Pub Date : 2023-06-23DOI: 10.1080/09584935.2023.2227113
Ayanthi Wickramasinghe, B. Essén, Jill Trenholm, P. Axemo
ABSTRACT Ragging in Sri Lanka is a longstanding initiation ritual, similar to hazing and bullying. The severe harassment of new students by seniors has led to adverse consequences including depression, university dropouts and suicide. Although, a significant problem, research on ragging is scarce. This research aimed to explore how staff and work-affiliated individuals at Jaffna University resonate around the phenomenon of ragging. Seven focus group discussions and eleven semi-structured interviews were conducted. Foucauldian Discourse Analysis and Bandura’s Moral Disengagement theory were used to interpret the data. Three main discourses reflected the context: ragging as normal and necessary, insecurity and fear of reprisal, and voices of resistance. Participants often felt unsupported and therefore adapted their moral compasses to survive in this insecure environment. These findings demonstrate a fragmented approach to ragging that not only diminished any efforts towards elimination but affected how staff were forced to adjust their behavior to work in this environment. To address ragging, there is a need to adhere to a consistent strategy focusing on increasing awareness and supporting staff by holding accountable those at all levels of the administrative hierarchy in promoting a safe working environment for all.
{"title":"‘I don’t know how we can stop ragging’: a qualitative study on the perceptions of staff and work-affiliated individuals at a Sri Lankan University, on the phenomena of ragging","authors":"Ayanthi Wickramasinghe, B. Essén, Jill Trenholm, P. Axemo","doi":"10.1080/09584935.2023.2227113","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09584935.2023.2227113","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Ragging in Sri Lanka is a longstanding initiation ritual, similar to hazing and bullying. The severe harassment of new students by seniors has led to adverse consequences including depression, university dropouts and suicide. Although, a significant problem, research on ragging is scarce. This research aimed to explore how staff and work-affiliated individuals at Jaffna University resonate around the phenomenon of ragging. Seven focus group discussions and eleven semi-structured interviews were conducted. Foucauldian Discourse Analysis and Bandura’s Moral Disengagement theory were used to interpret the data. Three main discourses reflected the context: ragging as normal and necessary, insecurity and fear of reprisal, and voices of resistance. Participants often felt unsupported and therefore adapted their moral compasses to survive in this insecure environment. These findings demonstrate a fragmented approach to ragging that not only diminished any efforts towards elimination but affected how staff were forced to adjust their behavior to work in this environment. To address ragging, there is a need to adhere to a consistent strategy focusing on increasing awareness and supporting staff by holding accountable those at all levels of the administrative hierarchy in promoting a safe working environment for all.","PeriodicalId":45569,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary South Asia","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2023-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44831527","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-23DOI: 10.1080/09584935.2023.2227127
R. Kapur
{"title":"The Ayodhya case, freedom of religion, and the making of modernist ‘Hinduism’","authors":"R. Kapur","doi":"10.1080/09584935.2023.2227127","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09584935.2023.2227127","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45569,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary South Asia","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2023-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45162383","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-03DOI: 10.1080/09584935.2023.2206998
Aditya Lal, D. Hesmondhalgh, Charles Umney
ABSTRACT Scholars have explored the impact of technological developments on the livelihoods of musicians before digitalisation and in the contemporary age of music streaming platforms. However, a striking gap exists with respect to the Indian music industries which have been conspicuously ignored by scholarship on cultural work. This article contributes towards addressing this gap. First, we show how platformisation is challenging the longstanding domination of Indian music by film soundtracks which relegated non-film musicians to precarious careers with unsustainable work. We show that platformisation has ushered in a new wave of non-film music that is posing unprecedented challenges to the cultural hegemony of film music. Second, we show how platformisation has also accelerated demands for copyright reform, which may benefit some musicians. However, third, we show that platformisation may well reinforce the domination of powerful local record companies, with potentially negative impacts on musicians. Fourthly, we suggest that platformisation may be disadvantaging musicians who work in languages besides the dominant ones of Hindi and English. Our concluding section suggests that platformisation brings both challenges and potential benefits for some musicians and draws out the implications for future research on the platformisation of cultural work.
{"title":"The changing shape of the Indian recorded music industry in the age of platformisation","authors":"Aditya Lal, D. Hesmondhalgh, Charles Umney","doi":"10.1080/09584935.2023.2206998","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09584935.2023.2206998","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Scholars have explored the impact of technological developments on the livelihoods of musicians before digitalisation and in the contemporary age of music streaming platforms. However, a striking gap exists with respect to the Indian music industries which have been conspicuously ignored by scholarship on cultural work. This article contributes towards addressing this gap. First, we show how platformisation is challenging the longstanding domination of Indian music by film soundtracks which relegated non-film musicians to precarious careers with unsustainable work. We show that platformisation has ushered in a new wave of non-film music that is posing unprecedented challenges to the cultural hegemony of film music. Second, we show how platformisation has also accelerated demands for copyright reform, which may benefit some musicians. However, third, we show that platformisation may well reinforce the domination of powerful local record companies, with potentially negative impacts on musicians. Fourthly, we suggest that platformisation may be disadvantaging musicians who work in languages besides the dominant ones of Hindi and English. Our concluding section suggests that platformisation brings both challenges and potential benefits for some musicians and draws out the implications for future research on the platformisation of cultural work.","PeriodicalId":45569,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary South Asia","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44931643","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-03DOI: 10.1080/09584935.2023.2207908
Vineet Gairola
This book is an extension of Ohri ’ s 2017 doctoral thesis submitted to the Faculty of Behavioural and Cultural Studies of Heidelberg University, titled ‘ The Kingdom Comes: Ritual Politics and Re fl exivity in Mahasu ’ s Himalayan Realm ’ . Ohri refers to Mahasu as a ‘ divine king ’ (xiii) in a remote hill area of the western Himalaya where he ’ s considered a deity. Mahasu is both a king and deity who dispenses justice, collects taxes, owns the land and gives it to people to grow crops on. This entire system is seen by Ohri as a precursor to human kingship. The primary temple of Mahasu is in Hanol, Uttarakhand. Ohri describes Mahasu as four divine brothers: Pabasik, Chalda, Bashik
{"title":"Till kingdom come: medieval Hinduism in the modern Himalaya","authors":"Vineet Gairola","doi":"10.1080/09584935.2023.2207908","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09584935.2023.2207908","url":null,"abstract":"This book is an extension of Ohri ’ s 2017 doctoral thesis submitted to the Faculty of Behavioural and Cultural Studies of Heidelberg University, titled ‘ The Kingdom Comes: Ritual Politics and Re fl exivity in Mahasu ’ s Himalayan Realm ’ . Ohri refers to Mahasu as a ‘ divine king ’ (xiii) in a remote hill area of the western Himalaya where he ’ s considered a deity. Mahasu is both a king and deity who dispenses justice, collects taxes, owns the land and gives it to people to grow crops on. This entire system is seen by Ohri as a precursor to human kingship. The primary temple of Mahasu is in Hanol, Uttarakhand. Ohri describes Mahasu as four divine brothers: Pabasik, Chalda, Bashik","PeriodicalId":45569,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary South Asia","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47536618","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-03DOI: 10.1080/09584935.2023.2203901
M. Islam, Niladri Chatterjee, Muhammad Asiful Basar
ABSTRACT The article explores the impact of one of the deadliest disasters in the twentieth century, the East Pakistan cyclone of 1970, also known as the Great Bhola Cyclone, on the first-ever general election held in united Pakistan immediately thereafter. It argues that the cumulative dissidence of the eastern bloc since the partition of India in 1947 had reached its crescendo and made a landfall impact following the disastrous aftermath of the cyclone, which was evidenced in the general election of December 1970, creating the very triggering effect that led to a series of political events and the bloodbath that followed, eventually culminating in the formation of an independent nation-state of Bangladesh in 1971. While doing so, the article builds on the literature on disaster and electoral politics, historical disasters, and uses hitherto underexplored sources, both official and unofficial, archives, and personal memoirs.
{"title":"The final straw? Bhola cyclone, 1970 election, disaster politics, and the making of Bangladesh","authors":"M. Islam, Niladri Chatterjee, Muhammad Asiful Basar","doi":"10.1080/09584935.2023.2203901","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09584935.2023.2203901","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The article explores the impact of one of the deadliest disasters in the twentieth century, the East Pakistan cyclone of 1970, also known as the Great Bhola Cyclone, on the first-ever general election held in united Pakistan immediately thereafter. It argues that the cumulative dissidence of the eastern bloc since the partition of India in 1947 had reached its crescendo and made a landfall impact following the disastrous aftermath of the cyclone, which was evidenced in the general election of December 1970, creating the very triggering effect that led to a series of political events and the bloodbath that followed, eventually culminating in the formation of an independent nation-state of Bangladesh in 1971. While doing so, the article builds on the literature on disaster and electoral politics, historical disasters, and uses hitherto underexplored sources, both official and unofficial, archives, and personal memoirs.","PeriodicalId":45569,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary South Asia","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43278134","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-03DOI: 10.1080/09584935.2023.2203903
Sirpa Tenhunen, M. J. Uddin, Dayabati Roy
ABSTRACT This article compares the politics of climate change in the Sundarbans region in Bangladesh and India based on ethnographic fieldwork in four villages and among migrants from these villages in Kolkata and Khulna city by focusing on the long aftermath of cyclone Aila. The comparison highlights different policy options and framings of extreme weather events . Ten years after the cyclone, the aftermath of Aila continues in both regions we studied in Bangladesh and India, but partly for different reasons. In our study areas in Bangladesh, the aftermath of Aila reinforced the neglect of coastal livelihoods, whereas, in the communities we studied in India, Aila spurred new investments in the affected areas. By comparing how the political is interwoven with the natural, we demonstrate how Aila's lingering impacts have emerged as part of local power relationships and diverse forms of agency. We highlight the multiplicity of policy responses and people's practices not only between communities and countries facing a similar predicament but also within the communities themselves. We argue that the politics of climate change is not only about climate change policy to mitigate the impact of ecological disasters but also about the reconstruction of political agents and practices.
{"title":"After cyclone Aila: politics of climate change in Sundarbans","authors":"Sirpa Tenhunen, M. J. Uddin, Dayabati Roy","doi":"10.1080/09584935.2023.2203903","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09584935.2023.2203903","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article compares the politics of climate change in the Sundarbans region in Bangladesh and India based on ethnographic fieldwork in four villages and among migrants from these villages in Kolkata and Khulna city by focusing on the long aftermath of cyclone Aila. The comparison highlights different policy options and framings of extreme weather events . Ten years after the cyclone, the aftermath of Aila continues in both regions we studied in Bangladesh and India, but partly for different reasons. In our study areas in Bangladesh, the aftermath of Aila reinforced the neglect of coastal livelihoods, whereas, in the communities we studied in India, Aila spurred new investments in the affected areas. By comparing how the political is interwoven with the natural, we demonstrate how Aila's lingering impacts have emerged as part of local power relationships and diverse forms of agency. We highlight the multiplicity of policy responses and people's practices not only between communities and countries facing a similar predicament but also within the communities themselves. We argue that the politics of climate change is not only about climate change policy to mitigate the impact of ecological disasters but also about the reconstruction of political agents and practices.","PeriodicalId":45569,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary South Asia","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45641732","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-03DOI: 10.1080/09584935.2023.2207911
Yunas Samad
describes how maintaining two notebooks for written accounts, drawings, and mythological explanations helped her lucidly analyse multiple threads of narratives and preserve ethnographic information due to a lack of photographs owing to restrictions. However, the reader is left wondering why none of those illustrations features in the book. This appears as a major deficit as it limits the reader’s ability to comprehend and visualise the vivid descriptions. Shaligram Pilgrimage is a timely contribution to the field of religious practice, pilgrimage and politics. The account of Shaligram narrates the story of mobility networked through multiple social realms, religions and political boundaries as its practitioners struggle to locate its place.
{"title":"Political conflict in Pakistan","authors":"Yunas Samad","doi":"10.1080/09584935.2023.2207911","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09584935.2023.2207911","url":null,"abstract":"describes how maintaining two notebooks for written accounts, drawings, and mythological explanations helped her lucidly analyse multiple threads of narratives and preserve ethnographic information due to a lack of photographs owing to restrictions. However, the reader is left wondering why none of those illustrations features in the book. This appears as a major deficit as it limits the reader’s ability to comprehend and visualise the vivid descriptions. Shaligram Pilgrimage is a timely contribution to the field of religious practice, pilgrimage and politics. The account of Shaligram narrates the story of mobility networked through multiple social realms, religions and political boundaries as its practitioners struggle to locate its place.","PeriodicalId":45569,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary South Asia","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48379539","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-03DOI: 10.1080/09584935.2023.2207906
S. Sathianathan
the process, this section provides an understanding as well as a comparative assessment of the NDTV and Aaj Tak brands of journalism. The focus sharpens as the book deals with viewers’ consumption of the output of these two media channels and the nature of engagement between the producers and consumers of news. Finally, the book showcases the consequences of how all this gets played out within the public domain. In so doing, the reader gets to see the pressure faced by the media to deliberately frame discourse in their search for audience numbers within the wider compulsions of commerce. The book concludes that this pressure affects the ability of television media to stay true to responsible journalism and in the long run, disrupt the diversity and plurality of Indian democracy itself. Overall, this bookbrings to the surface several very importantpoints. It demonstrates thehuge impact televisionnewshas in India,with its reach to over abillionpeople and its ability to shapepublic discourse. Secondly, the book provides insights into the huge transformation of television media in terms of the way it is structured and operates. It makes a compelling case for regulation to keep pace with the changes television media has gone through in representing, producing and shaping consumption of news. It highlights the way media channels frame debates, including their similarities and differences. Finally, and most importantly, how, under pressure, television news media reconstruct reality which in turn leads to, in some cases, the failure to uphold the values and norms of responsible journalism. This book presents an analysis which would whet the appetite of a wide range of readers whose interests lie in sociology, media and communication studies, popular culture and South Asian studies. For those whose interests are primarily Indian culture and identities this is a compelling read on two private Indian national television news channels and their capacity to thrive and shape public discourse in contemporary India. It is a great read for students of media who wish to chart the rapid growth and transformation of Indian media in general and television news media in particular. For students of Indian politics, this book provides a fascinating insight into the pressures faced by the fourth column within a democratic framework.
{"title":"Cancer and the Kali Yuga: gender, inequality and health in South India","authors":"S. Sathianathan","doi":"10.1080/09584935.2023.2207906","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09584935.2023.2207906","url":null,"abstract":"the process, this section provides an understanding as well as a comparative assessment of the NDTV and Aaj Tak brands of journalism. The focus sharpens as the book deals with viewers’ consumption of the output of these two media channels and the nature of engagement between the producers and consumers of news. Finally, the book showcases the consequences of how all this gets played out within the public domain. In so doing, the reader gets to see the pressure faced by the media to deliberately frame discourse in their search for audience numbers within the wider compulsions of commerce. The book concludes that this pressure affects the ability of television media to stay true to responsible journalism and in the long run, disrupt the diversity and plurality of Indian democracy itself. Overall, this bookbrings to the surface several very importantpoints. It demonstrates thehuge impact televisionnewshas in India,with its reach to over abillionpeople and its ability to shapepublic discourse. Secondly, the book provides insights into the huge transformation of television media in terms of the way it is structured and operates. It makes a compelling case for regulation to keep pace with the changes television media has gone through in representing, producing and shaping consumption of news. It highlights the way media channels frame debates, including their similarities and differences. Finally, and most importantly, how, under pressure, television news media reconstruct reality which in turn leads to, in some cases, the failure to uphold the values and norms of responsible journalism. This book presents an analysis which would whet the appetite of a wide range of readers whose interests lie in sociology, media and communication studies, popular culture and South Asian studies. For those whose interests are primarily Indian culture and identities this is a compelling read on two private Indian national television news channels and their capacity to thrive and shape public discourse in contemporary India. It is a great read for students of media who wish to chart the rapid growth and transformation of Indian media in general and television news media in particular. For students of Indian politics, this book provides a fascinating insight into the pressures faced by the fourth column within a democratic framework.","PeriodicalId":45569,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary South Asia","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41490181","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-03DOI: 10.1080/09584935.2023.2203899
Smith Mehta, Stuart Cunningham
ABSTRACT This article analyzes the significant events that led to the emergence and growth of the online Indian audio-visual sector. The principal argument that drives this narrative is the co-evolution of Indian formal and informal media economies that led to the media industries’ digital transformation. Drawing on historical analysis of the Indian film and television industries, we argue that just as the informal means of finance, social relations, illegal cable and satellite distribution had a formative influence on how these industries formalized, the Indian online audio-visual sector is driven by distinctive formalization processes, led by creators who are engaging with both local and global UGC-led platforms as well as PGC-led portals. Using a critical media industries framework, with data gathered from semi-structured interviews with ‘above-the-line’ Indian online media practitioners together with trade press literature, we propose an analytical framework that incorporates both platforms and portals as industrial objects for mapping digital production cultures that originate as inherently informal.
{"title":"Digitalization and Informality in media industries: beyond the platform-portal divide?","authors":"Smith Mehta, Stuart Cunningham","doi":"10.1080/09584935.2023.2203899","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09584935.2023.2203899","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article analyzes the significant events that led to the emergence and growth of the online Indian audio-visual sector. The principal argument that drives this narrative is the co-evolution of Indian formal and informal media economies that led to the media industries’ digital transformation. Drawing on historical analysis of the Indian film and television industries, we argue that just as the informal means of finance, social relations, illegal cable and satellite distribution had a formative influence on how these industries formalized, the Indian online audio-visual sector is driven by distinctive formalization processes, led by creators who are engaging with both local and global UGC-led platforms as well as PGC-led portals. Using a critical media industries framework, with data gathered from semi-structured interviews with ‘above-the-line’ Indian online media practitioners together with trade press literature, we propose an analytical framework that incorporates both platforms and portals as industrial objects for mapping digital production cultures that originate as inherently informal.","PeriodicalId":45569,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary South Asia","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44581622","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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