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SACRED GROVE (KAVU): ANCESTRAL LAND OF LANDLESS AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS IN KERALA, INDIA
The thesis focuses on land reforms and ghosts of Untouchables in Kerala, India. More specifically, it is about a conflict between two sets of logic and praxis: land reform on the one hand, and people-land relatedness as it is performed and disclosed by Untouchables, on the other. The former are peop...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Printed Book |
| Published: |
London
LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
1995
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| Subjects: |
PARAYAS;
> PULAYAS
> KURAVA
> SCHEDULED CASTE;
> COMMUNISM ;
> DOCTORAL DISSERTATION;
> PHD THESIS;
> CASTE SYSTEM;
> CUSTOMS;
> DEVOTION;
> DALITS
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| Online Access: | http://10.26.1.76/ks/005579.pdf |
| Summary: | The thesis focuses on land reforms and ghosts of Untouchables in Kerala, India. More
specifically, it is about a conflict between two sets of logic and praxis: land reform on
the one hand, and people-land relatedness as it is performed and disclosed by
Untouchables, on the other. The former are people-government-land relations and the
latter is people-ancestor-land relatedness. The thesis consists of two sections and a
concluding chapter.
In Part I, I juxtapose a coherent dominant history and fragmented parallel
histories to shed light on artifactuality of "landlessness". The dominant history is about
how agrestic slaves were freed (from land) in the mid-19th century and then became
landowners, as a result of the radical land reforms. According to the parallel histories,
by contrast, Untouchables have been dislocated from their ancestral lands since the last
century and this process culminated in the land reforms.
In Part II, I describe the ways in which people-ancestor-land connectedness is
disclosed and reproduced by Untouchables through performing ancestor worship in
kaavu ("sacred grove"). In one case history, I describe how untouchable squatters, who
were dislocated from their ancestral land in the mid-1960s, invoke their ancestor spirits
(who are believed to be haunting in their ancestral land) in order to regain their
ancestral land from a new outsider landowner, who acquired the land during the land
reform.
In the concluding chapter, I discuss resistance. Cults of the dead performed by
Untouchables disclose and reproduce people-ancestor-land connectedness and provide
explanations of why misfortunes strike landowners, who are not connected to the land
through ancestors, but through title deeds. When the "landless agricultural labourers",
who lost their "ancestral lands", perform cults of the dead, the message of people-
ancestor-land connectedness and consubstantiality spills over into the political field and
turns into resistance. |
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| Item Description: | A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF PH.D. DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON |