State Categories and Their Afterlives
The Politics of "Tribalisation" in Eastern India
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3985706 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Lipika Kamra (0000-0001-6249-7671, University of Birmingham, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 55 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 645-662 |
| Publication date | 2025-08-08 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Contemporary Asia (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0047-2336 • E-ISSN: 1752-7554 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/00472336.2024.2386344 |
| OpenAlex | W4401748116 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 33 |
This article examines the afterlives of state classificatory categories in everyday engagements between state and society. It examines how a community of cultivators in eastern and central India, the Kudmi-Mahatos, have reshaped their group identity through categories of the state. They have oscillated between not wanting to be labelled as "tribal" by the colonial state to seeking to be recognised as "Scheduled Tribes" by the post-colonial state. Using ethnographic and historical methods, this article investigates the shifting claims of the Kudmi-Mahatos with respect to "tribal" status. It argues: (i) that communities use state categories of classification to remake their identities vis-à-vis both the state and other communities they live with; and (ii) tribalisation as a strategy of claiming recognition reworks the tribe-caste continuum in India. The article builds on historical and anthropological scholarship that looks at political contestations over classification in modern states
Aesthetics · Caste · Colonialism · Ethnography · Ethnology · Identity (music · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Scholarship · Sociology · State (computer science · State formation · Tribe · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Gender Studies · Law · South Asian Studies and Conflicts · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies
Religion and society among the Coorgs of South India
Paper Tiger
Modern Forests
Castes of Mind
Old Differences and New Hierarchies
‘Scheduled Tribe Dalit’ and the Recognition of Tribal Casteism
Society and Politics in India
Tribal Modern
The Politics of Belonging in India
What has anthropology learned from the anthropology of colonialism
Seeing Like a State
Scheduled Tribes and the Politics of Inclusion in India
Spectacles of Ethnographic and Historical Imaginations
Colonial Anthropology and the Decline of the Raj
Adivasi studies
Liberalism and Its Other
Pastoral predicaments
Competing Equalities. Law and the Backward Classes in India
Being Maasai, Becoming Indigenous
Government of Paper
Citizen and Subject
Seeing Like a State
The Anthropology of Colonialism
Work, Identity, and Statemaking in the Forests of Southern West Bengal
Blurred Boundaries
Anthropology and the 'Indigenous Slot
The measure of a tribe
The Idea of Indigenous People
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |