Social Science Press: November 2008

November 7, 2008

‘GOOD WOMEN DO NOT INHERIT LAND’
Politics of Land and Gender in IndiaNitya Rao

‘… Rao's book is good development anthropology with deep ethnographic insights about gender empowerment. … the Santals ...[are] a distinct part of the peasantry in a de-peasantizing world!’
- Anjan Ghosh, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta

368 pages 215x140 mm Hardback 10 photographs
Social Science Press-Orient BlackSwan joint publication
Rs 795
ISBN 978-81-87358-24-4
SOCIOLOGY, SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY, HISTORY, GENDER STUDIES
Pub Date November 2008

‘Good women should not claim a share in the inheritance, even if they have no brothers….’ Notions such as this have, in their own way and over time, given the women in the Santal Parganas the resolve to wrest what is rightfully theirs.

This is a powerful book in the way in which it unfolds the lives and anxieties of Santal women in Dumka district, Jharkhand. Several case studies bring these women alive through the pages of the book. Land for the Santal women stands for security, social position and identity, and in this men have a distinct advantage. The use of personal narrative by the author brings out the similarities between the experiences of a woman brought up in a city and those of the tribal women in Jharkhand.
As the account unfolds, the reader is made aware that the use of a ‘community’ identity as adivasis has also been responsible for denying women rights to land in the context of the movement for political autonomy of Jharkhand.

Based on rich ethnographic material, this sensitive book lays bare the reality of being an adivasi and an adivasi woman, in all its nuances, in the modern globalized world.

Nitya Rao is Senior Lecturer, School of Development Studies, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK.

ContentsChapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: A Personal Journey
Chapter 3: Faces of Poverty: The Villages Profiled
Chapter 4: Reinventing Tradition: Agrarian Movements in History
Chapter 5: Land as a Productive Resource
Chapter 6: Locating Identities
Chapter 7: Women’s Claims to Land
Chapter 8: Custom and Courts: Bargaining with Modernity
Chapter 9: Development Interventions: Can One Size fit all?
Chapter 10: Conclusions
Bibliography
Index

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

http://www.thehindu.com/books/books-reviews/continuing-transgressions-on-tribals-since-the-british-era/article6370418.ece

http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/anita-agnihotri-listens-to-those-who-often-go-unheard/article6404639.ece

Social Science Press books available on www.amazon.com and www.southasiabooks.com for overseas orders

Distributed in South Asia by Orient Blackswan Private Limited

http://www.orientblackswan.com/ssp.asp

Regd. Office: 3-6-752 Himayatnagar,

Hyderabad – 500 029

Tel: (91) 040 27665446 / 27610898

Fax: (91) 040 27645046

Email: info@orientblackswan.com

1/24, Asaf Ali Road,

New Delhi – 100 002

Tel: (91) 011 23235901 / 23234957

Social Science Press publishes books, as the name suggests, in the social sciences, and has now acquired a good list in academic trade books. Some literary works, for instance, have been brought within the framework of the social sciences. Besides literature, it draws on subjects such as sociology, social anthropology, environment studies, economics, politics, history and gender.

The Press is very proud of its authors who are drawn from the best centres of learning all over the world. It takes special pride in being the first publishers of young future world class scholars.

The list has an internal coherence. The focus is on disseminating knowledge and to this end, the Press publishes books on important subjects, which are written lucidly in order to make them accessible to a large reading public. The books lend clarity and cogency to the confusions of everyday life, which in turn, bring in some modest way, a better understanding of one’s social and political world.

Books published by Social Science Press are examined by experts before accepting them for publication. Production quality is closely supervised and made competitive with international standards.

Esha Béteille

Social Science Press

69 Jorbagh

New Delhi 110 003

Ph: 91-11-24645159

People behind the Press

Esha Béteille: Publisher and Editor

Worked with Oxford University Press for 16 years and was Senior Commissioning Editor when she left in 1997 to start Social Science Press. The first set of books from Social Science Press was published in 1999.

Aaleya Giri: Editor

Has a Master’s degree in English Literature and enjoys New Literature in English. She has a special interest in short stories - poignant... true to our feelings... reflecting conflicting situations we can all relate to... - they provoke us to think, leaving us yearning for more! She also writes poetry and children’s fiction when she can.

Meenakshi Chawla: Editor

Has a degree in engineering and work experience in the information technology industry. She writes short fiction and poetry.

Rambishnu Sasmal: Accountant

Handles the finances of the Press in the most efficient fashion and can be trusted to ferret out the smallest of details!

Advisors to Social Science Press are:

T. N. Madan: Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi University, Delhi.

Dipankar Gupta: Professor, Centre for the Study of Social Systems, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

Jonathan Parry: Professor of Social Anthropology, London School of Economics, UK.

C. J. Fuller: Professor of Social Anthropology, London School of Economics, UK.

Veena Das: Krieger-Eisenhower Professor in Anthropology, John Hopkins University, USA.

Bibek Debroy: Research Professor at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi.

Kaushik Basu: C. Marks Professor of International Studies and Professor of Economics and Director, Center for Analytic Economics, Department of Economics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.

Abusaleh Shariff: Senior Research Fellow at the New Delhi Office of the International Food Policy Research Institute, New Delhi.

Alaka Basu: Professor of Development Sociology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.

Pratap Bhanu Mehta: President and Chief Executive of the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi.

Michael Sinclair Dodson: Associate Professor, Department of History, Director, Dhar India Studies Program, Indiana University