Author: Alpa Shah
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822392933
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 290
Book Description
In the Shadows of the State suggests that well-meaning indigenous rights and development claims and interventions may misrepresent and hurt the very people they intend to help. It is a powerful critique based on extensive ethnographic research in Jharkhand, a state in eastern India officially created in 2000. While the realization of an independent Jharkhand was the culmination of many years of local, regional, and transnational activism for the rights of the region’s culturally autonomous indigenous people, Alpa Shah argues that the activism unintentionally further marginalized the region’s poorest people. Drawing on a decade of ethnographic research in Jharkhand, she follows the everyday lives of some of the poorest villagers as they chase away protected wild elephants, try to cut down the forests they allegedly live in harmony with, maintain a healthy skepticism about the revival of the indigenous governance system, and seek to avoid the initial spread of an armed revolution of Maoist guerrillas who claim to represent them. Juxtaposing these experiences with the accounts of the village elites and the rhetoric of the urban indigenous-rights activists, Shah reveals a class dimension to the indigenous-rights movement, one easily lost in the cultural-based identity politics that the movement produces. In the Shadows of the State brings together ethnographic and theoretical analyses to show that the local use of global discourses of indigeneity often reinforces a class system that harms the poorest people.
In the Shadows of the State
Author: Alpa Shah
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822392933
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 290
Book Description
In the Shadows of the State suggests that well-meaning indigenous rights and development claims and interventions may misrepresent and hurt the very people they intend to help. It is a powerful critique based on extensive ethnographic research in Jharkhand, a state in eastern India officially created in 2000. While the realization of an independent Jharkhand was the culmination of many years of local, regional, and transnational activism for the rights of the region’s culturally autonomous indigenous people, Alpa Shah argues that the activism unintentionally further marginalized the region’s poorest people. Drawing on a decade of ethnographic research in Jharkhand, she follows the everyday lives of some of the poorest villagers as they chase away protected wild elephants, try to cut down the forests they allegedly live in harmony with, maintain a healthy skepticism about the revival of the indigenous governance system, and seek to avoid the initial spread of an armed revolution of Maoist guerrillas who claim to represent them. Juxtaposing these experiences with the accounts of the village elites and the rhetoric of the urban indigenous-rights activists, Shah reveals a class dimension to the indigenous-rights movement, one easily lost in the cultural-based identity politics that the movement produces. In the Shadows of the State brings together ethnographic and theoretical analyses to show that the local use of global discourses of indigeneity often reinforces a class system that harms the poorest people.
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822392933
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 290
Book Description
In the Shadows of the State suggests that well-meaning indigenous rights and development claims and interventions may misrepresent and hurt the very people they intend to help. It is a powerful critique based on extensive ethnographic research in Jharkhand, a state in eastern India officially created in 2000. While the realization of an independent Jharkhand was the culmination of many years of local, regional, and transnational activism for the rights of the region’s culturally autonomous indigenous people, Alpa Shah argues that the activism unintentionally further marginalized the region’s poorest people. Drawing on a decade of ethnographic research in Jharkhand, she follows the everyday lives of some of the poorest villagers as they chase away protected wild elephants, try to cut down the forests they allegedly live in harmony with, maintain a healthy skepticism about the revival of the indigenous governance system, and seek to avoid the initial spread of an armed revolution of Maoist guerrillas who claim to represent them. Juxtaposing these experiences with the accounts of the village elites and the rhetoric of the urban indigenous-rights activists, Shah reveals a class dimension to the indigenous-rights movement, one easily lost in the cultural-based identity politics that the movement produces. In the Shadows of the State brings together ethnographic and theoretical analyses to show that the local use of global discourses of indigeneity often reinforces a class system that harms the poorest people.
Nightmarch
Author: Alpa Shah
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022659033X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 357
Book Description
Winner of the 2020 Association for Political and Legal Anthropology Book Prize Shortlisted for the Orwell Prize Shortlisted for the New India Foundation Book Prize Anthropologist Alpa Shah found herself in an active platoon of Naxalites—one of the longest-running guerrilla insurgencies in the world. The only woman, and the only person without a weapon, she walked alongside the militants for seven nights across 150 miles of dense, hilly forests in eastern India. Nightmarch is the riveting story of Shah's journey, grounded in her years of living with India’s tribal people, an eye-opening exploration of the movement’s history and future and a powerful contemplation of how disadvantaged people fight back against unjust systems in today’s world. The Naxalites have fought for a communist society for the past fifty years, caught in a conflict that has so far claimed at least forty thousand lives. Yet surprisingly little is known about these fighters in the West. Framed by the Indian state as a deadly terrorist group, the movement is actually made up of Marxist ideologues and lower-caste and tribal combatants, all of whom seek to overthrow a system that has abused them for decades. In Nightmarch, Shah shares some of their gritty untold stories: here we meet a high-caste leader who spent almost thirty years underground, a young Adivasi foot soldier, and an Adivasi youth who defected. Speaking with them and living for years with villagers in guerrilla strongholds, Shah has sought to understand why some of India’s poor have shunned the world’s largest democracy and taken up arms to fight for a fairer society—and asks whether they might be undermining their own aims. By shining a light on this largely ignored corner of the world, Shah raises important questions about the uncaring advance of capitalism and offers a compelling reflection on dispossession and conflict at the heart of contemporary India.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022659033X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 357
Book Description
Winner of the 2020 Association for Political and Legal Anthropology Book Prize Shortlisted for the Orwell Prize Shortlisted for the New India Foundation Book Prize Anthropologist Alpa Shah found herself in an active platoon of Naxalites—one of the longest-running guerrilla insurgencies in the world. The only woman, and the only person without a weapon, she walked alongside the militants for seven nights across 150 miles of dense, hilly forests in eastern India. Nightmarch is the riveting story of Shah's journey, grounded in her years of living with India’s tribal people, an eye-opening exploration of the movement’s history and future and a powerful contemplation of how disadvantaged people fight back against unjust systems in today’s world. The Naxalites have fought for a communist society for the past fifty years, caught in a conflict that has so far claimed at least forty thousand lives. Yet surprisingly little is known about these fighters in the West. Framed by the Indian state as a deadly terrorist group, the movement is actually made up of Marxist ideologues and lower-caste and tribal combatants, all of whom seek to overthrow a system that has abused them for decades. In Nightmarch, Shah shares some of their gritty untold stories: here we meet a high-caste leader who spent almost thirty years underground, a young Adivasi foot soldier, and an Adivasi youth who defected. Speaking with them and living for years with villagers in guerrilla strongholds, Shah has sought to understand why some of India’s poor have shunned the world’s largest democracy and taken up arms to fight for a fairer society—and asks whether they might be undermining their own aims. By shining a light on this largely ignored corner of the world, Shah raises important questions about the uncaring advance of capitalism and offers a compelling reflection on dispossession and conflict at the heart of contemporary India.
Colonial Institutions and Civil War
Author: Shivaji Mukherjee
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108844995
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 415
Book Description
Shows how colonial indirect rule and land tenure institutions create state weakness, ethnic inequality and insurgency in India, and around the world.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108844995
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 415
Book Description
Shows how colonial indirect rule and land tenure institutions create state weakness, ethnic inequality and insurgency in India, and around the world.
A Savage Order
Author: Rachel Kleinfeld
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0525432965
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 498
Book Description
The most violent places in the world today are not at war. They are instead buckling under a maelstrom of gangs, organized crime, political conflict, corruption, and state brutality. Such devastating violence can feel hopeless, yet some places—from Colombia to the Republic of Georgia—have been able to recover. Taking on existing literature and popular theories about war, crime, and foreign intervention, A Savage Order is a blistering yet inspiring investigation into what makes some countries peaceful and others war zones, and a blueprint for what we can do to help. Drawing on fifteen years of study and firsthand field research—interviewing generals, former guerrillas, activists, politicians, and law enforcement in countries around the world—Rachel Kleinfeld tells the stories of societies, including our own, that successfully fought seemingly ingrained violence and offers penetrating conclusions about what must be done to build governments that are able to protect the lives of their citizens.
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0525432965
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 498
Book Description
The most violent places in the world today are not at war. They are instead buckling under a maelstrom of gangs, organized crime, political conflict, corruption, and state brutality. Such devastating violence can feel hopeless, yet some places—from Colombia to the Republic of Georgia—have been able to recover. Taking on existing literature and popular theories about war, crime, and foreign intervention, A Savage Order is a blistering yet inspiring investigation into what makes some countries peaceful and others war zones, and a blueprint for what we can do to help. Drawing on fifteen years of study and firsthand field research—interviewing generals, former guerrillas, activists, politicians, and law enforcement in countries around the world—Rachel Kleinfeld tells the stories of societies, including our own, that successfully fought seemingly ingrained violence and offers penetrating conclusions about what must be done to build governments that are able to protect the lives of their citizens.
Broken People
Author: Smita Narula
Publisher: Human Rights Watch
ISBN: 9781564322289
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 340
Book Description
Women and the Law.
Publisher: Human Rights Watch
ISBN: 9781564322289
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 340
Book Description
Women and the Law.
Maoist Insurgency, State and People
Author: Anshuman Behera
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1003803814
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 225
Book Description
This book critically studies descriptive, normative and ethical aspects of violence to understand the Maoist conflict in India. It studies important but often overlooked issues such as reasons for youth participation in insurgency, the reality and the rhetoric of the urban Maoism debate, rights and entitlements of the local communities and their interactions with the Maoist conflict, and issues of governance and development. The volume, - examines the origins of Maoist insurgency, why it continues, the factions, counterinsurgency, impact of violence on education and other development indicators; - investigates how a conflict with an alternative idea of democracy violently clashes with an established democratic Indian state; - deals with the critical aspects of the Maoist movement in India and the status of Urban Maoism or Urban Naxal; - evaluates state responses to the movement and its impact on the economic status of affected communities; - discusses the gender dimension of armed conflict through a feminist lens and explores how women navigate through varied socio-cultural and gender norms while participating in the conflict. Studying a wide range of critical issues, this volume will be of interest particularly to scholars of political science, development studies, public administration, security studies, peace and conflict studies and human rights.
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1003803814
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 225
Book Description
This book critically studies descriptive, normative and ethical aspects of violence to understand the Maoist conflict in India. It studies important but often overlooked issues such as reasons for youth participation in insurgency, the reality and the rhetoric of the urban Maoism debate, rights and entitlements of the local communities and their interactions with the Maoist conflict, and issues of governance and development. The volume, - examines the origins of Maoist insurgency, why it continues, the factions, counterinsurgency, impact of violence on education and other development indicators; - investigates how a conflict with an alternative idea of democracy violently clashes with an established democratic Indian state; - deals with the critical aspects of the Maoist movement in India and the status of Urban Maoism or Urban Naxal; - evaluates state responses to the movement and its impact on the economic status of affected communities; - discusses the gender dimension of armed conflict through a feminist lens and explores how women navigate through varied socio-cultural and gender norms while participating in the conflict. Studying a wide range of critical issues, this volume will be of interest particularly to scholars of political science, development studies, public administration, security studies, peace and conflict studies and human rights.
Rebel Governance in Civil War
Author: Ana Arjona
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316432386
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 329
Book Description
This is the first book to examine and compare how rebels govern civilians during civil wars in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Europe. Drawing from a variety of disciplinary traditions, including political science, sociology, and anthropology, the book provides in-depth case studies of specific conflicts as well as comparative studies of multiple conflicts. Among other themes, the book examines why and how some rebels establish both structures and practices of rule, the role of ideology, cultural, and material factors affecting rebel governance strategies, the impact of governance on the rebel/civilian relationship, civilian responses to rebel rule, the comparison between modes of state and non-state governance to rebel attempts to establish political order, the political economy of rebel governance, and the decline and demise of rebel governance attempts.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316432386
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 329
Book Description
This is the first book to examine and compare how rebels govern civilians during civil wars in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Europe. Drawing from a variety of disciplinary traditions, including political science, sociology, and anthropology, the book provides in-depth case studies of specific conflicts as well as comparative studies of multiple conflicts. Among other themes, the book examines why and how some rebels establish both structures and practices of rule, the role of ideology, cultural, and material factors affecting rebel governance strategies, the impact of governance on the rebel/civilian relationship, civilian responses to rebel rule, the comparison between modes of state and non-state governance to rebel attempts to establish political order, the political economy of rebel governance, and the decline and demise of rebel governance attempts.
Cascades of Violence
Author: John Braithwaite
Publisher: ANU Press
ISBN: 1760461903
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 707
Book Description
As in the cascading of water, violence and nonviolence can cascade down from commanding heights of power (as in waterfalls), up from powerless peripheries, and can undulate to spread horizontally (flowing from one space to another). As with containing water, conflict cannot be contained without asking crucial questions about which variables might cause it to cascade from the top-down, bottom up and from the middle-out. The book shows how violence cascades from state to state. Empirical research has shown that nations with a neighbor at war are more likely to have a civil war themselves (Sambanis 2001). More importantly in the analysis of this book, war cascades from hot spot to hot spot within and between states (Autesserre 2010, 2014). The key to understanding cascades of hot spots is in the interaction between local and macro cleavages and alliances (Kalyvas 2006). The analysis exposes the folly of asking single-level policy questions like do the benefits and costs of a regime change in Iraq justify an invasion? We must also ask what other violence might cascade from an invasion of Iraq? The cascades concept is widespread in the physical and biological sciences with cascades in geology, particle physics and the globalization of contagion. The past two decades has seen prominent and powerful applications of the cascades idea to the social sciences (Sunstein 1997; Gladwell 2000; Sikkink 2011). In his discussion of ethnic violence, James Rosenau (1990) stressed that the image of turbulence developed by mathematicians and physicists could provide an important basis for understanding the idea of bifurcation and related ideas of complexity, chaos, and turbulence in complex systems. He classified the bifurcated systems in contemporary world politics as the multicentric system and the statecentric system. Each of these affects the others in multiple ways, at multiple levels, and in ways that make events enormously hard to predict (Rosenau 1990, 2006). He replaced the idea of events with cascades to describe the event structures that 'gather momentum, stall, reverse course, and resume anew as their repercussions spread among whole systems and subsystems' (1990: 299). Through a detailed analysis of case studies in South Asia, that built on John Braithwaite's twenty-five year project Peacebuilding Compared, and coding of conflicts in different parts of the globe, we expand Rosenau's concept of global turbulence and images of cascades. In the cascades of violence in South Asia, we demonstrate how micro-events such as localized riots, land-grabbing, pervasive militarization and attempts to assassinate political leaders are linked to large scale macro-events of global politics. We argue in order to prevent future conflicts there is a need to understand the relationships between history, structures and agency; interest, values and politics; global and local factors and alliances.
Publisher: ANU Press
ISBN: 1760461903
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 707
Book Description
As in the cascading of water, violence and nonviolence can cascade down from commanding heights of power (as in waterfalls), up from powerless peripheries, and can undulate to spread horizontally (flowing from one space to another). As with containing water, conflict cannot be contained without asking crucial questions about which variables might cause it to cascade from the top-down, bottom up and from the middle-out. The book shows how violence cascades from state to state. Empirical research has shown that nations with a neighbor at war are more likely to have a civil war themselves (Sambanis 2001). More importantly in the analysis of this book, war cascades from hot spot to hot spot within and between states (Autesserre 2010, 2014). The key to understanding cascades of hot spots is in the interaction between local and macro cleavages and alliances (Kalyvas 2006). The analysis exposes the folly of asking single-level policy questions like do the benefits and costs of a regime change in Iraq justify an invasion? We must also ask what other violence might cascade from an invasion of Iraq? The cascades concept is widespread in the physical and biological sciences with cascades in geology, particle physics and the globalization of contagion. The past two decades has seen prominent and powerful applications of the cascades idea to the social sciences (Sunstein 1997; Gladwell 2000; Sikkink 2011). In his discussion of ethnic violence, James Rosenau (1990) stressed that the image of turbulence developed by mathematicians and physicists could provide an important basis for understanding the idea of bifurcation and related ideas of complexity, chaos, and turbulence in complex systems. He classified the bifurcated systems in contemporary world politics as the multicentric system and the statecentric system. Each of these affects the others in multiple ways, at multiple levels, and in ways that make events enormously hard to predict (Rosenau 1990, 2006). He replaced the idea of events with cascades to describe the event structures that 'gather momentum, stall, reverse course, and resume anew as their repercussions spread among whole systems and subsystems' (1990: 299). Through a detailed analysis of case studies in South Asia, that built on John Braithwaite's twenty-five year project Peacebuilding Compared, and coding of conflicts in different parts of the globe, we expand Rosenau's concept of global turbulence and images of cascades. In the cascades of violence in South Asia, we demonstrate how micro-events such as localized riots, land-grabbing, pervasive militarization and attempts to assassinate political leaders are linked to large scale macro-events of global politics. We argue in order to prevent future conflicts there is a need to understand the relationships between history, structures and agency; interest, values and politics; global and local factors and alliances.
Politics And Governance In Indian States: Bihar, West Bengal And Tripura
Author: Subrata Kumar Mitra
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9813208244
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 402
Book Description
Understanding India's politics and governance requires an examination of how politics and governance occur in the regional States, which constitute the federal units of India.This book addresses the issues of federalism, power-sharing and constitutional reforms, and their effects on governance in Indian States. Located within the growing literature on new State politics in India, this volume presents a critical, in-depth analysis of politics in Bihar, West Bengal and Tripura — these States being units of analysis for more general implications.What common obstacles have impeded development in each State, and what factors have favored recent, rapid development in some States but not others? The issues of caste conflicts, ethnic conflicts and other collective identity issues will be examined in this book — a pioneer volume with detailed, empirically-based research on the implications of State-centric politics in India.
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9813208244
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 402
Book Description
Understanding India's politics and governance requires an examination of how politics and governance occur in the regional States, which constitute the federal units of India.This book addresses the issues of federalism, power-sharing and constitutional reforms, and their effects on governance in Indian States. Located within the growing literature on new State politics in India, this volume presents a critical, in-depth analysis of politics in Bihar, West Bengal and Tripura — these States being units of analysis for more general implications.What common obstacles have impeded development in each State, and what factors have favored recent, rapid development in some States but not others? The issues of caste conflicts, ethnic conflicts and other collective identity issues will be examined in this book — a pioneer volume with detailed, empirically-based research on the implications of State-centric politics in India.
Political Violence in South and Southeast Asia
Author: Itty Abraham
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 244
Book Description
This volume explores the sources and manifestations of political violence in South and Southeast Asia and the myriad roles that it plays in everyday life and as part of historical narrative. It considers and critiques the manner in which political violence is understood and constructed, and the common assumptions that prevail regarding the causes, victims, and perpetrators of this violence. By focusing on the social and political context of these regions, the book presents a critical understanding of the nature of political violence and provides an alternative narrative to that found in mainstream analysis of terrorism. "Political Violence in South and Southeast Asia" brings together political scientists and anthropologists with intimate knowledge of the politics and society of these regions, who present unique perspectives on topics including assassinations, riots, state violence, the significance of geographic borders, external influences and intervention, and patterns of recruitment and rebellion. Contributors include Paula Banerjee (Calcutta University and Calcutta Research Group), Vincent Boudreau (City College of New York), Paul R. Brass (University of Washington), Naureen Chowdhury Fink (International Peace Institute, New York), Natasha Hamilton-Hart (National University of Singapore), Sankaran Krishna (University of Hawaii--Manoa), Darini Rajasingham (Social Scientists Association and International Centre for Ethnic Studies, Sri Lanka), Geoffrey Robinson (UCLA), Varun Sahni (Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi), Shamuel Tharu (Jawaharlal Nehru University).
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 244
Book Description
This volume explores the sources and manifestations of political violence in South and Southeast Asia and the myriad roles that it plays in everyday life and as part of historical narrative. It considers and critiques the manner in which political violence is understood and constructed, and the common assumptions that prevail regarding the causes, victims, and perpetrators of this violence. By focusing on the social and political context of these regions, the book presents a critical understanding of the nature of political violence and provides an alternative narrative to that found in mainstream analysis of terrorism. "Political Violence in South and Southeast Asia" brings together political scientists and anthropologists with intimate knowledge of the politics and society of these regions, who present unique perspectives on topics including assassinations, riots, state violence, the significance of geographic borders, external influences and intervention, and patterns of recruitment and rebellion. Contributors include Paula Banerjee (Calcutta University and Calcutta Research Group), Vincent Boudreau (City College of New York), Paul R. Brass (University of Washington), Naureen Chowdhury Fink (International Peace Institute, New York), Natasha Hamilton-Hart (National University of Singapore), Sankaran Krishna (University of Hawaii--Manoa), Darini Rajasingham (Social Scientists Association and International Centre for Ethnic Studies, Sri Lanka), Geoffrey Robinson (UCLA), Varun Sahni (Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi), Shamuel Tharu (Jawaharlal Nehru University).