As a contribution to the anthropology of democracy, this book examines a local governance reform in India - focusing particularly on the 33% women's quota entailed. It highlights the interrelatedness of "doing gender" and "doing politics" and delineates the transformations of gendered political spaces and the shifting boundaries within which women of various castes and classes negotiate the meanings of politics. The book investigates the vernacularization of democracy and analyzes local politics as socially embedded - a framework that allows the frictions and contradictions of local politics...

The book analyses contemporary transnational migration through a group of mainland Chinese female expatriates in Britain. The author adopts a multi-sited approach by following individual migrants and moving between different fieldwork sites. Contextualised in the light of both British and Chinese economic, political, and socio-cultural perspectives, the findings reflect the active role that China's massive economic rise has played in promoting Sino-British bilateral cooperation, as well as its influence on the lives of these Chinese female migrants in Britain. In brief, transmigration...