in Humayun Kabir’s Men and Rivers: the Padma and Faridpur","authors":"Md. Mahmudul Hasan","doi":"10.1177/02627280231215466","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02627280231215466","url":null,"abstract":"The intensely precarious integration in many parts of Bangladesh between life, rivers and water has been reflected in the country’s river novels that describe the experiences of fishermen and riparian peasants. Among river systems in Bangladesh, the Padma (the Ganges in India) has inspired the greatest number of artists and their writing. Humayun Kabir’s Men and Rivers (1945) stands out as a climate document on the life of the peasantry, whose survival and livelihoods are entwined with this river. However, this novel has remained inadequately known and has not garnered sufficient critical attention in recent years. Filling a lacuna in South Asian literary studies, and combining such studies with climate change discourses, this article discusses Kabir’s novel as a document depicting the environmental challenges faced in Bangladesh, exploring why this literary work has not received prominent coverage.","PeriodicalId":44525,"journal":{"name":"South Asia Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138982628","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-07DOI: 10.1177/02627280231215520
Manish Tiwari, Rama Shankar Sahu
Local rural markets ( haats) are considered important spaces of economic and social exchange all over South Asia. Based on a detailed ethnography in four weekly haats in Koraput district of Odisha in India, this article confirms their functions as dynamic socio-cultural gendered public spaces as well as crucial hubs of economic activities for rural areas. However, going beyond local ethnography, and seeking to understand how these weekly markets socially and economically empower poor rural tribals as well as non-tribals, this article problematises the role of middlemen. They not only regulate these markets but also control the terms of trade and profits while connecting local markets to higher scales of South Asia’s food security chains. Our concluding analysis identifies some key risks and opportunities faced by producers, sellers and buyers as participants in these weekly markets, which are now clearly glocalised spaces.
{"title":"Social Change, Employment and Development in Weekly Rural Markets in Odisha","authors":"Manish Tiwari, Rama Shankar Sahu","doi":"10.1177/02627280231215520","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02627280231215520","url":null,"abstract":"Local rural markets ( haats) are considered important spaces of economic and social exchange all over South Asia. Based on a detailed ethnography in four weekly haats in Koraput district of Odisha in India, this article confirms their functions as dynamic socio-cultural gendered public spaces as well as crucial hubs of economic activities for rural areas. However, going beyond local ethnography, and seeking to understand how these weekly markets socially and economically empower poor rural tribals as well as non-tribals, this article problematises the role of middlemen. They not only regulate these markets but also control the terms of trade and profits while connecting local markets to higher scales of South Asia’s food security chains. Our concluding analysis identifies some key risks and opportunities faced by producers, sellers and buyers as participants in these weekly markets, which are now clearly glocalised spaces.","PeriodicalId":44525,"journal":{"name":"South Asia Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-12-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138592457","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-05DOI: 10.1177/02627280231193098
Abhishek Sarkar
Swati Ganguly, Tagore’s University: A History of Visva-Bharati, 1921–1961 (Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2022), xx + 488 pp.
Swati Ganguly,泰戈尔大学:Visva-Bharati的历史,1921-1961 (Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2022), xx + 488页。
{"title":"Book review: Swati Ganguly, Tagore’s University: A History of Visva-Bharati, 1921–1961","authors":"Abhishek Sarkar","doi":"10.1177/02627280231193098","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02627280231193098","url":null,"abstract":"Swati Ganguly, Tagore’s University: A History of Visva-Bharati, 1921–1961 (Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2022), xx + 488 pp.","PeriodicalId":44525,"journal":{"name":"South Asia Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135724502","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book review: Arundhathi Subramaniam, Women Who Wear Only Themselves: Conversations with Four Travelers on Sacred Journeys","authors":"N. Safrine","doi":"10.1177/02627280231193097","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02627280231193097","url":null,"abstract":"Arundhathi Subramaniam, Women Who Wear Only Themselves: Conversations with Four Travelers on Sacred Journeys (Delhi: Speaking Tiger, 2021), 176 pp.","PeriodicalId":44525,"journal":{"name":"South Asia Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135724902","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book review: Jagdish Lal Dawar, Food in the Life of Mizos: From Precolonial Times to the Present","authors":"V. Ratnamala","doi":"10.1177/02627280231193095","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02627280231193095","url":null,"abstract":"Jagdish Lal Dawar, Food in the Life of Mizos: From Precolonial Times to the Present (Shimla: Indian Institute of Advanced Study, 2019), ix + 342 pp.","PeriodicalId":44525,"journal":{"name":"South Asia Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135725059","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-23DOI: 10.1177/02627280231190790
Muneeb Yousuf
Afghanistan’s recent political transformations starkly confirm the country’s inevitable connectedness to volatile global geopolitics, currently witnessing the transformation of the role of the entire South Asian region within global geostrategic re-alignments. The US disengagement from Afghanistan put India and China into a new competitive scenario of cultivating their respective relations with Afghanistan. Before this complex backdrop, the article focuses on India’s policy options in Afghanistan, but first of necessity engages briefly with the changing regional geo-politics and the emerging new world order. In light of these new geopolitical realities, it becomes evident that despite much distrust and many misgivings, India’s Afghanistan policies have to be robust, focused on defending its geopolitical interests and concerns against China’s expansionist clout, while seeking to promote a multipolar world order, a strategy that appears like a reincarnation of India’s earlier path of non-alignment.
{"title":"India-Afghanistan Relations in Changing Regional Geopolitics","authors":"Muneeb Yousuf","doi":"10.1177/02627280231190790","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02627280231190790","url":null,"abstract":"Afghanistan’s recent political transformations starkly confirm the country’s inevitable connectedness to volatile global geopolitics, currently witnessing the transformation of the role of the entire South Asian region within global geostrategic re-alignments. The US disengagement from Afghanistan put India and China into a new competitive scenario of cultivating their respective relations with Afghanistan. Before this complex backdrop, the article focuses on India’s policy options in Afghanistan, but first of necessity engages briefly with the changing regional geo-politics and the emerging new world order. In light of these new geopolitical realities, it becomes evident that despite much distrust and many misgivings, India’s Afghanistan policies have to be robust, focused on defending its geopolitical interests and concerns against China’s expansionist clout, while seeking to promote a multipolar world order, a strategy that appears like a reincarnation of India’s earlier path of non-alignment.","PeriodicalId":44525,"journal":{"name":"South Asia Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135959723","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}