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Identity, Gender and Poverty

New Perspectives on Caste and Tribe in Rajasthan

Maya Unnithan-Kumar author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Berghahn Books, Incorporated

Published:1st Aug '97

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Identity, Gender and Poverty cover

Most studies of the so-called tribal communities in India stress their social, economic, and political differences from communities that are organized on the basis of caste. It was this apparent contrast between tribal and caste lifestyle and, moreover, the paucity of material on tribal groups, that motivated the author to undertake this study of a poor "tribal" community, the Girasia, in northwestern India.

While carrying out her fieldwork, the author soon became aware that the traditional tribe-caste categories needed to be revised; in fact, she found them more often than not to be constructs by outsiders, mostly academic. Of greater importance for an understanding of the Girasia was the wider and more complex issue of self-perception and identification by others that must be seen in the context of their poverty as well as in the strategic and shifting use of kinship, gender and class relations in the region.

"... welcome and timely ... contains very valuable ethnographic data on a wide range of topics."  · Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

"... delightfully easy to read and can serve well as an introduction to the Indian scene."  · FOLK

"... an extremely competent piece of ethnographic writing ... exceptionally well-written and organised."  · Pat Caplan, Goldsmiths College

ISBN: 9781571819185

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 522g

304 pages