Village matters: relocating villages in the contemporary anthropology of India

Going against the grain of successive Euro-American anthropological trends that have relegated the study of villages to the margins of theory, this volume revisits and resituates villages in the social and humanistic study of India. The contributors offer a long overdue critical re-engagement with the concept, condition, and place called 'village'. Using a broadly interpretative approach, they examine how villages matter in relation to a variety of contemporary regional and global practices, including irrigation, electioneering, religious movements, nationalism, communalism, ecology, labour migration, political movements, military service, warfare, exile, cinematic representation, imagination, and the construction of memory. The discussions show, in no uncertain terms, that villages continue to be vibrant grounds for the production of culture, sociality, environments, bodies, and persons; and that villagers in fact shape not only land through their labour, but also political, social, economic, ritual, and imaginary lives far beyond what is usually labelled 'the local'. Village Matters also addresses anthropology's wider forfeiture of the village as an academic object across areas of study that are by no means restricted to India or South Asia. C