This book presents multidisciplinary critical engagement in Tribe-British relations, the interfacing between colonial mind and tribal worldview, and some of their contemporary implications to conceptualise tribal space and mobilisation at national, regional, and native levels. The approach, argument, and theoretical underpinnings introduce a new perspective dimension of enquiry in tribal studies and enlarge its scope as a distinct academic discipline. It provides theoretical and methodological insights and an innovative analytical frame for a grand intellectual engagement beyond the boundary of conventional disciplines but within the interactive matrix of India’s social, cultural, political, religious, and economic space. The book is a pioneering work in the emerging field of tribal studies and a vital reference point for students and academics and non-academics alike who are engaged in tribal issues.

This book presents multidisciplinary critical engagement in Tribe-British relations, the interfacing between colonial mind and tribal worldview, and some of their contemporary implications to conceptualise tribal space and mobilisation at national, regional, and native levels. The approach, argument, and theoretical underpinnings introduce a new perspective dimension of enquiry in tribal studies and enlarge its scope as a distinct academic discipline. It provides theoretical and methodological insights and an innovative analytical frame for a grand intellectual engagement beyond the boundary of conventional disciplines but within the interactive matrix of India's social, cultural, political, religious, and economic space. The book is a pioneering work in the emerging field of tribal studies and a vital reference point for students and academics and non-academics alike who are engaged in tribal issues.

This handbook explores the diversity of religious practice in tribal cultures in India. It looks at the interactive spaces where the religious practices of tribes and other communities have changed and adapted through the years in contemporary India. Tribe as a social category emerged in India during the colonial period; this handbook departs from the conventional approaches to studying ‘tribal religion’ and analyses the intersections of spirituality, rituals, gender and identities within tribal religion through a crosscultural and pan-Indian perspective. Tribes in India follow various religious denominations including Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, and traditional indigenous faiths. The chapters in this volume provide insights into the cross-cultural religiosity of tribes via ethnographic accounts and the study of animism, life cycle rituals, ancestor worship, shrines and religious institutions, revivalism, religious identities, religious conversion, transcendental religious spaces and the space for gender, identity and politics within religious traditions. It also discusses conflicts, contestations, anxieties within and the politics of religious traditions and identities in India and how tribal communities and the state negotiate with these issues. This and its companion handbook, The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Readings on Tribe and Religions in India: Emerging Negotiations, provide a comprehensive look into the religious life and practices of a very diverse group of tribes in India. This book will be of interest to academics and researchers working in the fields of religion, anthropology, indigenous and tribal studies, social and cultural anthropology, sociology of culture, sociology of religion, development studies, history, political science, folkloristic, and colonialism.

Tribal societies in India observe a diverse set of religious practices which are a quintessential part of their community life. This handbook explores rituals, beliefs, ceremonies and festivals, liturgy, knowledge and traditions that tribal people practice today and traces the history of their interaction with other religions, communities and cultures. The book provides analytical, intellectual, and cultural insights into the religious tradition of tribes within the interactive space of a pan-Indian civilisation. It examines contemporary religious practice within tribes while also exploring changes either brought on by interactions or political interventions. The volume reflects on the intersections of cultural or political life of communities and their religious worldviews. The book also discusses the processes of assimilation or adoption of different religion or religious traditions by tribes and the challenges of detribalisation and shrinking populations of vulnerable groups. It explores both established and emerging dynamics in the field of tribe and religion and provides a look into the unique systems of kinship, worship and life within many different tribal communities in India. This and its companion handbook, The Routledge Handbook of Tribe and Religions in India: Contemporary Readings on Spirituality, Belief and Identity, provide a comprehensive look into the religious life and practices of a very diverse group of tribes in India. It will be of interest to academics and researchers working in the fields of religion, anthropology, indigenous and tribal studies, social and cultural anthropology, sociology of culture, sociology of religion, development studies, history, political science, folkloristic, and colonialism.

This volume focuses on socio- spatial practices of indigenous communities in India. It explores the interrelation between the built environments and lifeworlds, i.e. practices, patterns, and structures of everyday life. The chapters deal with different ideas and definitions of indigeneity, while also addressing the complex equations between the production and perception of built forms, indigenous technologies, on the one hand, and social, environmental and political contexts, questions of aesthetics, identity, and self-representation on the other. From Adivasi art and sacred sites to craft villages and nomadic pastoralists in western India, from indigenous bangle makers in urban north India to terracotta crafts people on the south, each chapter focuses on different communities and the contours of their contemporary lifeworlds. The contributions actively attempt to foreground the logic and perspectives of the communities themselves as the epistemological centre of the architectural and material discourses on indigeneity. This book will be useful for students, teachers, and researchers of architecture, urban design, urban studies, urban development and planning, anthropology, sociology, and museum studies. It will also be of interest to urban planners and designers, policy planners, local government authorities, and professionals engaged in the discipline.

Regime change in Libya (2011) and Iraq (2003) catapulted a host of sub-state actors to the fore, including tribes, which have emerged as influential political, security and social actors. But despite this increased role and visibility, tribes remain poorly understood. Often mistakenly associated with the 'periphery' or with 'pre-national' or 'pre-modern' forms of political organisation, they are routinely portrayed as the antithesis of the state. Yet tribes--the Middle East's oldest, most enduring and most controversial social entities--have proved able to adapt and evolve, entering into mutually beneficial relationships with various regimes. Based on interviews with tribal sheikhs, tribal representatives and other stakeholders, Alison Pargeter traces the role of the tribe in Libya and Iraq from the revolutionary nationalist period into the fraught transitions that followed. She reveals how tribes have succeeded in developing a presence in national and local political structures; how they have engaged and bargained with major powerbrokers; and how they have become important security providers in their own right. Contrary to modernist approaches seeking to write the obituary of the tribe, this book shows how tribes have not only survived in Libya and Iraq, but remain a key component of the state in both countries.

War and Other Means describes and analyses the practices of war, the ‘objects of war’ and the conventions of the use of violence in Houaïlou, New Caledonia. It focuses on the colonial repression conducted in 1856 and after, the anti-sorcerer hunt in 1955, the independence mobilisation in the 1980s and the village feuds in the 2000s. Through this archaeology of violence, it reports on the practical inventiveness, intelligence and cunning of the Kanaks involved in social, often violent, conflicts. The use of archival material and recourse to the oral stories gathered from the inhabitants of Houaïlou restores the depth of these historical moments and the nested contexts of the political action that unfolded; it also questions the value and limits of fieldwork investigation. These episodes are moments of change in the social, administrative, land and political organisation of New Caledonia; they make it possible to understand, from France’s takeover to the present day, the real modalities of implementation of colonial and postcolonial governmentality. The attention given to the invention, the importation or the adaptation of repressive techniques, closely linked to the French experience in Algeria, opens up a geopolitics of colonisation. Through this detailed description of the social logics of conflict, Michel Naepels also invites us to reflect on the place of European fantasies on violence and on the representations of otherness. For the French edition, Conjurer la guerre. Violence et pouvoir à Houaïlou (Nouvelle-Calédonie), published by Éditions de l’École des hautes études en sciences sociales, please visit editions.ehess.fr/ouvrages/ouvrage/conjurer-la-guerre