The Politics of Belonging in India Becoming Adivasi [Hardcover]

Since the 1990s, the Indigenous movement worldwide has become increasingly relevant to research in India, re-shaping the terms of engagement with Adivasi (Indigenous/tribal) peoples and their pasts. This book responds to the growing need for an inter-disciplinary re-assessment of Tribal studies in postcolonial India and defines a new agenda for Adivasi studies. It considers the existing conceptual and historical parameters of Tribal studies, as a means of addressing new approaches to histories of de-colonization and patterns of identity-formation that have become visible since national independence.

Contributors address a number of important concerns, including the meaning of Indigenous studies in the context of globalised academic and political imaginaries, and the possibilities and pitfalls of constructions of indigeneity as both a foundational and a relational concept. A series of short editorial essays provide theoretical clarity to issues of representation, resistance, agency, recognition and marginality. The book is an essential read for students and scholars of Indian Sociology, Anthropology, History, Cultural Studies and Indigenous studies.

1. Introduction: Indigenous Pasts and the Politics of Belonging Daniel J. Rycroft and Sangeeta Dasgupta  Part 1: Contesting Categories, Blurring Boundaries  Introduction to Part 1 Daniel J. Rycroft and Sangeeta Dasgupta  2. The Dangers of Belonging: Tribes, Indigenous Peoples and Homelands in South Asia Willem Van Schendel  3. Performative Genres as Boundary Markers: Folklore and the Production of Purulia as Border Zone Roma Chatterji  Part 2: Revisiting Resistance  Introduction to Part 2 Daniel J. Rycroft and Sangeeta Dasgupta  4. Rebellion as Modern Self Fashioning: A Santal Movement in Colonial BenlN