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INDIGENIST MOBILIZATION: ‘IDENTITY’ VERSUS ‘CLASS’ AFTER THE KERALA MODEL OF DEVELOPMENT?
This thesis analyses the recent rise of "adivasi" (indigenous/tribal) identity politics in the South Indian state of Kerala. It discusses the complex historical baggage and the political risks attached to the notion of "indigeneity" in Kerala and poses the question why despite it...
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| Format: | Printed Book |
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Central European University, Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology
2011
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| Online Access: | http://10.26.1.76/ks/004887.pdf |
| Summary: | This thesis analyses the recent rise of "adivasi" (indigenous/tribal) identity politics in the South
Indian state of Kerala. It discusses the complex historical baggage and the political risks
attached to the notion of "indigeneity" in Kerala and poses the question why despite its draw-
backs, a notion of indigenous belonging came to replace the discourse of class as the primary
framework through which adivasi workers now struggle for their rights. The thesis answers this
question through an analysis of two inter-linked processes: firstly, the cyclical social movement
dynamics of increasing disillusionment with - and distantiation from - the class-based platforms
that led earlier struggles for emancipation but could not, once in government, structurally alter
existing relations of power. And secondly, the political-economic processes associated with
"neoliberalism" that changed the everyday working lives of subaltern groups in Kerala in such
as way as to make them more amenable to indigenism than to the older forms of "class-based"
mobilization. Through an analysis of these processes, this thesis makes a critical contribution to
the wider debate on the causes and meanings of the global rise of indigenous identity politics at
this juncture in the capitalist world system. |
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| Item Description: | Submitted to Central European University Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy |