Jeffrey G. Snodgrass, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Colorado State University, has published widely on caste, ritual performance, spirit possession, and religious healing in India. He is the recipient of grants from the American Institute of Indian Studies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, and most recently the National Geographic Society. He is currently examining how the health and healing practices of Tribal communities in southern Rajasthan are being impacted by environmental change in the form of deforestation.

"By approaching South Asia's famous social hierarchies, often glossed as "caste," through the minds, eyes, performances, histories, proverbs, songs, jokes, tricks, and money-making tactics of a community that calls itself Bhat -- currently puppeteers to tourists, but historically genealogists to leatherworkers (as well as acrobats) - Snodgrass provides fresh views on overworked but perpetually compelling issues. From their marginal position, Bhats offer wonderful insights into how hierarchy may be instrumentally constructed and deconstructed. They keep both Snodgrass and his readers guessing about the nature of history, power, identity and truth. " --Ann Grodzins Gold, co-author of In the Time of Trees and Sorrows: Nature, Power, and Memory in Rajasthan