Fluid Boundaries
eBook - PDF
Available until 27 Jan |Learn more

Fluid Boundaries

Forming and Transforming Identity in Nepal

  1. English
  2. PDF
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF
Available until 27 Jan |Learn more

Fluid Boundaries

Forming and Transforming Identity in Nepal

About this book

More than an ethnography, this book clarifies one of the most important current debates in anthropology: How should anthropologists regard culture, history, and the power process?

Since the 1980s, the Thakali of Nepal have searched for an identity and a clarification of their "true" culture and history in the wake of their rise to political power and achievement of economic success. Although united in this search, the Thakali are divided as to the answers that have been proposed: the "Hinduization" of religious practices, the promotion of Tibetan Buddhism, the revival of practices associated with the Thakali shamans, and secularization.

Ironically, the attempts by the Thakali to define their identity reveal that to return to tradition they must first re-create it—but this process of re-creation establishes it in a way in which it has never existed. To return to "tradition"—to become Thakali again—is, in a way, to become Thakali for the very first time.

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Yes, you can access Fluid Boundaries by William F. Fisher in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & Asian History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Table of Contents
  2. List of Maps and Tables
  3. Preface
  4. Acknowledgments
  5. 1. Introduction: Thakali Again for the Very First Time
  6. 2. Drawing Lines: On Constructing and Contesting Boundaries
  7. 3. Forging Histories
  8. 4. Separation and Integration: Community and Contestation
  9. 5. Ritual Landscapes
  10. 6. Codifying Culture
  11. 7. Constructing Thakali
  12. 8. Beyond Sanskritization
  13. 9. Old Artificers in a New Smithy
  14. Notes
  15. Glossary
  16. Works Cited
  17. Index