Religion and Society among the Coorgs of South India

Smith, Marian W.; Srinivas, M. N.

doi:10.2307/587123

Cited by 37 publications

(10 citation statements)

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“…9 In a subsequent phase, the most groundbreaking writings based on fieldwork came out from Margaret Mead (1928Mead ( , 1930Mead ( , 1935, 10 Evans-Pritchard (1937, 1940), 11 Leach (1961), 12 Fredrik Barth (1959Barth ( , 1969Barth ( , 1975, 13 Raymond Firth (1936), 14 Laura Bohannan (1954), Claude Levi-Strauss (1966), Hortense Powdermaker (1933Powdermaker ( , 1939Powdermaker ( , 1962Powdermaker ( , 1966, 15 and others. This intensive approach to fieldwork was more or less found in India in the works of S. C. Roy (1912Roy ( , 1915Roy ( , 1925Roy ( , 1935), 16 D. N. Majumdar (1937Majumdar ( , 1950Majumdar ( , 1963), 17 M. N. Srinivas (1952), S. K. Srivastava (1952Srivastava ( [1958), 18 L. P. Vidyarthi (1961Vidyarthi ( , 1963), 19 T. C. Das (1945Das ( , 1949, 20 and many others mostly up to 1980s, which Indian anthropology has nearing nowhere afterwards. The outcome of fieldwork in recent times most often lacks a "thick description."…”

Section: History Of Fieldworkmentioning

confidence: 98%

Is Fieldwork Losing its Grace? Encountering Western and Indian Experience

Midya

2023

The Oriental Anthropologist: A Bi-annual International Journal

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Anthropology is primarily a field science, as a field provides the basic platform for critical scrutiny of ideas and theories of the discipline. Fieldwork is also an extremely indispensable tool to understand the culture of the “observed.” Magnificent outcomes of fieldwork in the hands of Malinowski, Mead, Evans-Pritchard, Barth, Firth, Bohannan, Levi-Strauss, Powdermaker, and others have been instrumental in the development of various discourses in anthropology and allied disciplines. Contributions of Indian anthropologists in field studies are also no less significant, as these reflect renewed interest in empiricism and the reflexive understanding of the culture of the “others.” But nowadays, fieldwork is getting less importance in western as well as in Indian academics. In this article, the author has tried to critically examine various issues in connection with the present days’ fieldwork enterprise, which is getting a diminishing importance.

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Section: History Of Fieldworkmentioning

confidence: 98%

Is Fieldwork Losing its Grace? Encountering Western and Indian Experience

Midya

2023

The Oriental Anthropologist: A Bi-annual International Journal

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“…The Raja also provided them with agricultural slaves to cultivate the land. After the British occupied Kodagu, Kodavas helped the British suppress the rebellion in the colonial period, including Canara Rebellion in 1837 (Srinivas, 2003). Since the colonial government was dependent on Kodavas and other jamma holders for military and police services in Kodagu, the British provided free land to them and exempted them from the Indian Arms Act in 1861, allowing them to possess guns without a license (Vijaya, 1993).…”

Section: Plantersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Good, quarrelsome, bad: animal agency and human-elephant interactions in the Western Ghats, India

Dundi

Praet

Marvin

2023

Front. Conserv. Sci.

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Ecological breakdowns are posing many serious threats to the lives of both humans and wild animals in the spaces where those lives are shared. Today the intensification of conservation-related conflict is one of the main ecological challenges faced in the Western Ghats of India. This article explores some of the complex interactions between different groups of people, such as wealthy farmers, small-scale farmers, and Adivasi (indigenous) people, and Asian elephants and suggests potentially non-conflictual approaches to sharing spaces with these elephants. The study used a multispecies ethnographic approach as a primary research method and focused on detailed stories and anecdotes narrated by the inhabitants of the study area who had long experience of living with these elephants and who frequently encountered them. Based on insights offered by the stories and anecdotes, the article argues that the lives of elephants and those of people are deeply and intimately interconnected and co-constructed in the study area; such ‘naturecultures’ of elephants and humans constitute a complex whole. The stories highlight that most people in the study area know that elephants have agency and are intelligent, emotional beings, and can subvert human attempts to control them. According to local people, each individual elephant possesses a distinct personality: some are good, some are quarrelsome, and some are bad. People believe that, just as human beings do, elephants also perceive and respond to individual humans differently; such beliefs, and the stories created out of them, are non-anthropocentric in nature. Overall, this article explores how understanding, and treating seriously, the concepts, beliefs, and experiences of multidimensional elephant agency can be beneficial for envisioning possible new ways for human-elephant coexistence.

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“…At the same time, the caste system was not unique to India, as Dumont (1970) asserted in Homo Hierarchicus, but could be usefully understood in terms of the category of class (Béteille, 1965). Srinivas countered the colonial notion of the caste system's rigidity by coining two terms: sanskritization, to describe how middle-ranking castes sought upward mobility by adopting Brahmanic ideologies and customary practices, such as vegetarianism (Srinivas, 1952), and westernization, to describe the changes brought about by colonial rule (Srinivas, 1956(Srinivas, , 1966. The discipline remained focused on such questions as Indian/Hindu exceptionalism, the resilience of its religion-sanctioned social institutions, and their ability to absorb secular change and also seep into the new arenas of electoral politics and urban-industrial employment.…”

Section: Terms Of Engagementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Decolonizing a discipline in distress

Baviskar

2023

American Ethnologist

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India‐based anthropologists must contend with the legacies of colonial epistemologies and postcolonial imperatives in an increasingly neoliberal academy and Hindu‐supremacist nation‐state. For these scholars, anthropology's values of critical humanism are more vital than ever. The challenge is to uphold them in ways that both include and reach beyond the academy. Over the decades, Indian anthropologists’ position has shifted with regard to their discipline, to academic institutions, the nation, and the wider world since Independence. Today, they face challenges to the vision of democratizing anthropology in terms of institutional autonomy and public accountability. The Indian experience may provide insights to colleagues in the North.

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Religion and Society among the Coorgs of South India

Cited by 37 publications

References 0 publications

Is Fieldwork Losing its Grace? Encountering Western and Indian Experience

Is Fieldwork Losing its Grace? Encountering Western and Indian Experience

Good, quarrelsome, bad: animal agency and human-elephant interactions in the Western Ghats, India

Decolonizing a discipline in distress

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