Author: Eva-Maria Hardtmann
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 2012
Language: English
Pages: 263
ISBN/UPC (if available): 9780198065487
Description
The Dalit Movement in India traces new 'practices' and discourses among Dalit activists since the 1990s and shows how these practices both shaped and changed social relations.
It is an anthropological attempt to reach behind the surface of the contemporary Dalit movement. Some of the topics discussed are the kind of discourses found among Dalit activists, the organizational structure of the movement, and the local practices among activists.
This study also relates the method of anthropological fieldwork to theories about social movements. It offers a historical context as a prerequisite to understanding processes in the contemporary Dalit movement.
The Dalit Movement in India focuses on the heterogeneity and the geographical spread of the movement. The fieldwork moves from a small locality of Dalits in Lucknow to interaction with Dalit activists in Maharashtra to the life of Punjabi Dalit migrants in Birmingham.
FEATURES:
1. Anthropological approach focusing specifically on Dalit activists.
2. Extensive fieldwork in Lucknow, Maharashtra, and Birmingham since 1990s.
3. Significant addition to the literature on Dalit movement.
Contents
Prologue: A Touch of the Dalit Movement
1. Introduction
2. Follow the Field: Fieldwork Methods in a Social Movement
3. Traditions of Protest
4. Movement Perspectives: Dalit Discourses across the Country
5. Dalit Activities in Lucknow: Buddhism and Party Politics in Local Practice
6. A Transnational Dalit Counterpublic: The Example of Ambedkarites in Britain
7. Translating 'Caste Discrimination' into an International Discourse
8. Dalit Feminism in a Neoliberal World
9. Dynamics of Diversity