Regional Modernities

by Sivaramakrishnan, K.; Agrawal, Arun

• ISBN13: 9780804744157
• ISBN10: 0804744157
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-08-01
• Publisher: Stanford Univ Pr

Summary

This collection of essays by leading social scientists focuses on development in India to explore the emergence of "regional modernities" in ways that are distinct from a so-called global modernity and its myriad local variations. "Regional," for the authors, incorporates the state and other subnational and supranational social and political formations that are more or less salient depending on the social networks and development projects under consideration. In particular, the concept of region allows the assessment of large-scale ethnic, religious, social, and geo-political formations as they mediate oversimplified binary oppositions of colonial or postcolonial power and local incorporation or resistance. Individual essays present case studies of development across India, considering the role of class, caste, gender, and ethnic and political identities in their interactions with government forces. They investigate the binding of diverse groups through large projects such as dam building and offer rich ethnographic accounts of tree farmers, entrepreneurs, government officials, women in Gandhian ashrams, slum dwellers, and atomic scientists.

Author Biography

K. Sivaramakrishnan is Associate Professor of Anthropology and International Studies and Director of the South Asia Center at the University of Washington. Arun Agrawal is Associate Professor of Political Science at McGill University.

Table of Contents

Contributors	xiii
1. Regional Modernities in Stories and Practices of Development	1	(62)
K Sivaramakrishnan and Arun Agrawal
Part I: Traveling Discourses	63	(100)
2. The Transmission of Development: Problems of Scale and Socialization	65	(10)
Akhil Gupta
3. Developing Women: The Traffic in Ideas about Women and their Needs in Kangra, India	75	(24)
Kim Berry
4. 'Difficult Work': Becoming Developed	99	(23)
Rebecca Klenk
5. Building India's 'Modern Temples': Indians and Americans in the Damodar Valley Corporation, 1945-60	122	(21)
Daniel Klingensmith
6. 'Shelter' in Modern Delhi	143	(20)
Vijay Prashad
Part II: Development Situations	163	(150)
7. Beyond Blackmail: Multivalent Modernities and the Cultural Politics of Development in India	165	(50)
Donald S. Moore
8. Development, Nationalism, and the Time of the Primitive: The Dangs Darbar	215	(22)
Ajay Skaria
9. Educating Entrepreneurs, Organizing for Social Justice: NGO Development Strategies in New Delhi Bastis	237	(25)
Sangeeta Luthra
10. Mukkuvar Modernity: Development as a Cultural Identity	262	(24)
Ajantha Subramanian
11. Development Counter-Narratives: Taking Social Movements Seriously	286	(27)
Subir Sinha
Part III: Transgressing Boundaries	313	(114)
12. Rethinking Boundaries	315	(14)
Angelique Haugerud
13. On Binaries and Boundaries	329	(9)
David Mosse
14. Beyond the Local/Global Divide: Knowledge for Tree Management in Madhya Pradesh	338	(21)
Sonja Brodt
15. Modernity in a Suitcase: An Essay on Immigrant Indian Writing	359	(18)
Amitava Kumar
16. Policing and Erasing the Global/Local Border: Rajasthani Foresters and the Narrative Ecology of Modernization	377	(27)
Paul Robbins
17. State, Place, Identity: Two Stories in the Making of Region	404	(23)
Itty Abraham
Index	427