The Saint in the Banyan Tree is a nuanced and historically persuasive exploration of Christianity's remarkable trajectory as a social and cultural force in southern India. Starting in the seventeenth century, when the religion was integrated into Tamil institutions of caste and popular religiosity, this study moves into the twentieth century, when Christianity became an unexpected source of radical transformation for the country's 'untouchables' (dalits). Mosse shows how caste was central to the way in which categories of 'religion' and 'culture' were formed and negotiated in...
The Saint in the Banyan Tree is a nuanced and historically persuasive exploration of Christianity's remarkable trajectory as a social and cultu...
The Saint in the Banyan Tree is a nuanced and historically persuasive exploration of Christianity's remarkable trajectory as a social and cultural force in southern India. Starting in the seventeenth century, when the religion was integrated into Tamil institutions of caste and popular religiosity, this study moves into the twentieth century, when Christianity became an unexpected source of radical transformation for the country's 'untouchables' (dalits). Mosse shows how caste was central to the way in which categories of 'religion' and 'culture' were formed and negotiated in...
The Saint in the Banyan Tree is a nuanced and historically persuasive exploration of Christianity's remarkable trajectory as a social and cultu...
Development agencies and researchers are preoccupied with policy; with exerting influence over policy, linking research to policy and with implementing policy around the world. But what if development practice is not driven by policy? Suppose that the things that make for 'good policy' - policy that legitimises and mobilises political support - in reality make it impossible to implement? By focusing in detail on the unfolding activities of a development project in western India over more than ten years, as it falls under different policy regimes, this book takes a close look at the...
Development agencies and researchers are preoccupied with policy; with exerting influence over policy, linking research to policy and with implementin...
"The contributions are framed by a brief, but rich introductory chapter that contextualizes the anthropology of professional expert knowledge. The volume is concluded by a wonderful (in several meanings), entertaining essay by Raymond Apthorpe." - Forum for Development Studies
"By denying developing countries cultural specificity, aid agencies can arrogantly perpetuate their own insularity. This is fascinating and underexplored territory for anthropologists and development theorists alike, making this an important collection." - Times Literary Supplement
"Themes are...consistently...
"The contributions are framed by a brief, but rich introductory chapter that contextualizes the anthropology of professional expert knowledge. The vol...
Anthropological interest in new subjects of research and contemporary knowledge practices has turned ethnographic attention to a wide ranging variety of professional fields. Among these the encounter with international development has perhaps been longer and more intimate than any of the others. Anthropologists have drawn critical attention to the interfaces and social effects of development's discursive regimes but, oddly enough, have paid scant attention to knowledge producers themselves, despite anthropologists being among them. This is the focus of this volume. It concerns the...
Anthropological interest in new subjects of research and contemporary knowledge practices has turned ethnographic attention to a wide ranging vari...
