The Illam and Its Dispersion

Chapter four examines Nambudiri houses and the place they hold in the material phenomenology of kinship memories. Houses are understood here not only as ‘private domestic’ places but as domains where families’ engagement with political history is expressed, visualiszd (or hidden) in internal spatial dispositions, in the presentation of objects, in the daily routine, and in consumption practices. Indeed, houses are conceived as sites where kinship is ‘made’ by either reproducing the past, or by searching a distance from it. The social and symbolic significance of past Illam s architecture (Nambudiri ancestral houses) is contrasted with the meanings ascribed to present middle-class dwellings and to the way people choose to inhabit the latter. The relation between gender, class mobility, and kinship will be developed by comparing middle-class Nambudiri men and women narratives

Archaeology · Art · Class (philosophy) · Epistemology · Genealogy · Geography · Kinship · Literature · Middle class · Narrative · Phenomenology (philosophy) · Political science · Politics · Relation (database) · Social class · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Architecture · Gender Studies · History · Law · South Asian Studies and Conflicts · Spatial and Cultural Studies · India