Ricerc@Sapienza

Mangiare con gli occhi, ricordare con i sensi, inseguire le tracce di un profumo, gustare un sapore antico che proietta nella memoria l’immagine di una città che un tempo era “casa”. Dalle segrete cucine delle ville coloniali, dove abili cuochi musulmani cucinavano ricette kosher, fino a giungere ai profumi delle leccornie sfornate dai pasticceri ebrei della rinomata Nahoum and Sons di New Market e Bara Bazar, questo articolo segue le tracce di fragranze e sapori della memoria di una delle comunità diasporiche più importanti della Calcutta coloniale: quella degli ebrei Baghdadi.

This volume seeks to re-appraise vernacular narratives of the past and the present and
critically examine the impact of various factors − social and political movements; symbols
and imaginings; law and policy − in envisioning multiple, dialogic and counter-hegemonic
futures. In doing so it highlights some of the following issues:
– Inclusion/exclusion/contestations of the mainstream.
– Reconstructing or reimagining the past and its deployment.
– Processes and structures of such contests; and/or their normalization.

A collection of essays related to alternative narratives of history and socio-economic development among different social categories in colonial and contemporary India.

The adivasi world figured in official perceptions as the backdrop of the counter-insurgency measures of the colonial state and the adivasi was portrayed as a savage, whether ‘criminal’ and wreaking terror in the countryside, or ‘noble’ and living a life of Arcadian simplicity in an egalitarian society. Through such models, British administrators sought to justify their presence and portray themselves as the protectors of life and security in the region.

The essays in this book discuss a range of issues affecting the socio-economic and cultural life of adivasis and explore the long-term continuities and discontinuities between different political regimes.

Book review. The essays of the volume are organised in four clusters which explore the relationship of law with convention, violence, inscription and fiscalism.

Lo studio analizza diversi aspetti delle istituzioni politiche dell’India con l’obiettivo di gettare luce sulle dinamiche che hanno consentito a una popolazione così vasta ed eterogenea di dar vita a uno stato democratico in costante evoluzione, pronto per assumere un ruolo da protagonista sulla scena internazionale. Con oltre un miliardo e duecento milioni di abitanti, e 814 milioni di elettori (2014), l’India rappresenta la più grande democrazia del mondo.

Adivasis are the indigenous people of eastern and central India who were identified as “tribes” under British colonial rule and who today have a constitutional status as “Scheduled Tribese. The notion of tribe, despite its evolutionist character, has been internalized to a large extent by the indigenous people themselves and has had a considerable role in shaping community identities. Colonial studies, moreover, were the first systematic investigations into these marginalized and subordinated communities and form an important primary source in historical research on Adivasis.

This brief discussion of the grass-root movements draw attention to how the leadership in women’s movements has spread among different social classes and categories and is no longer confined within the urban middle class. Women today are participating in the political life of the country in increasing numbers in order to reclaim their space in ‘half the sky’ as citizens of India. Grass-root women’s activism no longer merely looks for largesse from the government; nor are the subaltern women the objects of reforms for well-intentioned upper-classes.