Full Description
South Asia in Transition is an introductory book on the anthropology of South Asia, including India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh, suitable for students at all levels and others interested in this topic. It assumes no prior knowledge of either the region or the discipline of anthropology. The book makes extensive use of existing publications to describe how anthropologists have approached the region and what they have said about it. The first group of chapters deals mostly with India and caste, class, tribes, religion, kinship and marriage, gender, the body and personhood, politics and political economy. A second group of chapters deals successively with Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Nepal.
Contents
Introduction: Anthropology and South Asia, Anthropology of South Asia
1.Caste: The South Asian Social Group
2.Caste and Class in Modern South Asia
3.The Tribe in South Asia: Like Caste or Unlike?
4.Religions in South Asia: Of Indian Soil and Imported
5.Kinship and Marriage in India: Traditional Practices and Modern Changes
6.Gender, the Body and Personhood: Patriarchy and Resistance
7.Politics in Modern India: Policy versus Faction
8.Political Economy of Modern India: From Formality to Precarity
9.Pakistan, Bangladesh and South Asian Islam
10.Sri Lanka: Buddhist Nationalism and Tamil Separatism
11.Nepal: From Hindu Kingdom to Republic
Bibliography
Index
About the Author
