Everyday Life in South AsiaDiane P. Mines, Sarah Lamb This vivid anthology of ethnographic writing on South Asia focuses on the daily lives of people in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Firsthand accounts portray the ways ordinary people live and make their worlds through growing up and aging, arranging marriages, exploring sexuality, negotiating caste hierarchies, practicing religion, participating in politics and popular culture, enduring violence as nations are built, and moving abroad to make new lives. An international group of scholars present a diverse range of contemporary life situations and perspectives, including peasant girls in rural Rajasthan and advertising executives in Mumbai; untouchable sharecroppers and high-caste landlords; intimate, multi-generational households and street youth involved in modern gangs; South Asian--American children of high-powered professionals and refugees displaced by national conflict, among many others. The lively text provides lucid introductions to the questions involved in understanding gender, caste, religion, globalization, nationalism, and other key issues as they affect this important region. Contributors: Joseph S. Alter, J. Bernard Bate, E. Valentine Daniel, Robert Desjarlais, Sara Dickey, Gautam Ghosh, Ann Grodzins Gold, Benedicte Grima, Kim Gutschow, Kathleen Hall, Patricia Jeffery, Roger Jeffery, Pradeep Jeganathan, Nita Kumar, Sarah Lamb, Mark Liechty, McKim Marriott, William Mazzarella, Diane P. Mines, Mattison Mines, Serena Nanda, Kirin Narayan, Steven M. Parish, Gloria Goodwin Raheja, Paula Richman, Susan Seizer, Susan Seymour, Margaret Trawick, Ruth Vanita, Viramma (with Josiane Racine and Jean Luc Racine), Susan S. Wadley, and Jim Wilce. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Introduction | 7 |
Allah Gives Both Boys and Girls 23 | 23 |
Youth and the Contradictions | 37 |
The Role of Suffering in Womens Performance of Paxto | 48 |
Love and Aging in Bengali Families 56 | 56 |
The Autobiographical Will and Testa | 69 |
Introduction | 81 |
The Feast of Love | 249 |
The Delusion of Gender and Renunciation | 261 |
Yolmo SpiritCallings in Nepal | 275 |
Tunes Rising from the Soul and Other Narcissistic | 289 |
NationMaking | 303 |
Outsiders at Home? The South Asian Diaspora | 326 |
Why Do Hindus and Muslims Fight? Children | 337 |
Everyday Life | 357 |
Offstage with Special Drama Actresses in Tamil Nadu | 116 |
Consumption and the Production | 132 |
MaleMale Love Difference | 146 |
A Hijras Story | 159 |
Social Distinctions of Caste and Class | 167 |
Hierarchy | 174 |
High and Low Castes in Karani | 190 |
The Erasure of Everyday Life in Colonial Ethnography | 199 |
Class Mobility in Urban India | 214 |
Seven Prevalent Misconceptions about Indias Caste System | 227 |
The Hindu Gods in a South Indian Village | 236 |
Interviews with High School Students in Eastern Sri Lanka | 366 |
Globalization Public Culture | 381 |
Cultural Enclosure and Corporate | 387 |
A Diaspora Ramayana in Southall | 400 |
British Sikh Lives Lived in Translation | 412 |
SecondGeneration | 425 |
Unexpected Destinations | 440 |
REFERENCES | 455 |
CONTRIBUTORS | 487 |
493 | |