Tip | Voices from the Periphery: A multidisciplinary book “reversing the gaze”: Questioning the fringes of India’s mainstream society

Georg Pfeffer in Voices from the Periphery: Subalternity and Empowerment in India (Routledge India 2012)

A rare collection of essays and different from most anthropological writing: its authors highlight the insider perspective of Adivasi and several other communities.

Voices from the Periphery: Subalternity and Empowerment in India

Edited by Marine Carrin, Lidia Guzy
Published 1st March 2012 by Routledge India

In India as elsewhere, peripheries have frequently been viewed through the eyes of the centre. This book aims at reversing the gaze, presenting the perspectives of low castes, tribes, or other subalterns in a way that amplifies their ability to voice their own concerns.

This volume takes a multidimensional perspective, citing political, economic and cultural factors as expressions of the autonomous assertions of these groups. Questioning the exclusive definitions of the Brahmanical, folk and tribal elements, the articles bring together the empowering possibilities enabled by three recent theoretical developments: of anthropologies questioning the fringes of mainstream society in India; critically engaged histories from below, which problematize subaltern identities; and a conceptual emphasis on everyday ethnography as an arena for negotiations and transactions which contest wider networks of power and hegemony.

This book will be useful to those in sociology, anthropology, politics, history, study of religions, minority studies, cultural studies and those interested in social development, and issues of marginality, tribes and subaltern identity.

Introduction 1. Nisad of the Ganga: Playing with the notions of margin and centre Djallal Heuzé 2. From History to Heritage: Adivasi Identity and Hul Sengel Dan Rycroft 3. On entering the remote area: Recent German anthropological research in western Orissa Georg Pfeffer 4. The history of the royal family of Bonai: Texts, centres and authorities Uwe Skoda5. Village festival and kingdom frame: Centre and periphery from a Porajâ village point of view, southern Orissa Raphaël Rousseleau 6. The poly-culture of Mahima Dharma: On ascetics and Shamans in a new religious movement of Orissa Lidia Guzy 7. Gonasika, a tribal sacred place and a Hindu centre of pilgrimage Cécile Guillaume 8. The Billavas of Karnataka and the Santals of Orissa: Two peripheries asserting their position towards the center Marine Carrin 9. Towards a comparison of traditional centre–periphery relations in two regions on the west coast of India: Saurashtra and south Kanara Harald Tambs-Lyche 10.Brahmans of the Pariyas, peripheries in quest of identity Alexis Avdeeff 11. Did the subaltern speak? Radhika Borde. About the Editors. Notes on Contributors. Index.

Marine Carrin is Director of Research, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), LISST-Centre d’Anthropologie, Toulouse, France.
Lidia Guzy is Associate Researcher, Institute for Scientific Studies of Religions, Free University of Berlin.

Source: Voices from the Periphery: Subalternity and Empowerment in India (Hardback) – Routledge
Address : https://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415501774/
Date Visited: 30 October 2021

Tribal population was spread all over India and most of them occupied wild tracts, hilly and forested areas, away from more civilized centers. In 1880 their population was estimated at about seventy million. They had existed for centuries with their own social traditions and beliefs and subsisted on natural resources. They had preserved their near isolation and way of life until the British administration and policies made inroads into their territories. The tribal population was totally unprepared for the colonial economy. British land revenue policies and Forest Law directly affected their means of livelihood. They had been practicing shifting cultivation and were heavily dependent on forest for their day-to-day lives. Permanent land settlements gradually took away the land from them that they had been using for their mode of cultivation as common communal property. Forest Law and monopolization of forest wealth severely restricted the availability of forest for fulfilling their needs. Commercialization and exploitation displaced the tribals from the tracts they had been occupying for generations. Traders, money lenders and revenue farmers took advantage of British land settlement policies to exploit the simple-minded people. The forest produce became a source of government revenue. Not able to comprehend the government policies, the tribal people saw the penetration of “outsiders” into their territories as threat to their survival and a series of spontaneous uprisings occurred at various places in the country. […]

Source: “Tribal Dissatisfaction Under Colonial Economy of 19th Century” by Subha Johari, Abstract on Worldcat.org
URL: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1040271311
Date Visited: 30 October 2021

[Bold typeface added above for emphasis]

“In 1871, the British passed the ‘Criminal Tribes Act.’ It notified about 150 tribes around India as criminal, giving the police wide powers to arrest them and monitor their movements. The effect of this law was simple: just being born into one of those 150 tribes made you a criminal.” – Dilip D’Souza in “Vicious cycle” | Read the full article in the Adivasi Special issue (The Hindu) >>

“These groups were formally ‘de-notified’ in 1952 by the Indian government, but event today they continue to carry the stigma of being ‘born criminals’.” – “Justice for the DNTs” (Bhasha Trust)” | Learn more >>

“More than 10 crore [100 million] Indians from 1,400 communities belong to Denotified, Nomadic, Semi-nomadic (SEED) Tribes.” – Ab­hi­nay Lak­sh­man in “Denotified, nomadic, semi-nomadic tribes: 402 SEED registrations so far online, none approved yet” (The Hindu, 29 August 2022) | Learn more >>

Find up-to-date information provided by, for and about Indian authors, researchers, officials, and educators | More search options >>
Search tips: in the search field seen below, combine the name of any particular state, language or region with that of any tribal (Adivasi) community; add keywords of special interest (health, nutrition endangered language, illegal mining, sacred grove); learn about the rights of Scheduled Tribes such as the Forest Rights Act (FRA); and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, women’s rights, and children’s right to education; specify any other issue or news item you want to learn more about (biodiversity, climate change, ecology, economic development, ethnobotany, ethnomedicine, global warming, effective measures to prevent rural poverty, bonded labour, and human trafficking).

For a list of websites included in a single search, click here. To search Indian periodicals, magazines, web portals and other sources safely, click here. To find an Indian PhD thesis on a particular tribal community, region and related issues, click here >>

Find publications on these issues by reputed authors including Open Access (free download): Worldcat.org >>

Tip: to find books released by Indian publishers type the name of author in combination with “tribal” or “Adivasi” or include name of an Indian State, Union Territory or region (e.g. “Bastar”, “Northeast India”, “Nilgiri”).

Try the following in case Google Custom Search window or media contents are invisible here: (1) switch from “Reader” to regular viewing; (2) in browser’s Security settings select “Enable JavaScript”; (3) check Google support for browsers and devices | More >>

Related posts

• Adivasi (Adibasi)
• “Adivasi”, “Tribals” and “Denotified tribes”: Usage in legal and historical records, in textbooks, scholarly papers and the media –  Classifications in different states
• Anthropology | Irish Journal of Anthropology | The Johar Journal | Folio Special issue
• Colonial policies | History | Indus Valley | Mohenjo Daro
• eBooks, eJournals & reports | eLearning
• eBook | Background guide for education
• Ekalavya (Eklavya)
• Forest Rights Act (FRA) | Nishad (Nishada, Sanskrit Niṣāda, “tribal, hunter, mountaineer, degraded person outcast”) | Vanavasi (Vanvasi, Vanyajati)
• India’s Constitutional obligation to respect their cultural traditions
• Jawaharlal Nehru’s “five principles” for the policy to be pursued vis-a-vis the tribals
• Remembering Birsa Munda: The charismatic tribal leader who shook the British Empire – Jharkhand
• Rights of Indigenous Peoples
• Scheduled Tribes | Classifications in different states
• Tagore and rural culture
• Video | Adivasi Academy & Museum of Adivasi Voice at Tejgadh – Gujarat
• Video | Tribes in Transition-III: “Indigenous Cultures in the Digital Era”
• What is the Forest Rights Act about?
  Who is a forest dweller under this law, and who gets rights?