"An Introduction to Changing India" provides a comprehensive view of the rapid changes occurring in India, particularly in the fields of culture, politics, economics and technology, population, environmental issues and gender. Having carried out anthropological research on kinship, gender issues, politics, class and caste, population issues and the appropriation of information technology in India since the 1990s, the authors draw from their own fieldwork and extensive reading of research reports in order to provide a comprehensive picture of Indian life.

Combining history, cultural studies, sociology, international politics, and anthropology, this multidisciplinary volume analyzes transnational connections in India and South Asia. The articles explore how politics, gender, religious discourses, regional concepts, and public culture are being re-imagined amidst translocal connections. In theoretical terms, the volume contributes to understandings of the relationship between culture, globalization and social imagination by posing following questions: What is the nature of relationships between local worlds and global flows both historically and...

This book examines innovation as social change in South Asia. From an anthropological micro-perspective, innovation is moulded by social systems of value and hierarchy, while simultaneously having the potential to transform them. Peterson examines the printing press's changing technology and its intersections with communal and language ideologies in India. Tenhunen explores mobile telephony, gender, and kinship in West Bengal. Uddin looks at microcredit and its relationship with social capital in Bangladesh. Jeffrey surveys imbalanced sex ratios and the future of marriage payments in...

Drawing on ethnographic field work, A Village Goes Mobile examines how mobile telephony contributes to social change in rural India. The book investigates how the use of mobile phones has influenced economic, political, and social relationships, including gender relationships, and how these new social constellations relate to culture and development.

Drawing on ethnographic field work, A Village Goes Mobile examines how mobile telephony contributes to social change in rural India. The book investigates how the use of mobile phones has influenced economic, political, and social relationships, including gender relationships, and how these new social constellations relate to culture and development.