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Witches, Tea Plantations, and Lives of Migrant Laborers in India
Tempest in a Teapot
- English
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eBook - ePub
About this book
Witches, Tea Plantations, and Lives of Migrant Laborers in India: Tempest in Teapot is a unique book that brings together a holistic theoretical approach on the subject of witchcraft accusations, specifically those taking place inside a tea workers' community in India. Using a combination of in-depth and extensive qualitative methods, and drawing on sociological, anthropological, and historical perspectives, Chaudhuri explores how adivasi (tribal) migrant workers use witchcraft accusations to deal with worker-management conflict.
Chaudhuri argues that witchcraft accusations can be interpreted as a periodic reaction of the adivasi worker community against their oppression by the plantation management. The typical avenues of social protest are often unavailable to marginalized workers due to lack of organizational and political representation and resources. As a result, the dain (witch) becomes a scapegoat for the malice of the plantation economy. Within this discourse, witch hunts can be seen not as exotic and primitive rituals of a backward community, but rather as a powerful protest by a community against its oppressors. The book attempts to understand the complex network of relationships—ties of friendship, family, politics, and gender—that provide the necessary legitimacy for the witch hunt to take place. In most cases examined here, seemingly petty conflicts within the villagers often escalate to a hunt. At the height of the conflict, the exploitative relationship between the plantation management and the adivasi migrant workers often gets hidden. The book demonstrates how witchcraft accusations should be interpreted within this backdrop of labor-planters relationship, characterized by rigidity of power, patronage, and social distance.
Witches, Tea Plantations, and Lives of Migrant Laborers in India should appeal to criminologists, sociologists, anthropologists, labor historians, gender scholars, labor migration scholars, witch hunt and witchcraft accusation global scholars, adivasi scholars, South Asian scholars, and anyone interested in India's tribes, witchcraft accusations, gender in a global world, labor conflict, and Indian tea plantations.
Chaudhuri argues that witchcraft accusations can be interpreted as a periodic reaction of the adivasi worker community against their oppression by the plantation management. The typical avenues of social protest are often unavailable to marginalized workers due to lack of organizational and political representation and resources. As a result, the dain (witch) becomes a scapegoat for the malice of the plantation economy. Within this discourse, witch hunts can be seen not as exotic and primitive rituals of a backward community, but rather as a powerful protest by a community against its oppressors. The book attempts to understand the complex network of relationships—ties of friendship, family, politics, and gender—that provide the necessary legitimacy for the witch hunt to take place. In most cases examined here, seemingly petty conflicts within the villagers often escalate to a hunt. At the height of the conflict, the exploitative relationship between the plantation management and the adivasi migrant workers often gets hidden. The book demonstrates how witchcraft accusations should be interpreted within this backdrop of labor-planters relationship, characterized by rigidity of power, patronage, and social distance.
Witches, Tea Plantations, and Lives of Migrant Laborers in India should appeal to criminologists, sociologists, anthropologists, labor historians, gender scholars, labor migration scholars, witch hunt and witchcraft accusation global scholars, adivasi scholars, South Asian scholars, and anyone interested in India's tribes, witchcraft accusations, gender in a global world, labor conflict, and Indian tea plantations.
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Yes, you can access Witches, Tea Plantations, and Lives of Migrant Laborers in India by Soma Chaudhuri in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & Criminology. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
Table of contents
- Note
- Acknowledgments
- Prologue: Beech Tea Estate, Central Dooars, March 2005
- Chapter 1 The Politics of Witchcraft Accusations and Witch Hunts: An Introduction
- Chapter 2 Theory and Literature on Witchcraft Accusations and Witch Hunts
- Chapter 3 Two Leaves and a Bud: The Beginning
- Chapter 4 Categorization of Witch Hunts
- Chapter 5 Women, Moral Boundaries, and Gossip in the Plantation
- Chapter 6 Tea Plantation Politics, Oppression, and Protest
- Chapter 7 Towards a New Direction: Activism and Protests
- Appendix A Outline of Interview Guides
- Appendix B Selected List of Participants for Interviews (Out of 80 Participants)
- Appendix C List of Abbreviations
- Appendix D Glossary
- Bibliography
- About the Author