New Subaltern Politics

Reconceptualizing Hegemony and Resistance in Contemporary India

Edited by Alf Gunvald Nilsen
Srila Roy

Wide empirical range/diversity of case studies
Orientation towards conceptual innovation
Critical dialogue and contributions from founding member of the Subaltern Studies project
Relevance to a number of contemporary issues pertaining to the Global South

New Subaltern Politics

Reconceptualizing Hegemony and Resistance in Contemporary India

Edited by Alf Gunvald Nilsen
Srila Roy

Description

New Subaltern Politics presents a critical dialogue between the conceptual and analytical legacies of Subaltern Studies and the evolving forms of hegemony and resistance in contemporary India. From the struggles of the urban poor in Gujarat to the activism of sexual subalterns in eastern India and the mobilization of artisanal fishing communities in Tamil Nadu, the essays in this volume cover a diverse range of ongoing struggles against dispossession, disenfranchisement, and stigma that are unfolding in neoliberal India.

The volume analyses the forms of collective agency that subaltern groups develop to negotiate with the workings of power from above. Foregrounding the imaginative, affective, and secular dimensions of subaltern agency, New Subaltern Politics interrogates the current relevance of Gramscian concepts of hegemony, subalternity, and the integral state in the contemporary Indian context. Bringing together path-breaking methodological and conceptual interventions in the study of subaltern politics, this volume will be invaluable to all those engagedaas academics or as activists--in the struggle against unjust societies and unequal developmental trajectories.

New Subaltern Politics

Reconceptualizing Hegemony and Resistance in Contemporary India

Edited by Alf Gunvald Nilsen
Srila Roy

INTRODUCTION
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
Reconceptualizing Subaltern Politics in Contemporary India
Alf Gunvald Nilsen and Srila Roy
I ENGAGING GRAMSCI
1. For a Historical Sociology of State
Society Relations in the Study of Subaltern Politics
Alf Gunvald Nilsen
2. Rethinking Hegemony- Caste, Class, and Political Subjectivities among Informal Workers in Ahmedabad
Manali Desai
3. Recovering Caste Privilege
The Politics of Meritocracy at the Indian Institutes of Technology
Ajantha Subramanian
II IMAGINATION, FAITH, AFFECT
4. Representing the Adivasi
Limits and Possibilities of Postcolonial Theory
Rashmi Varma
5. Can the Subaltern Be Secular?
Negotiating Catholic Faith, Identity, and Authority
in Coastal Tamil Nadu
Aparna Sundar
6. Affective Politics and the Sexual Subaltern
Lesbian Activism in Eastern India
Srila Roy
III CASTE AND COMMUNITY IN CIVIL/POLITICAL SOCIETY
7. Theorizing Thervoy
Subaltern Studies and Dalit Praxis in Indiaas Land Wars
Luisa Steur
8. aCommunitya and the Politics of Caste, Class, and Representation in the Singur Movement, West Bengal
Kenneth Bo Nielsen
9. On the Edge of Civil Society in Contemporary India
Subir Sinha
POSTSCRIPT
Subaltern Studies
Then and Now
David Arnold
Bibliography
Index
Notes on Editors and Contributors

New Subaltern Politics

Reconceptualizing Hegemony and Resistance in Contemporary India

Edited by Alf Gunvald Nilsen
Srila Roy

Author Information

Alf Gunvald Nilsen teaches at the Department of Sociology, University of Bergen, Norway.

Srila Roy teaches at the Department of Sociology, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.

New Subaltern Politics

Reconceptualizing Hegemony and Resistance in Contemporary India

Edited by Alf Gunvald Nilsen
Srila Roy

Reviews and Awards

"...a wonderfully rich and theoretically coherent collection of texts that critically assess the legacies of Subaltern Studies through research into political movements in India today." -New Books in South Asian Studies

New Subaltern Politics

Reconceptualizing Hegemony and Resistance in Contemporary India

Edited by Alf Gunvald Nilsen
Srila Roy

From Our Blog

Lesbian existence and marginalization in India

India's first 'lesbian ad' went viral at the start of June this year. The advert featuring a young lesbian couple awaiting the arrival of one set of parents to their joint home is uncompromisingly 'out' even as it sets this exceptional moment in the everyday intimacy and domesticity that most relationships share. The ad is actually part of a new digital campaign launched by the brand Myntra for its range of 'contemporary ethnic apparel' called Anouk.

Posted on June 25, 2015

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