000 02096 a2200241 4500
003 JGU
005 20220714171342.0
008 220714b |||||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d
020 _a9781032253442
035 _aJGU
040 _beng
041 _aeng
100 _aDeo, Aditya Pratap,
_9127215
_eauthor
245 _aKings, spirits and memory in central India :
_benchanting the state /
_cAditya Pratap Deo.
260 _aOxon :
_bRoutledge,
_c2022.
520 _a"Part anthropological history and part memoir, this book is a unique study of the polity of the colonial-princely state of Kanker in central India. The author, a scion of the erstwhile ruling family of Kanker, delves into the oral accounts given in the ancestral deity practices of the mixed tribe-caste communities of the region to highlight popular narratives of its historical polity. As he struggles with his own dilemmas as ethnographer-king, what comes into view is a polity where the princely state is drawn out amidst a terrain of gods and spirits as much as that of law courts and magistrates, and political power is divided, contested and shared between the raja/state and the people. This study constitutes not only an intervention in the larger debate on the relationship between state formations and tribal peoples, but also on the very nature of history as a knowledge practice, especially the understandings of power, authority and sovereignty in it. Combining intensive ethnography, complementary archival work and crucial theoretical questions engaging social scientists worldwide, the author charts an unusual explanatory path that can allow us to obtain a meaningful understanding of societies/peoples that have historically been marginalized and seen as different. This book will be of interest to students and researchers of history, anthropology, politics, religion, tribal society and Modern South Asia."
650 _aSovereignty.
650 _aAncestor worship.
_9877632
651 _aIndia
_zKanker (District).
_91585320
999 _c2101454
_d2101454