Annu Jalais | Krea University (original) (raw)
Books by Annu Jalais
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Journal Articles by Annu Jalais
Current Anthropology, 2022
Why write? The spaces of intellectual dissidence once provided by universities-promoting disinter... more Why write? The spaces of intellectual dissidence once provided by universities-promoting disinterested inquiry, encouraging critical analysis, challenging conventional wisdoms-are increasingly controlled, if not squeezed out. A lethal mix of neoliberalism, authoritarianism, and right-wing populism is unfolding in different combinations around the world, and one of its key targets of attack is intellectual freedom. It is pressing for academics as writers to ask, What is our purpose? Who is our reader? How do we navigate the tensions between the constraints of academic evaluation criteria and the compulsions of writing for wider publics, scholarly fidelity and activist commitments, writing as scholars and producing journalism or fiction? This article reflects on these questions through the writing of the book Nightmarch, an anthropologist's account of the spread of the Naxalites, a Marx-, Lenin-, and Mao-inspired guerrilla struggle among Indigenous people in the heart of India. The backdrop is the rise of neoliberal audit cultures in UK universities sapping writing of its vitality and Hindu nationalism in India clamping down fiercely on debate, deliberation, and critique, with human rights activists and intellectuals imprisoned as alleged Maoists or "urban Naxals." The overall aim of this essay is to contribute to opening the space for intellectual dissidence and ignite scholarly relevance beyond academia.
Postcolonial Studies, 2022
The Anthropocene introduces a new 'universal collective'the human species seen as a group and act... more The Anthropocene introduces a new 'universal collective'the human species seen as a group and acting as a global geophysical agent. This 'universal collective' has usually been written about from a Western perspective. It has rarely been explored in relation to what a 'collective' might mean outside the Euro-American zone. The challenge is to rethink 'universal' from within local traditions of intellection so as to, in a sense, 'provincialize' it (after Dipesh Chakrabarty). Highlighting some of the recent anthropological literature on debates about the environment and the nonhuman in the Indic sphere, this article critically examines how contradictions about this 'collective' often return us to deep-seated ideas about what it means to be human especially in relation to segregating beliefs about caste, gender and, ultimately, also nonhumans. In other words, this article attempts to underscore what lies at the heart of the complex endeavour of making sense of the 'collective', from an Indic perspective, in a time of climate breakdown.
Asian Survey, 2021
Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, Bangladeshi economist Mushfiq Mobarak argued that in developing c... more Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, Bangladeshi economist Mushfiq Mobarak argued that in developing countries, lockdown-based social distancing would not be feasible to mitigate its spread. This was because they would be unable to impose restrictions, undertake mass testing or provide adequate safety nets to the poor. Bangladesh was one of the first countries to allow the reopening of work places (as early as April 28, 2020), especially in the export-oriented garment industry, and has done economically better than its South Asian counterparts. A crucial enabling factor for this pandemic-era economic growth has been the explosive boom in digital money. On the downside, free speech has been sharply curtailed, and women’s futures were further jeopardized when the garment industry was severely hit by order cancellations. But perhaps the most frightening development is the effect of climate breakdown and the mass movement of populations within Bangladesh as well as in and out of the country.
American Ethnologist Website, 2020
The co-authored essay (with Amites Mukhopadhyay) is on intersecting crises of the Covid-19 pandem... more The co-authored essay (with Amites Mukhopadhyay) is on intersecting crises of the Covid-19 pandemic and the Category 5 Cyclone Amphan hitting the Sundarbans islanders on May 20 2020. The paper is part of the American Ethnologist collection on "Intersecting Crisis" and it offers an ethnographically grounded approach to thinking of “crisis” not as an external shock to an otherwise stable and functioning system, but one that is a crises over a long span of time mainly caused by Governmental mismanagement. It blurs the distinction between a “social” and a “natural” disaster, demonstrating how the Sundarbans islanders face crises with empathy and resilience, and how these troubles have, as Calynn Dowler explains "emerged out of historical processes of colonial and post-colonial extraction, ongoing structural and symbolic violence, and non-human agencies that range in scale from an invisible, microscopic virus to the overwhelming force of a super cyclone."
International Communication of Chinese Culture, 2018
In light of Prasenjit Duara's recent book (The crisis of global modernity: Asian traditions and a... more In light of Prasenjit Duara's recent book (The crisis of global modernity: Asian traditions and a sustainable future. Cambridge university Press, Cambridge, 2015) where he highlights the importance of 'dialogic transcendence' and 'circulatory histories', this paper will examine the human:nonhuman interface in pre-Buddhist and early Buddhist China to examine the " tiger " —both as a revered entity as well as a hunted beast. The paper does this to explore the symbolism of 'nature' and the 'nonhuman' animal in relation to ancient Chinese cosmologies i.e. cultural and religious traditions and practices. Increasingly, as scholarship on Asia begins to focus on the politics of the Anthropocene, this paper argues that it is imperative to consider the nonhuman animal, in this case it will do so through the symbol of the tiger, when evoking cosmological imaginations to debate environmental predicaments. In other words, Duara's introduction of 'dialogic transcendence' to pivot Asian imaginings for grappling with the human possibilities in this epoch of the Anthropocene, makes greater sense when explored through the lens of the " nonhuman " .
Südasien-‐Chronik -‐ South Asia Chronicle 3/2013, S. 8-‐41 © Südasien-‐ Seminar der Humboldt-‐Universität zu Berlin ISBN: 978-‐3-‐86004-‐295-‐3
Practices of Sunni Muharram in Dhaka and Kolkata
'Socio-Legal Review', Vol. 6., 2010
Globalisation has undoubtedly shaped popular conceptions of gender and society in innumerable way... more Globalisation has undoubtedly shaped popular conceptions of gender and society in innumerable ways. This article studies one such instance - the plight of tiger-prawn collectors in Sundarbans. The discovery of tiger-prawns - the 'living dollars of Sundarbans' - has certainly transformed the lives of women in the region beyond imagination. These women however have had to face strenuous attacks from many spheres. Based on her anthropological fieldwork, the author portrays the struggle of women in the area against patriarchy, traditional modes of exploitation and even urban notions of femininity. Braving crocodiles and even changing their religious allegiances, these women have, carved out a sphere of self-respect for themselves.
Chapter in edited book by Annu Jalais
"Death and Life of Nature in Asian Cities" ed. by Anne Rademacher & K. Sivaramakrishnan, 2021
Singapore the ‘garden city’ has been a longstanding trope used by government officials to promote... more Singapore the ‘garden city’ has been a longstanding trope used by government officials to promote tourism and actively entice the world’s cosmopolitan well-heeled and moneyed to come and work, or settle, in the small cityscape. Nature in Singapore is primarily seen by the Government as a resource ‘that can be shaped to economic and national development objectives’ (Yuen 1996:968); and indeed, what strikes visitors to this ‘garden city’ is its cleanliness, orderliness, and greenery. But if ‘nature’ in Singapore is a matter of top-down governmental control (of both city-state aesthetics and economy), ‘nature’ has also been the realm for those wanting to rebel against the Government. In other words, politics in Singapore has often revolved around citizens taking up cat- and crow-culling, the saving of graveyards, or specific conservation issues as ways of resisting Governmental prerogatives. In light of the recent writings on the meaning of ‘nature’ and ‘non-humans’ — explored through supposed ‘eco-farms’ for ‘agri-tainment’, fishing and foraging, and the culling of cats and crows — the paper explores the tension between ‘development’ and ‘culture’ in the context of the city-state of Singapore.
Borders and Ecotones in the Indian Ocean: Cultural and Literary Perspectives, 2020
I argue that contradictions between contemporary urban Hindutva and more rural and subaltern Beng... more I argue that contradictions between contemporary urban Hindutva and more rural and subaltern Bengali Hindu and Muslim religious practices highlight not just deep-seated ideas about caste and community but also reveal a particularly distinct relation to the nonhuman.
The Tides of Life: Surviving Between the Margins (ed. Aditya Ghosh), Dec 30, 2019
My first foray into eco-psychiatry and trying to make sense about mental health issues in the Sun... more My first foray into eco-psychiatry and trying to make sense about mental health issues in the Sundarbans by discussing "catching the fear", suicide, and ritual healing.
Living with Water: Peoples, Lives and Livelihoods in Asia and Beyond - ed. by Rila Mukherjee, 2017
Book Reviews by Annu Jalais
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Current Anthropology, 2022
Why write? The spaces of intellectual dissidence once provided by universities-promoting disinter... more Why write? The spaces of intellectual dissidence once provided by universities-promoting disinterested inquiry, encouraging critical analysis, challenging conventional wisdoms-are increasingly controlled, if not squeezed out. A lethal mix of neoliberalism, authoritarianism, and right-wing populism is unfolding in different combinations around the world, and one of its key targets of attack is intellectual freedom. It is pressing for academics as writers to ask, What is our purpose? Who is our reader? How do we navigate the tensions between the constraints of academic evaluation criteria and the compulsions of writing for wider publics, scholarly fidelity and activist commitments, writing as scholars and producing journalism or fiction? This article reflects on these questions through the writing of the book Nightmarch, an anthropologist's account of the spread of the Naxalites, a Marx-, Lenin-, and Mao-inspired guerrilla struggle among Indigenous people in the heart of India. The backdrop is the rise of neoliberal audit cultures in UK universities sapping writing of its vitality and Hindu nationalism in India clamping down fiercely on debate, deliberation, and critique, with human rights activists and intellectuals imprisoned as alleged Maoists or "urban Naxals." The overall aim of this essay is to contribute to opening the space for intellectual dissidence and ignite scholarly relevance beyond academia.
Postcolonial Studies, 2022
The Anthropocene introduces a new 'universal collective'the human species seen as a group and act... more The Anthropocene introduces a new 'universal collective'the human species seen as a group and acting as a global geophysical agent. This 'universal collective' has usually been written about from a Western perspective. It has rarely been explored in relation to what a 'collective' might mean outside the Euro-American zone. The challenge is to rethink 'universal' from within local traditions of intellection so as to, in a sense, 'provincialize' it (after Dipesh Chakrabarty). Highlighting some of the recent anthropological literature on debates about the environment and the nonhuman in the Indic sphere, this article critically examines how contradictions about this 'collective' often return us to deep-seated ideas about what it means to be human especially in relation to segregating beliefs about caste, gender and, ultimately, also nonhumans. In other words, this article attempts to underscore what lies at the heart of the complex endeavour of making sense of the 'collective', from an Indic perspective, in a time of climate breakdown.
Asian Survey, 2021
Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, Bangladeshi economist Mushfiq Mobarak argued that in developing c... more Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, Bangladeshi economist Mushfiq Mobarak argued that in developing countries, lockdown-based social distancing would not be feasible to mitigate its spread. This was because they would be unable to impose restrictions, undertake mass testing or provide adequate safety nets to the poor. Bangladesh was one of the first countries to allow the reopening of work places (as early as April 28, 2020), especially in the export-oriented garment industry, and has done economically better than its South Asian counterparts. A crucial enabling factor for this pandemic-era economic growth has been the explosive boom in digital money. On the downside, free speech has been sharply curtailed, and women’s futures were further jeopardized when the garment industry was severely hit by order cancellations. But perhaps the most frightening development is the effect of climate breakdown and the mass movement of populations within Bangladesh as well as in and out of the country.
American Ethnologist Website, 2020
The co-authored essay (with Amites Mukhopadhyay) is on intersecting crises of the Covid-19 pandem... more The co-authored essay (with Amites Mukhopadhyay) is on intersecting crises of the Covid-19 pandemic and the Category 5 Cyclone Amphan hitting the Sundarbans islanders on May 20 2020. The paper is part of the American Ethnologist collection on "Intersecting Crisis" and it offers an ethnographically grounded approach to thinking of “crisis” not as an external shock to an otherwise stable and functioning system, but one that is a crises over a long span of time mainly caused by Governmental mismanagement. It blurs the distinction between a “social” and a “natural” disaster, demonstrating how the Sundarbans islanders face crises with empathy and resilience, and how these troubles have, as Calynn Dowler explains "emerged out of historical processes of colonial and post-colonial extraction, ongoing structural and symbolic violence, and non-human agencies that range in scale from an invisible, microscopic virus to the overwhelming force of a super cyclone."
International Communication of Chinese Culture, 2018
In light of Prasenjit Duara's recent book (The crisis of global modernity: Asian traditions and a... more In light of Prasenjit Duara's recent book (The crisis of global modernity: Asian traditions and a sustainable future. Cambridge university Press, Cambridge, 2015) where he highlights the importance of 'dialogic transcendence' and 'circulatory histories', this paper will examine the human:nonhuman interface in pre-Buddhist and early Buddhist China to examine the " tiger " —both as a revered entity as well as a hunted beast. The paper does this to explore the symbolism of 'nature' and the 'nonhuman' animal in relation to ancient Chinese cosmologies i.e. cultural and religious traditions and practices. Increasingly, as scholarship on Asia begins to focus on the politics of the Anthropocene, this paper argues that it is imperative to consider the nonhuman animal, in this case it will do so through the symbol of the tiger, when evoking cosmological imaginations to debate environmental predicaments. In other words, Duara's introduction of 'dialogic transcendence' to pivot Asian imaginings for grappling with the human possibilities in this epoch of the Anthropocene, makes greater sense when explored through the lens of the " nonhuman " .
Südasien-‐Chronik -‐ South Asia Chronicle 3/2013, S. 8-‐41 © Südasien-‐ Seminar der Humboldt-‐Universität zu Berlin ISBN: 978-‐3-‐86004-‐295-‐3
Practices of Sunni Muharram in Dhaka and Kolkata
'Socio-Legal Review', Vol. 6., 2010
Globalisation has undoubtedly shaped popular conceptions of gender and society in innumerable way... more Globalisation has undoubtedly shaped popular conceptions of gender and society in innumerable ways. This article studies one such instance - the plight of tiger-prawn collectors in Sundarbans. The discovery of tiger-prawns - the 'living dollars of Sundarbans' - has certainly transformed the lives of women in the region beyond imagination. These women however have had to face strenuous attacks from many spheres. Based on her anthropological fieldwork, the author portrays the struggle of women in the area against patriarchy, traditional modes of exploitation and even urban notions of femininity. Braving crocodiles and even changing their religious allegiances, these women have, carved out a sphere of self-respect for themselves.
"Death and Life of Nature in Asian Cities" ed. by Anne Rademacher & K. Sivaramakrishnan, 2021
Singapore the ‘garden city’ has been a longstanding trope used by government officials to promote... more Singapore the ‘garden city’ has been a longstanding trope used by government officials to promote tourism and actively entice the world’s cosmopolitan well-heeled and moneyed to come and work, or settle, in the small cityscape. Nature in Singapore is primarily seen by the Government as a resource ‘that can be shaped to economic and national development objectives’ (Yuen 1996:968); and indeed, what strikes visitors to this ‘garden city’ is its cleanliness, orderliness, and greenery. But if ‘nature’ in Singapore is a matter of top-down governmental control (of both city-state aesthetics and economy), ‘nature’ has also been the realm for those wanting to rebel against the Government. In other words, politics in Singapore has often revolved around citizens taking up cat- and crow-culling, the saving of graveyards, or specific conservation issues as ways of resisting Governmental prerogatives. In light of the recent writings on the meaning of ‘nature’ and ‘non-humans’ — explored through supposed ‘eco-farms’ for ‘agri-tainment’, fishing and foraging, and the culling of cats and crows — the paper explores the tension between ‘development’ and ‘culture’ in the context of the city-state of Singapore.
Borders and Ecotones in the Indian Ocean: Cultural and Literary Perspectives, 2020
I argue that contradictions between contemporary urban Hindutva and more rural and subaltern Beng... more I argue that contradictions between contemporary urban Hindutva and more rural and subaltern Bengali Hindu and Muslim religious practices highlight not just deep-seated ideas about caste and community but also reveal a particularly distinct relation to the nonhuman.
The Tides of Life: Surviving Between the Margins (ed. Aditya Ghosh), Dec 30, 2019
My first foray into eco-psychiatry and trying to make sense about mental health issues in the Sun... more My first foray into eco-psychiatry and trying to make sense about mental health issues in the Sundarbans by discussing "catching the fear", suicide, and ritual healing.
Living with Water: Peoples, Lives and Livelihoods in Asia and Beyond - ed. by Rila Mukherjee, 2017
Review of Ananya Jahanara Kabir's "Partition’s Post-amnesias: 1947, 1971 and Modern South Asia" (... more Review of Ananya Jahanara Kabir's "Partition’s Post-amnesias: 1947, 1971 and Modern South Asia" (2013), in Contributions to Indian Sociology, 50, 3 (2016): 435–463
Photoniques, 2024
Le pigment bleu a une histoire riche et fascinante dans le monde artistique et artisanal. Mais, d... more Le pigment bleu a une histoire riche et fascinante dans le monde artistique et artisanal. Mais, dans le règne animal, les pigments bleus sont très rares. Les bleus organiques sont en revanche omniprésents dans le vivant et sont surtout des couleurs « structurelles » produites par l'interaction de la lumière avec des structures submicroniques. Nous examinons ici comment les matériaux photoniques vitreux et les cristaux dans les plumes d'oiseaux pourraient inspirer de manière biomimétique la synthèse facile et durable de bleus.
In English:
Blue pigments have a rich and fascinating history in the world of art and craft. In the animal kingdom, however, blue pigments are very rare. Organic blues, on the other hand, are ubiquitous in living things, and are mainly "structural" colours produced by the interaction of light with submicron structures. Here, we examine how glassy photonic materials and crystals in bird feathers could biomimetically inspire the easy and sustainable synthesis of blues.
Shudhu Sundarban Charcha, 2023
An article in bengali on the "bauleys" or the tiger-charmers of the Sundarbans and how their prac... more An article in bengali on the "bauleys" or the tiger-charmers of the Sundarbans and how their practice is a melding of human and nonhuman worlds (article translated by Nilanjan Mishra), Jan-April 2023, pp. 26-36, in non-refereed journal "Shudhu Sundarban Charcha".
The India Forum, 2023
The tiger-charmers of the Sundarbans have been seen by forest guards and scientists as unscrupulo... more The tiger-charmers of the Sundarbans have been seen by forest guards and scientists as unscrupulous. But the islanders argue that tiger-charmers are able to better communicate between human and nonhuman worlds, and ensure resources are evenly shared. This is their story.
Le Petit Journal, 2023
An interview on how I came to study anthropology and what led me to the Sundarbans. The full inte... more An interview on how I came to study anthropology and what led me to the Sundarbans. The full interview is here: https://visitesfabienne.org/interview-annu-jalais/
ASEAN Development Outlook: Inclusive and Sustainable Development, 2021
Contributed to this report through my background paper "Some notes on the Asian Nonhuman" (2020)
Member Voices, Fieldsights, September 23., 2021
We are three educators. Guru is Assistant Professor at the Sundarban Hazi Desarat College on the ... more We are three educators. Guru is Assistant Professor at the Sundarban Hazi Desarat College on the island of Pathankhali in South 24 Parganas in the state of West Bengal, India. Jalais is Assistant Professor at the National University of Singapore, with long ties to the Sundarban where she taught at a local school while conducting fieldwork between 1999 and 2001. Lahiri is a secondary school teacher in Bardhaman, in India’s West Bengal, and the editor of a reputed Bengali magazine on Sundarban titled Sudhu Sundarban Charcha. While “stuck” in the confines of our homes during the stifling “lockdown,” the three of us often received calls from our students or acquaintances from the Sundarban asking, “When will teachers return?” and “When can we resume attending school/college/university?”
Member Voices, Fieldsights. September 23., 2021
In the thick of pandemic immobility, a few scholars working on environmental justice with coastal... more In the thick of pandemic immobility, a few scholars working on environmental justice with coastal communities in the northern Indian Ocean and locked down in different continents came together to overcome the impact of motionlessness in their research lives. Their field sites covered the littoral and marine expanses of the northern “Indian Ocean community” (Kirk 1951), a space not only deeply integrated into global social, economic, and geopolitical concerns, but also profoundly unequal within and between its nations (Grare 2012). The pandemic had not just caused immobility, but also brought down an unsettling fog of silence in news media and within research communities. There was no (and in many cases still is no) way for researchers to know what was/is really happening in the various coastal communities connected by the Indian Ocean: a region known for its long and vibrant history of movement, migration, and cultural exchange. The immobility therefore felt particularly intense, and we wondered how, in these circumstances, does one conduct “immobile” research?
Himvant: the Realms of Devi, 2020
Foreword to the book "Himvant: the Realms of Devi" by Dr. Debal Sen. Personal account of my relat... more Foreword to the book "Himvant: the Realms of Devi" by Dr. Debal Sen. Personal account of my relationship to the Himalayas.
My take on why Singaporeans are so annoyed with the recent Hollywood blockbuster #CrazyRichAsians
Daily Star, Star Magazine, 2017
Short piece for the Daily Star, Star Weekend Magazine, where I discuss what it meant to conduct r... more Short piece for the Daily Star, Star Weekend Magazine, where I discuss what it meant to conduct research in Bangladesh on my co-authored book "The Bengal Diaspora: Rethinking Muslim Migration" and issues of identity esp "Bengali" on either sides of the border.
Eclectic-Representations, 2022
Discussion of "Forest of Tigers"
Doing Sociology Website, 2021
Forest of Tigers is a deluge of a detailed anthropological account on the intractable lives of Su... more Forest of Tigers is a deluge of a detailed anthropological account on the intractable lives of Sundarban islanders, published a decade back, yet holds its significance in several disciplines of contemporary research such as human-nature interaction, political ecology, cultural ecology and posthumanism.
South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 2019
Review Essay of Debjani Bhattacharyya's 'Ecology and Empire', Amites Mukhopadhyay's 'Living with ... more Review Essay of Debjani Bhattacharyya's 'Ecology and Empire', Amites Mukhopadhyay's 'Living with Disasters' and Annu Jalais' 'Forest of Tigers' (mention also made of Laura Bear, Iftekhar Iqbal and Amitav Ghosh' books) by John Hutnyk. "An outpouring of books on the Sundarbans delta and other Bengal waterways immerse usin a new ecological analytic. An amazing liquid world churns at the end of long river sys-tems, the Ganges, Brahmaputra, Meghna and Hooghly. These rivers are sourced in theHimalaya, venerable mountains created when the shifting mass of the Indian subcontinentcrashed into the Eurasian tectonic plate, throwing up land that reaches the sky. Snow onthe mountains thaws into rivers—more than ever now with climate change—runningacross rich alluvial plains, depositing ever more silt and producing, on meeting the Bengalbasin, the largest delta area of forest and shifting islands in the world. That theSundarbans and the rivers themselves confront imminent environmental and ecologicalcatastrophe is a story told in each of the three books under review with a fluent yet tur-bulent style, wholly appropriate for tempestuous times."
The Daily Star, 2017
The Sundarbans, through three books and one visit (10th March 2017)
'In search of a new 'home': the untold stories of Muslim migrants in the Bengal delta' -by Shamsu... more 'In search of a new 'home': the untold stories of Muslim migrants in the Bengal delta' -by Shamsuddoza Sajen for The Daily Star 13th June 2019
There has been a welcome rise in recent scholarship on the links between the two partitions of 19... more There has been a welcome rise in recent scholarship on the links between the two partitions of 1947 and 1971 and what these links have meant for residents of the vast eastern region of the subcontinent. This extraordinary book focuses our attention on Muslim migrations and settlements within and beyond this region in the course of the 20 th century. In doing so, it aims to balance out the focus on predominantly Hindu refugees in the historiography of partition and its aftermath, as well as to address the broader—arguably Eurocentric—fields of migration and diaspora studies. It begins by proposing that we view Bengal as not only a source of migrants but as a destination: to conceive of a 'Bengal diaspora within Bengal as well as outside it' (p. 2). This conceptual scaffolding is boldly built by considering, in the same analytical frame, short-distance migrations and settlements within the subcontinent—between eastern India and East Pakistan and within eastern India—alongside longer-distance migrations and settlements between the Bengal region and the UK. This is an ambitious and powerful epistemological move that decentres dominant theorisations of diaspora—and indeed, transnationalism—that are built on solely long-distance mobilities. What does such a naming and framing accomplish? The book, thus framed, unfolds in three parts. The first part sets up the vast historical and theoretical canvas of the project, with chapter 1 outlining a sweeping history of mobility and immobility in 'the eastern zone' from 1847 to 1947. This counters the dominant historiography of the subcontinent that accounts for the inter-Asian migrations of the 19 th century as gradually slowing down due to sedentarisation through intensive
Analysing the experience of diasporic communities has been the focus of extensive research and de... more Analysing the experience of diasporic communities has been the focus of
extensive research and debate over the past few decades. Ethnic and Racial Studies has played a role in both publishing some of the most important research papers in this field as well as fostering critical debate about conceptual and analytical tools that are used to study this phenomenon. It is in the spirit of this critical engagement that we publish this symposium on Claire Alexander, Joya Chatterji and Annu Jalais’ study of The Bengal Diaspora. It brings together six critical commentaries by Michael Keith, Nasar Meer, Pawan Dhingra, Victoria Redclift and Fatima Rajina, William Gould, and Sean McLaughlin. Each of the commentaries focuses on specific facets of the book and we hope in
doing so they provide an insight into the rich and unusual research on
which the book draws.
Elements, Jul 21, 2020
Death & Life of Nature in Asian CitiesHong Kon
Pacific Affairs, 2011
It is 800 words. Here is the first paragraph: Anand Pandian’s beautifully written ‘Crooked Stalks... more It is 800 words. Here is the first paragraph: Anand Pandian’s beautifully written ‘Crooked Stalks’ is animated by a deep engagement with the moral life of an erstwhile classified, condemned and policed ‘Criminal Tribe’: the Piramalai Kallars of the Cumbum valley of south India. Their defiance in the face of a long history of discrimination, and the tough choices they make as they negotiate their journey into modernity, makes for a very moving read. Skillfully weaving together ethnographic exchanges, archival explorations, references to Tamil prose, poetry, and cinema, the author embarks on a deeper, more unsettling issue, that of colonial and post-colonial obsessions with the constructs of ‘savagery’ and ‘civility’.
Routledge eBooks, Jun 3, 2014
Postcolonial Studies
The Anthropocene introduces a new 'universal collective'the human species seen as... more The Anthropocene introduces a new 'universal collective'the human species seen as a group and acting as a global geophysical agent. This 'universal collective' has usually been written about from a Western perspective. It has rarely been explored in relation to what a 'collective' might mean outside the Euro-American zone. The challenge is to rethink 'universal' from within local traditions of intellection so as to, in a sense, 'provincialize' it (after Dipesh Chakrabarty). Highlighting some of the recent anthropological literature on debates about the environment and the nonhuman in the Indic sphere, this article critically examines how contradictions about this 'collective' often return us to deep-seated ideas about what it means to be human especially in relation to segregating beliefs about caste, gender and, ultimately, also nonhumans. In other words, this article attempts to underscore what lies at the heart of the complex endeavour of making sense of the 'collective', from an Indic perspective, in a time of climate breakdown.
Death and Life of Nature in Asian Cities
Singapore the ‘garden city’ has been a longstanding trope used by government officials to promote... more Singapore the ‘garden city’ has been a longstanding trope used by government officials to promote tourism and actively entice the world’s cosmopolitan well-heeled and moneyed to come and work, or settle, in the small cityscape. Nature in Singapore is primarily seen by the Government as a resource ‘that can be shaped to economic and national development objectives’ (Yuen 1996:968); and indeed, what strikes visitors to this ‘garden city’ is its cleanliness, orderliness, and greenery. But if ‘nature’ in Singapore is a matter of top-down governmental control (of both city-state aesthetics and economy), ‘nature’ has also been the realm for those wanting to rebel against the Government. In other words, politics in Singapore has often revolved around citizens taking up cat- and crow-culling, the saving of graveyards, or specific conservation issues as ways of resisting Governmental prerogatives. In light of the recent writings on the meaning of ‘nature’ and ‘non-humans’ — explored through ...
ASEAN Development Outlook: Inclusive and Sustainable Development, 2021
Contributed to this report through my background paper "Some notes on the Asian Nonhuman... more Contributed to this report through my background paper "Some notes on the Asian Nonhuman" (2020)
Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses
Borderland Lives in Northern South Asia, 2013
Economic and Political Weekly, 2005
... The title 'babu' - a badge of bhadralok sta... more ... The title 'babu' - a badge of bhadralok status - carried with it connotations of Hindu, frequently upper caste exclusiveness, of landed wealth, of ... This is in line with the arguments made by Sekhar Bandopadhyay 1997, Caste, Protest and Identity in Colonial India: The Namasudras ...
International Communication of Chinese Culture, 2018
In light of Prasenjit Duara’s recent book (The crisis of global modernity: Asian traditions and a... more In light of Prasenjit Duara’s recent book (The crisis of global modernity: Asian traditions and a sustainable future. Cambridge university Press, Cambridge, 2015) where he highlights the importance of ‘dialogic transcendence’ and ‘circulatory histories’, this paper will examine the human:nonhuman interface in pre-Buddhist and early Buddhist China to examine the “tiger”—both as a revered entity as well as a hunted beast. The paper does this to explore the symbolism of ‘nature’ and the ‘nonhuman’ animal in relation to ancient Chinese cosmologies i.e. cultural and religious traditions and practices. Increasingly, as scholarship on Asia begins to focus on the politics of the Anthropocene, this paper argues that it is imperative to consider the nonhuman animal, in this case it will do so through the symbol of the tiger, when evoking cosmological imaginations to debate environmental predicaments. In other words, Duara’s introduction of ‘dialogic transcendence’ to pivot Asian imaginings for grappling with the human possibilities in this epoch of the Anthropocene, makes greater sense when explored through the lens of the “nonhuman”.
Death and Life of Nature in Asian Cities
Asian Survey, 2021
Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, Bangladeshi economist Mushfiq Mobarak argued that in developing c... more Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, Bangladeshi economist Mushfiq Mobarak argued that in developing countries, lockdown-based social distancing would not be feasible to mitigate its spread This was because they would be unable to impose restrictions, undertake mass testing, or provide adequate safety nets to the poor Bangladesh was one of the first countries to allow the reopening of work places (as early as April 28, 2020), especially in the export-oriented garment industry, and has done economically better than its South Asian counterparts A crucial enabling factor for this pandemic-era economic growth has been the explosive boom in digital money On the downside, free speech has been sharply curtailed, and women's futures were further jeopardized when the garment industry was severely hit by order cancellations But perhaps the most frightening development is the effect of climate breakdown and the mass movement of populations within Bangladesh as well as in and out of the country
Acknowledgements List of Figures Note on Transliteration 1. Introduction 2. The Village and the F... more Acknowledgements List of Figures Note on Transliteration 1. Introduction 2. The Village and the Forest 3. Land and Its Hierarchies 4. Is Salt Water thicker than Blood? 5. Roughing it with Kali: Braving Crocodiles, Relatives and the Bhadralok 6. Sharing History with Tigers 7. Unmasking the Cosmopolitan Tiger 8. Conclusion: Beneath the Tiger Mask, the Human face of the Sundarbans Glossary Bibliography Index
Curriculum Vitae, 2024
My integrative and interdisciplinary interests are threefold. The first lies in environmental ant... more My integrative and interdisciplinary interests are threefold. The first lies in environmental anthropology, particularly the human/nonhuman interface, around environmental justice, and more recently, ecopsychiatry and climate change. The second concentrates on the histories of the 1947 Partition migration between Bangladesh and India and the realities of caste and class distinctions. The third (more recent) component of my research focuses on the interconnections between Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam and how these religious practices influenced pan-Asian nonhuman (especially of the tiger) travels between India and China in the 10th century.
