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F Osella

Biographic Data

ID41880
NAMEF Osella
GIVEN NAMESF
FAMILY NAMEOsella
SIGNATUREOSELLA F
AFFILIATIONSUniversity of Sussex
ORCID0000-0001-7054-9275
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS34
TOTAL CITATIONS763
AUTHOR COUNT34
EDITOR COUNT0
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR1995
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2023
H-INDEX14
  • Covid on the Coast

    Open Access•Johnson Jament, Max Martin et al.•ARTICLE•Journal of South Asian Development•2023•Cited by: 2•References: 20

    In this article, we reflect on the consequences of COVID-19 interventions on coastal communities in south Kerala (India), and the responses of the local population to the latter. In particular, we map out the events which led to spontaneous protests in a number of fishing villages during the second wave of the epidemic in July 2020. We will show that whilst during the first wave of the epidemic, coastal communities remained supportive of governme…

  • Should I Stay or Should I Go? South Indian Artisanal Fishers’ Precarious Livelihoods and Their Engagement with Categorical Ocean Forecasts

    Open Access•Max Martin, S Abhilash et al.•ARTICLE•Weather, Climate, and Society•2022

    Ocean State Forecasts contribute to safe and sustainable fishing in India, but their usage among artisanal fishers is often limited. Our research in Thiruvananthapuram district in the southern Indian state of Kerala tested forecast quality and value and how fishers engage with forecasts. In two fishing villages, we verified forecast accuracy, skill, and reliability by comparing forecasts with observations during the 2018 monsoon season (June–Sept…

  • The Unbearable Lightness of Trust

    Open Access•F Osella•ARTICLE•Modern Asian Studies•2022•Cited by: 5•References: 95

    Drawing on ethnographic data collected in China, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and India, this article explores the life-world and practices of small-scale Indian export agents based in Yiwu, China, the world centre for the export of small commodities. It shows that in a market overdetermined by fast-moving goods, short-term gains, and low margins, export agents have to steer their way between acting with extreme caution or taking risks with th…

  • Religiosity and its others

    Open Access•F Osella, Benjamin Soares•ARTICLE•Social Anthropology•2020

    Drawing on research about settings in South India and West Africa characterised by significant religious diversity, we reflect on the ways in which everyday religiosity among contemporary Muslims is constituted through difference and contestation. Our cases are from two ostensibly secular states – India and Nigeria – both former British colonies where secularism has been interrogated over the past few decades. In our focus on what we call ‘lived’…

  • Trading Futures

    Open Access•Tom Widger, F Osella•ARTICLE•Focaal•2020

    In this article, we explore what happens when idea(l)s of Islamic charity ( sadaqah ) and social enterprise converge within a low-cost public health clinic in Colombo, Sri Lanka. For both the clinic’s wealthy sponsors and the urban poor who use it, interpreting the intervention as a pious expression of care toward the poor or as a for-profit humanitarian venture meant extending different futures to the poor. The ambiguous temporalities of gifts a…

  • You Can Give Even if You Only Have Ten Rupees

    Open Access•F Osella, Tom Widger•ARTICLE•Modern Asian Studies•2018•Cited by: 6•References: 53

    Recent research on contemporary modalities of Islamic or Muslim philanthropy has focused on processes of subjectification through which givers and recipients of charity are habituated or craft themselves to an ethic of piety, social responsibility, and (neoliberal) economic virtuosity. These studies, however, have concentrated almost exclusively on those who give charity, leading to an over-emphasis on the perspectives of givers, and on their rol…

  • Charity and Philanthropy in South Asia

    Open Access•F Osella•ARTICLE•Modern Asian Studies•2018•Cited by: 9•References: 109

    There are no reliable figures to help us measure the volume of charitable donations in South Asia but, according to the 2014 World Giving Index, Sri Lanka is ranked ninth in the world for the charitable efforts of its citizens, while other South Asian countries figure in the top 75 out of 135 countries surveyed. According to the same index, India comes first in the world for the overall number of people donating money to charities and volunteerin…

  • Charity and Philanthropy in South Asia

    Open Access•Sumathi Ramaswamy, F Osella•ARTICLE•Modern Asian Studies•2018•Cited by: 2

    Why should we care about giving in modern South Asia, and why now? These are among the questions at the forefront of this special issue whose contributors explore charitable practices and philanthropic transformations in diverse historical and cultural contexts across the colonial/post-colonial divide at a time when trade liberalization, the transformation of state welfare-ism, and the consolidation of a global economy has led to a deepening of n…

  • The (im)morality of mediation and patronage in south India and the Gulf

    Open Access•F Osella•CHAPTER•Patronage As Politics in South Asia•2014

    A summary is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.

  • Malabar Secrets

    F Osella•ARTICLE•Asian Studies Review•2012•Cited by: 15•References: 20

    This article is concerned with transformations in forms of male sociality and same-sex intimacy among Muslim men from Kozhikode (formerly known as Calicut) in Kerala, South India. I focus in particular on the way in which the globalisation of capital and labour markets – in particular, long-term migration to the Gulf countries of West Asia, a predominantly male affair – has produced novel forms and spaces of homosociality. By highlighting long-te…

  • Migration, Neoliberal Capitalism, and Islamic Reform in Kozhikode (Calicut), South India

    Open Access•F Osella, C Osella•ARTICLE•International Labor and…•2011•Cited by: 2•References: 39

    This article explores relationships between religious and economic practices in Kozhikode, a medium-sized city in Kerala. We examine debates concerning the apparent decline of the “bazaar economy” in the face of the onslaught of globalization and the consequent emergence of a “new economy.” The latter is felt locally to be overdetermined by capital and entrepreneurial practices connected, either directly or indirectly, to the combined effects of …

  • Islam, Politics, Anthropology

    Open Access•Benjamin Soares, F Osella•OTHER•Islam, Politics, Anthropology•2010

    This chapter contains sections titled: Social structure, culture, and the conundrums of modernity Civil society and the public sphere Gender politics Politics unbound Islamism, post-Islamism, and questions of piety Islam and politics today Acknowledgments Notes References

  • Muslim entrepreneurs in public life between India and the Gulf

    Open Access•F Osella, C Osella•ARTICLE•Journal of the Royal Anthropologica…•2009•Cited by: 60•References: 52

    Muslim entrepreneurs from Kerala, South India, are at the forefront of India's liberalizing economy, keen innovators who have adopted the business and labour practices of global capitalism in both Kerala and the Gulf. They are also heavily involved in both charity and politics through activity in Kerala's Muslim public life. They talk about their 'social mindedness' as a combination of piety and economic calculation, the two seen not as excluding…

  • Islam, politics, anthropology

    Open Access•Benjamin Soares, F Osella•ARTICLE•Journal of the Royal Anthropologica…•2009•Cited by: 65•References: 155

    In this paper, we consider anthropology's long and, at times, problematic engagement with the study of Islam and Muslim societies. Specifically, we reflect critically on ongoing anthropological debates about the relationship between Islam and politics and suggest new terms of analysis. Although we pay attention to the state and formal politics, involving various social actors and organizations, we are also interested in everyday politics and micr…

  • Food, Memory, Community

    C Osella, F Osella•ARTICLE•South Asia Journal of South Asian…•2008•Cited by: 11•References: 2

  • Introduction

    Open Access•F Osella, C Osella•ARTICLE•Modern Asian Studies•2008•Cited by: 42•References: 35

    The authors in this volume discuss contemporary Islamic reformism in South Asia in some of its diverse historical orientations and geographical expressions, bringing us contemporary ethnographic perspectives against which to test claims about processes of reform and about trends such as 'Islamism' and 'global Islam'. The very use of terminology and categories is itself fraught with the dangers of bringing together what is actually substantially d…

  • Islamism and Social Reform in Kerala, South India

    Open Access•F Osella, C Osella•ARTICLE•Modern Asian Studies•2008•Cited by: 44•References: 35

    This paper critiques ethnographic tendencies to idealise and celebratesufi'traditionalism' as authentically South Asian. We perceive strong academic trends of frank distaste for reformism, which is then inaccurately-and dangerously buttressing Hindutva rhetoric-branded as going against the grain of South Asian society. This often goes along with (inaccurate) branding of all reformism as 'foreign inspired' orwah'habi. Kerala'sMujahids(Kerala Naduv…

  • Muslim Style in South India

    C Osella, F Osella•ARTICLE•Fashion Theory•2007•Cited by: 7•References: 6

    This article presents ethnographic material from contemporary Kerala, where recent shifts in Muslim women's dress styles (shift from sari towards salwaar kameez; adoption of pardah; use of Arabic abaya) have come under critique. We show that commentators fail to take into account the degree to which all Indian women—not simply Muslims—are heavily constrained in dress by issues of modesty and “decency.” Dress codes for all communities and both sex…

  • Once upon a time in the West? Stories of migration and modernity from Kerala, South India

    Open Access•C Osella, F Osella•ARTICLE•Journal of the Royal Anthropologica…•2006•Cited by: 39•References: 38

    This article explores how members of an ex-untouchable, 'backward' community of South India - the Izhavas of Kerala - represent and make sense of their entanglements within 'modernity'. Izhava narratives suggest ambivalence: while failure stories remain individualized, narrated in terms of bad luck or others' cheating, success stories are presented as exemplars of a twentieth-century global master narrative of progress. We note many correspondenc…

  • Images du corps dans le monde hindou

    Open Access•Michel Angot, France Bhattacharya et al.•BOOK•Images du corps dans le monde…•2003

    Comment se représente-t-on le corps dans le monde hindou ? Comment y est-il pensé et décrit ? Alors même que des recherches anthropologiques sur la société indienne l’ont placé au fondement des rapports sociaux entre castes, ou à la base des conceptions sur l’impureté, le corps n’avait jusqu’ici guère été étudié en lui-même. Aussi ce livre s’attache-t-il à restituer la multiplicité et la complexité de ses représentations, depuis la période védiqu…

  • Migration, modernity and social transformation in South Asia

    Open Access•Katy Gardner, F Osella•ARTICLE•Contributions to Indian Sociology•2003•Cited by: 60•References: 37

  • Migration and the commoditisation of ritual

    Open Access•F Osella, C Osella•ARTICLE•Contributions to Indian Sociology•2003•Cited by: 26•References: 16

    This article discusses relationships between ritual change and out-migration in rural Kerala, south India, via ethnography of kuthiyottam, a sacrifice of human blood standing metonymically for full human sacrifice. Migration-in particular to the Gulf-has accelerated ongoing processes of commoditisation of ritual practices. While this has led to an overall democratisation of rituals, it has also heightened anxieties about the authenticity of ritua…

  • Ayyappan saranam

    Open Access•F Osella, C Osella•ARTICLE•Journal of the Royal Anthropologica…•2003•Cited by: 14•References: 27

    Sabarimala - a South Indian all-male pilgrimage to Ayyappan, a hyper-male deity born from two male gods - plays a role in constructing male identities, at both external (social-structural) and internal (psychological) levels. The pilgrimage draws creatively on relationships between two South Asian male figures: renouncer and householder, breaking down the opposition between transcendence and immanence to bring into everyday life a sense of transc…

  • Social Mobility in Kerala

    F Osella, C Osella•BOOK•Social Mobility in Kerala•2001

    The Izhavas are an ex-untouchable community in the southern Indian state of Kerala. Politically and economically weak, stigmatised as ‘toddy tappers’ and ‘devil dancers’, and considered unapproachable by clean caste Hindus, a century ago Izhavas were associated with other manual-labouring untouchable castes. In recent decades they have sought to improve their position by accumulating economic, symbolic and cultural capital through employment, rel…

  • Migration, Money and Masculinity in Kerala

    Open Access•F Osella, C Osella•ARTICLE•Journal of the Royal Anthropologica…•2000•Cited by: 188•References: 15

    This article examines migration, styles of masculinity and male trajectories through the life-cycle in Kerala, South India, in a region with a long history of high migration, most lately to the Persian Gulf states. Ethnography suggests that migration may be integrated into wider identity projects and form part of local subjectivities. The article considers four important local categories: the gulfan migrant, typically an immature unmarried male; …

Next
  • Migration, Money and Masculinity in Kerala

    Open Access•F Osella, C Osella•ARTICLE•Journal of the Royal Anthropologica…•2000•Cited by: 188•References: 15

    This article examines migration, styles of masculinity and male trajectories through the life-cycle in Kerala, South India, in a region with a long history of high migration, most lately to the Persian Gulf states. Ethnography suggests that migration may be integrated into wider identity projects and form part of local subjectivities. The article considers four important local categories: the gulfan migrant, typically an immature unmarried male; …

  • Islam, politics, anthropology

    Open Access•Benjamin Soares, F Osella•ARTICLE•Journal of the Royal Anthropologica…•2009•Cited by: 65•References: 155

    In this paper, we consider anthropology's long and, at times, problematic engagement with the study of Islam and Muslim societies. Specifically, we reflect critically on ongoing anthropological debates about the relationship between Islam and politics and suggest new terms of analysis. Although we pay attention to the state and formal politics, involving various social actors and organizations, we are also interested in everyday politics and micr…

  • Muslim entrepreneurs in public life between India and the Gulf

    Open Access•F Osella, C Osella•ARTICLE•Journal of the Royal Anthropologica…•2009•Cited by: 60•References: 52

    Muslim entrepreneurs from Kerala, South India, are at the forefront of India's liberalizing economy, keen innovators who have adopted the business and labour practices of global capitalism in both Kerala and the Gulf. They are also heavily involved in both charity and politics through activity in Kerala's Muslim public life. They talk about their 'social mindedness' as a combination of piety and economic calculation, the two seen not as excluding…

  • Migration, modernity and social transformation in South Asia

    Open Access•Katy Gardner, F Osella•ARTICLE•Contributions to Indian Sociology•2003•Cited by: 60•References: 37

  • Friendship and Flirting

    C Osella, F Osella•ARTICLE•Journal of the Royal Anthropologica…•1998•Cited by: 59•References: 18

    L'A. explore quelques-uns des moyens par lesquels le principe de hierarchie, auquel est souvent attribuee une place centrale dans la vie sociale indienne, est renverse, inverse, rejete et reaffirme au cours d'episodes d'interaction personnelle dans le Kerala rural en Inde du Sud. Il considere tout d'abord la creation simultanee de communautes egalitaires du meme sexe et de hierarchies de performance masculine parmi les jeunes hommes. Il examine e…

  • Islamism and Social Reform in Kerala, South India

    Open Access•F Osella, C Osella•ARTICLE•Modern Asian Studies•2008•Cited by: 44•References: 35

    This paper critiques ethnographic tendencies to idealise and celebratesufi'traditionalism' as authentically South Asian. We perceive strong academic trends of frank distaste for reformism, which is then inaccurately-and dangerously buttressing Hindutva rhetoric-branded as going against the grain of South Asian society. This often goes along with (inaccurate) branding of all reformism as 'foreign inspired' orwah'habi. Kerala'sMujahids(Kerala Naduv…

  • From Transience to Immanence

    Open Access•F Osella, C Osella•ARTICLE•Modern Asian Studies•1999•Cited by: 43

    In this paper, we explore some ways through which the adoption of specific consumption practices enables members of a South-Indian ex-untouchable community, Izhavas within Kerala, to objectify and redefine their self-perceived and other-perceived social position, and to concretize and make sense of their attempts to achieve generalized upward mobility. Located within individual, familial and group mobility strategies and developmental cycles, con…

  • Introduction

    Open Access•F Osella, C Osella•ARTICLE•Modern Asian Studies•2008•Cited by: 42•References: 35

    The authors in this volume discuss contemporary Islamic reformism in South Asia in some of its diverse historical orientations and geographical expressions, bringing us contemporary ethnographic perspectives against which to test claims about processes of reform and about trends such as 'Islamism' and 'global Islam'. The very use of terminology and categories is itself fraught with the dangers of bringing together what is actually substantially d…

  • Once upon a time in the West? Stories of migration and modernity from Kerala, South India

    Open Access•C Osella, F Osella•ARTICLE•Journal of the Royal Anthropologica…•2006•Cited by: 39•References: 38

    This article explores how members of an ex-untouchable, 'backward' community of South India - the Izhavas of Kerala - represent and make sense of their entanglements within 'modernity'. Izhava narratives suggest ambivalence: while failure stories remain individualized, narrated in terms of bad luck or others' cheating, success stories are presented as exemplars of a twentieth-century global master narrative of progress. We note many correspondenc…

  • Articulation of physical and social bodies in Kerala

    Open Access•F Osella, C Osella•ARTICLE•Contributions to Indian Sociology•1996•Cited by: 35•References: 76

    This paper uses ethnography from Kerala to examine the concept of sneham, simultaneously an oily bodily fluid and the quality of nurturant affection. Sneham, which flows and circulates within and between persons in intimate moral relations, is the joint lubricant essential to the health of both physical and social bodies. Connections between sneham's two meanings are traced, and sneham's role in the foundation of a powerful metaphor-patronlemploy…

  • Migration and the commoditisation of ritual

    Open Access•F Osella, C Osella•ARTICLE•Contributions to Indian Sociology•2003•Cited by: 26•References: 16

    This article discusses relationships between ritual change and out-migration in rural Kerala, south India, via ethnography of kuthiyottam, a sacrifice of human blood standing metonymically for full human sacrifice. Migration-in particular to the Gulf-has accelerated ongoing processes of commoditisation of ritual practices. While this has led to an overall democratisation of rituals, it has also heightened anxieties about the authenticity of ritua…

  • Rule by Records

    F Osella, Richard Saumarez Smith•ARTICLE•Journal of the Royal Anthropologica…•1998•Cited by: 18

    When the British took the Panjab in the 1840s their first act was to establish landholding registers in every village, through a system of village records and district reports. Rule by Records examines the formation of this dual system in a particular locality and reconstructs the nature of agrarian relations for the period immediately before British rule, demonstrating the way in which registration transformed what it was intended to preserve. T…

  • Malabar Secrets

    F Osella•ARTICLE•Asian Studies Review•2012•Cited by: 15•References: 20

    This article is concerned with transformations in forms of male sociality and same-sex intimacy among Muslim men from Kozhikode (formerly known as Calicut) in Kerala, South India. I focus in particular on the way in which the globalisation of capital and labour markets – in particular, long-term migration to the Gulf countries of West Asia, a predominantly male affair – has produced novel forms and spaces of homosociality. By highlighting long-te…

  • Ayyappan saranam

    Open Access•F Osella, C Osella•ARTICLE•Journal of the Royal Anthropologica…•2003•Cited by: 14•References: 27

    Sabarimala - a South Indian all-male pilgrimage to Ayyappan, a hyper-male deity born from two male gods - plays a role in constructing male identities, at both external (social-structural) and internal (psychological) levels. The pilgrimage draws creatively on relationships between two South Asian male figures: renouncer and householder, breaking down the opposition between transcendence and immanence to bring into everyday life a sense of transc…

  • Food, Memory, Community

    C Osella, F Osella•ARTICLE•South Asia Journal of South Asian…•2008•Cited by: 11•References: 2

  • Caste, Nationalism and Communism in South India

    F Osella, D Menon et al.•ARTICLE•Journal of the Royal Anthropologica…•1995•Cited by: 11

  • Charity and Philanthropy in South Asia

    Open Access•F Osella•ARTICLE•Modern Asian Studies•2018•Cited by: 9•References: 109

    There are no reliable figures to help us measure the volume of charitable donations in South Asia but, according to the 2014 World Giving Index, Sri Lanka is ranked ninth in the world for the charitable efforts of its citizens, while other South Asian countries figure in the top 75 out of 135 countries surveyed. According to the same index, India comes first in the world for the overall number of people donating money to charities and volunteerin…

  • Muslim Style in South India

    C Osella, F Osella•ARTICLE•Fashion Theory•2007•Cited by: 7•References: 6

    This article presents ethnographic material from contemporary Kerala, where recent shifts in Muslim women's dress styles (shift from sari towards salwaar kameez; adoption of pardah; use of Arabic abaya) have come under critique. We show that commentators fail to take into account the degree to which all Indian women—not simply Muslims—are heavily constrained in dress by issues of modesty and “decency.” Dress codes for all communities and both sex…

  • You Can Give Even if You Only Have Ten Rupees

    Open Access•F Osella, Tom Widger•ARTICLE•Modern Asian Studies•2018•Cited by: 6•References: 53

    Recent research on contemporary modalities of Islamic or Muslim philanthropy has focused on processes of subjectification through which givers and recipients of charity are habituated or craft themselves to an ethic of piety, social responsibility, and (neoliberal) economic virtuosity. These studies, however, have concentrated almost exclusively on those who give charity, leading to an over-emphasis on the perspectives of givers, and on their rol…

  • The Unbearable Lightness of Trust

    Open Access•F Osella•ARTICLE•Modern Asian Studies•2022•Cited by: 5•References: 95

    Drawing on ethnographic data collected in China, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and India, this article explores the life-world and practices of small-scale Indian export agents based in Yiwu, China, the world centre for the export of small commodities. It shows that in a market overdetermined by fast-moving goods, short-term gains, and low margins, export agents have to steer their way between acting with extreme caution or taking risks with th…

  • Covid on the Coast

    Open Access•Johnson Jament, Max Martin et al.•ARTICLE•Journal of South Asian Development•2023•Cited by: 2•References: 20

    In this article, we reflect on the consequences of COVID-19 interventions on coastal communities in south Kerala (India), and the responses of the local population to the latter. In particular, we map out the events which led to spontaneous protests in a number of fishing villages during the second wave of the epidemic in July 2020. We will show that whilst during the first wave of the epidemic, coastal communities remained supportive of governme…

  • Charity and Philanthropy in South Asia

    Open Access•Sumathi Ramaswamy, F Osella•ARTICLE•Modern Asian Studies•2018•Cited by: 2

    Why should we care about giving in modern South Asia, and why now? These are among the questions at the forefront of this special issue whose contributors explore charitable practices and philanthropic transformations in diverse historical and cultural contexts across the colonial/post-colonial divide at a time when trade liberalization, the transformation of state welfare-ism, and the consolidation of a global economy has led to a deepening of n…

  • Migration, Neoliberal Capitalism, and Islamic Reform in Kozhikode (Calicut), South India

    Open Access•F Osella, C Osella•ARTICLE•International Labor and…•2011•Cited by: 2•References: 39

    This article explores relationships between religious and economic practices in Kozhikode, a medium-sized city in Kerala. We examine debates concerning the apparent decline of the “bazaar economy” in the face of the onslaught of globalization and the consequent emergence of a “new economy.” The latter is felt locally to be overdetermined by capital and entrepreneurial practices connected, either directly or indirectly, to the combined effects of …

  • Caste, Nationalism and Communism in South India

    F Osella, D Menon et al.•ARTICLE•Journal of the Royal Anthropologica…•1995•Cited by: 11

  • Articulation of physical and social bodies in Kerala

    Open Access•F Osella, C Osella•ARTICLE•Contributions to Indian Sociology•1996•Cited by: 35•References: 76

    This paper uses ethnography from Kerala to examine the concept of sneham, simultaneously an oily bodily fluid and the quality of nurturant affection. Sneham, which flows and circulates within and between persons in intimate moral relations, is the joint lubricant essential to the health of both physical and social bodies. Connections between sneham's two meanings are traced, and sneham's role in the foundation of a powerful metaphor-patronlemploy…

  • The Interpretation of Caste

    F Osella, Declan Quigley•ARTICLE•Journal of the Royal Anthropologica…•1996

  • Pathways

    F Osella•REVIEW•Journal of the Royal Anthropologica…•1997

    Intellectual traditions grow through a process of critical assessment, and Pathways: Approaches to the Study of Society in India is an important contribution in this area. The autobiographical element makes the essays in this book specially interesting. Works of this kind are rare in the social sciences in India, and the present book provides an excellent model for further research. The book is divided into two parts: 'Pathfinders' and 'In Search…

  • Rule by Records

    F Osella, Richard Saumarez Smith•ARTICLE•Journal of the Royal Anthropologica…•1998•Cited by: 18

    When the British took the Panjab in the 1840s their first act was to establish landholding registers in every village, through a system of village records and district reports. Rule by Records examines the formation of this dual system in a particular locality and reconstructs the nature of agrarian relations for the period immediately before British rule, demonstrating the way in which registration transformed what it was intended to preserve. T…

  • Friendship and Flirting

    C Osella, F Osella•ARTICLE•Journal of the Royal Anthropologica…•1998•Cited by: 59•References: 18

    L'A. explore quelques-uns des moyens par lesquels le principe de hierarchie, auquel est souvent attribuee une place centrale dans la vie sociale indienne, est renverse, inverse, rejete et reaffirme au cours d'episodes d'interaction personnelle dans le Kerala rural en Inde du Sud. Il considere tout d'abord la creation simultanee de communautes egalitaires du meme sexe et de hierarchies de performance masculine parmi les jeunes hommes. Il examine e…

  • Seepage of divinised power through social, spiritual and bodily boundaries

    Open Access•C Osella, F Osella•CHAPTER•La possession en Asie du Sud•1999

    In Kerala, persons, spirits and environments are almost always mutually permeable, in fluid inter-relationship and subject to each other’s influence, despite the prevalence of elite values which promote closure as superior. We consider three Kerala possession experiences plus a contrast case–an experience when possession is avoided–to focus upon correspondences and slippages between discourses about social and physical bodies. Bodily orifices act…

  • From Transience to Immanence

    Open Access•F Osella, C Osella•ARTICLE•Modern Asian Studies•1999•Cited by: 43

    In this paper, we explore some ways through which the adoption of specific consumption practices enables members of a South-Indian ex-untouchable community, Izhavas within Kerala, to objectify and redefine their self-perceived and other-perceived social position, and to concretize and make sense of their attempts to achieve generalized upward mobility. Located within individual, familial and group mobility strategies and developmental cycles, con…

  • Peasant Moorings

    Open Access•F Osella•ARTICLE•American Anthropologist•1999

    Peasant Moorings: Village Ties and Mobility Rationales in South India. Jean-Luc Racine. ed. New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1997. 400 pp

  • Migration, Money and Masculinity in Kerala

    Open Access•F Osella, C Osella•ARTICLE•Journal of the Royal Anthropologica…•2000•Cited by: 188•References: 15

    This article examines migration, styles of masculinity and male trajectories through the life-cycle in Kerala, South India, in a region with a long history of high migration, most lately to the Persian Gulf states. Ethnography suggests that migration may be integrated into wider identity projects and form part of local subjectivities. The article considers four important local categories: the gulfan migrant, typically an immature unmarried male; …

  • Social Mobility in Kerala

    F Osella, C Osella•BOOK•Social Mobility in Kerala•2001

    The Izhavas are an ex-untouchable community in the southern Indian state of Kerala. Politically and economically weak, stigmatised as ‘toddy tappers’ and ‘devil dancers’, and considered unapproachable by clean caste Hindus, a century ago Izhavas were associated with other manual-labouring untouchable castes. In recent decades they have sought to improve their position by accumulating economic, symbolic and cultural capital through employment, rel…

  • Images du corps dans le monde hindou

    Open Access•Michel Angot, France Bhattacharya et al.•BOOK•Images du corps dans le monde…•2003

    Comment se représente-t-on le corps dans le monde hindou ? Comment y est-il pensé et décrit ? Alors même que des recherches anthropologiques sur la société indienne l’ont placé au fondement des rapports sociaux entre castes, ou à la base des conceptions sur l’impureté, le corps n’avait jusqu’ici guère été étudié en lui-même. Aussi ce livre s’attache-t-il à restituer la multiplicité et la complexité de ses représentations, depuis la période védiqu…

  • Migration, modernity and social transformation in South Asia

    Open Access•Katy Gardner, F Osella•ARTICLE•Contributions to Indian Sociology•2003•Cited by: 60•References: 37

  • Migration and the commoditisation of ritual

    Open Access•F Osella, C Osella•ARTICLE•Contributions to Indian Sociology•2003•Cited by: 26•References: 16

    This article discusses relationships between ritual change and out-migration in rural Kerala, south India, via ethnography of kuthiyottam, a sacrifice of human blood standing metonymically for full human sacrifice. Migration-in particular to the Gulf-has accelerated ongoing processes of commoditisation of ritual practices. While this has led to an overall democratisation of rituals, it has also heightened anxieties about the authenticity of ritua…

  • Ayyappan saranam

    Open Access•F Osella, C Osella•ARTICLE•Journal of the Royal Anthropologica…•2003•Cited by: 14•References: 27

    Sabarimala - a South Indian all-male pilgrimage to Ayyappan, a hyper-male deity born from two male gods - plays a role in constructing male identities, at both external (social-structural) and internal (psychological) levels. The pilgrimage draws creatively on relationships between two South Asian male figures: renouncer and householder, breaking down the opposition between transcendence and immanence to bring into everyday life a sense of transc…

  • Once upon a time in the West? Stories of migration and modernity from Kerala, South India

    Open Access•C Osella, F Osella•ARTICLE•Journal of the Royal Anthropologica…•2006•Cited by: 39•References: 38

    This article explores how members of an ex-untouchable, 'backward' community of South India - the Izhavas of Kerala - represent and make sense of their entanglements within 'modernity'. Izhava narratives suggest ambivalence: while failure stories remain individualized, narrated in terms of bad luck or others' cheating, success stories are presented as exemplars of a twentieth-century global master narrative of progress. We note many correspondenc…

  • Muslim Style in South India

    C Osella, F Osella•ARTICLE•Fashion Theory•2007•Cited by: 7•References: 6

    This article presents ethnographic material from contemporary Kerala, where recent shifts in Muslim women's dress styles (shift from sari towards salwaar kameez; adoption of pardah; use of Arabic abaya) have come under critique. We show that commentators fail to take into account the degree to which all Indian women—not simply Muslims—are heavily constrained in dress by issues of modesty and “decency.” Dress codes for all communities and both sex…

  • Food, Memory, Community

    C Osella, F Osella•ARTICLE•South Asia Journal of South Asian…•2008•Cited by: 11•References: 2

  • Introduction

    Open Access•F Osella, C Osella•ARTICLE•Modern Asian Studies•2008•Cited by: 42•References: 35

    The authors in this volume discuss contemporary Islamic reformism in South Asia in some of its diverse historical orientations and geographical expressions, bringing us contemporary ethnographic perspectives against which to test claims about processes of reform and about trends such as 'Islamism' and 'global Islam'. The very use of terminology and categories is itself fraught with the dangers of bringing together what is actually substantially d…

  • Islamism and Social Reform in Kerala, South India

    Open Access•F Osella, C Osella•ARTICLE•Modern Asian Studies•2008•Cited by: 44•References: 35

    This paper critiques ethnographic tendencies to idealise and celebratesufi'traditionalism' as authentically South Asian. We perceive strong academic trends of frank distaste for reformism, which is then inaccurately-and dangerously buttressing Hindutva rhetoric-branded as going against the grain of South Asian society. This often goes along with (inaccurate) branding of all reformism as 'foreign inspired' orwah'habi. Kerala'sMujahids(Kerala Naduv…

  • Muslim entrepreneurs in public life between India and the Gulf

    Open Access•F Osella, C Osella•ARTICLE•Journal of the Royal Anthropologica…•2009•Cited by: 60•References: 52

    Muslim entrepreneurs from Kerala, South India, are at the forefront of India's liberalizing economy, keen innovators who have adopted the business and labour practices of global capitalism in both Kerala and the Gulf. They are also heavily involved in both charity and politics through activity in Kerala's Muslim public life. They talk about their 'social mindedness' as a combination of piety and economic calculation, the two seen not as excluding…

  • Islam, politics, anthropology

    Open Access•Benjamin Soares, F Osella•ARTICLE•Journal of the Royal Anthropologica…•2009•Cited by: 65•References: 155

    In this paper, we consider anthropology's long and, at times, problematic engagement with the study of Islam and Muslim societies. Specifically, we reflect critically on ongoing anthropological debates about the relationship between Islam and politics and suggest new terms of analysis. Although we pay attention to the state and formal politics, involving various social actors and organizations, we are also interested in everyday politics and micr…

  • Islam, Politics, Anthropology

    Open Access•Benjamin Soares, F Osella•OTHER•Islam, Politics, Anthropology•2010

    This chapter contains sections titled: Social structure, culture, and the conundrums of modernity Civil society and the public sphere Gender politics Politics unbound Islamism, post-Islamism, and questions of piety Islam and politics today Acknowledgments Notes References

  • Migration, Neoliberal Capitalism, and Islamic Reform in Kozhikode (Calicut), South India

    Open Access•F Osella, C Osella•ARTICLE•International Labor and…•2011•Cited by: 2•References: 39

    This article explores relationships between religious and economic practices in Kozhikode, a medium-sized city in Kerala. We examine debates concerning the apparent decline of the “bazaar economy” in the face of the onslaught of globalization and the consequent emergence of a “new economy.” The latter is felt locally to be overdetermined by capital and entrepreneurial practices connected, either directly or indirectly, to the combined effects of …

  • Malabar Secrets

    F Osella•ARTICLE•Asian Studies Review•2012•Cited by: 15•References: 20

    This article is concerned with transformations in forms of male sociality and same-sex intimacy among Muslim men from Kozhikode (formerly known as Calicut) in Kerala, South India. I focus in particular on the way in which the globalisation of capital and labour markets – in particular, long-term migration to the Gulf countries of West Asia, a predominantly male affair – has produced novel forms and spaces of homosociality. By highlighting long-te…

Political science (28 works) · Sociology (24 works) · Anthropological Studies and Insights (21 works) · Law (21 works) · Law (15 works) · Gender Studies (13 works) · Geography (12 works) · Politics (12 works) · Gender Studies (11 works) · History (11 works)

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