Police Labor and Exploitation: Case Study of North India

2021 ◽  
pp. 487-511
Author(s):  
Beatrice Jauregui
Keyword(s):  
Uttar Pradesh ◽  
North India ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Excessive Force ◽  
World Region ◽  
Social Justice Movements ◽  
Police Personnel ◽  
Justice Movements ◽  
Official Police

This chapter analyzes data collected over more than two years of ethnographic fieldwork with police in north India. It argues that subordinate police personnel in this decolonizing world region often experience exploitation as laborers, even as they routinely deploy excessive force and sometimes misuse their authority to intervene in everyday life. The analysis reveals an imbrication of official police rank hierarchies with broader forms of social inequality (especially socioeconomic class, religion, and caste) through observations of interactions among police personnel of various ranks and interviews with current and former officers in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state. It also develops methodological concepts of “strategic complicity” and “critical empathy,” and suggests directions for future ethnographic research on policing that may help us discern the complexities of both local and global social justice movements and power relations.

Segregation as Efficiency? Group-Specific Institutions in North India

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-31
Author(s):  
Nirvikar Jassal
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Uttar Pradesh ◽  
Gender Issues ◽  
North India ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Female Administrators ◽  
Women Police ◽  
Victims Of Violence

A number of nations have instituted group-specific institutions or “enclaves” for women. The assumption underpinning such bodies—physically distinct, autonomous units in which constituent members belong entirely to a particular group—is that the segregation of female administrators will better serve the interests of women by isolating them from patriarchal norms and practices. I scrutinize this assumption by examining India's experience with all-women police stations, and carry out eight months of ethnographic research in and around police stations across the states of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. I find that while all-women police stations allow complainants to speak freely, they may also diminish capacity for female administrators working in law enforcement, create hurdles for victims of violence, and, in some ways, marginalize gender issues from the mainstream.

Constructing Conservative Identity: Peasant Mobilization Against Revolution In Nicaragua

2004 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynn Horton
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Revolutionary Change ◽  
Social Justice Movements ◽  
Justice Movements

This article explores the centrality of conservative "peasant" identity in the large-scale armed mobilization of rural Nicaraguans to oppose revolutionary change in the 1980s. Drawing on fieldwork in the municipio of Quilali, an epicenter of rural resistance, I argue that the construction of a grassroots "peasant" identity, its content and boundaries, was a contested process strongly influenced by dynamics of social class and shifting concentrations of social, military, and political power. This case study also highlights tensions between goals of recognition (in identity movements) and distribution (in social justice movements), and the dilemmas that conservative movements present for those who seek to evaluate, analytically and normatively, social movement impact.

Who is the true Halalkhor? Genealogy and ethics in dalit Muslim oral traditions

2017 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joel Lee
Keyword(s):  
Uttar Pradesh ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
North India ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Social Worlds ◽  
Islamic Ethics ◽  
Ethical Concept ◽  
The Social ◽  
Eastern Uttar Pradesh

The social worlds that dalit Muslims in North India daily negotiate are pervaded by contradictions between caste practices and Islamic ethics. Dalit Muslims engaged in manual scavenging and related forms of sanitation labour experience these contradictions acutely in the distinctive spatial and affective conditions of this labour, which I characterise as ‘intimate untouchability’. Grounded in historical and ethnographic research in eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, this article demonstrates how dalit Muslims use narratives mobilising the genealogical and ethical concept of the Halalkhor—a caste label that also denotes ‘one who earns an honest living’—to critique their higher status co-religionists and to engender a more egalitarian Islamic community. The category of the Halalkhor is tracked in the historical record and in its deployment in dalit Muslim oral traditions about the origin of the community and its association with sanitation work.

scholarly journals TEMPLE DESTRUCTION AND THE GREAT MUGHALS’ RELIGIOUS POLICY IN NORTH INDIA: A CASE STUDY OF BANARAS REGION, 1526-1707

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Parvez Alam
Keyword(s):  
Uttar Pradesh ◽  
North India ◽  
Religious Policy ◽  
Full Support ◽  
Northern India ◽  
Holy Places ◽  
History Of ◽  
Controversial Topic ◽  
Medieval India

Banaras also known as Varanasi (at present a district of Uttar Pradesh state, India) was a sarkar (district) under Allahabad Subah (province) during the great Mughals period (1526-1707). The great Mughals have immortal position for their contributions to Indian economic, society and culture, most important in the development of Ganga-Jamuni Tehzeeb (Hindustani culture). With the establishment of their state in Northern India, Mughal emperors had effected changes by their policies. One of them was their religious policy which is a very controversial topic though is very important to the history of medieval India. There are debates among the historians about it. According to one group, Mughals’ religious policy was very intolerance towards non-Muslims and their holy places, while the opposite group does not agree with it, and say that Mughlas adopted a liberal religious policy which was in favour of non-Muslims and their deities. In the context of Banaras we see the second view. As far as the destruction of temples is concerned was not the result of Mughals’ bigotry, but due to the contemporary political and social circumstances. Mostly temples were destroyed during the war time and under political reasons. This study is based on primary Persian sources and travelogues, perusal study of Faramin (decrees), and modern works done on the theme. Besides this, I have tried to derive accurate historical information from folklore, and have adopted an analytical approach. This article showed that Mughals’ religious policy was in favour of Pundits (priests), Hindu scholars and temples of Banaras; many ghats and temples were built in Banaras with the full support of Mughals. Aurangzeb made many grants both cashes and lands to priests and scholars of Banaras.

How Lives Change

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Himanshu ◽  
Peter Lanjouw ◽  
Nicholas Stern
Keyword(s):  
Green Revolution ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Uttar Pradesh ◽  
North India ◽  
Land Reforms ◽  
Key Drivers ◽  
Growth And Change ◽  
Development Outcomes ◽  
The Village

Development economics is about understanding how and why lives and livelihoods change. This book is about economic development in the village of Palanpur, in Moradabad district, Uttar Pradesh, in north India. It draws on seven decades of detailed data collection by a team of dedicated development economists to describe the evolution of Palanpur’s economy, its society, and its politics. The emerging story of integration of the village economy with the outside world is placed against the backdrop of a rapidly transforming India and, in turn, helps to understand the transformation. The role of, and scope for, public policy in shaping the lives of individuals is examined. The book describes how changes in Palanpur’s economy since the late 1950s were initially driven by the advance of agriculture through land reforms, the expansion of irrigation, and the introduction of ‘green revolution’ technologies. Then, since the mid-1980s, newly emerging off-farm opportunities in nearby towns and outside agriculture became the key drivers of growth and change. These key forces of change have profoundly influenced poverty, income mobility, and inequality in Palanpur. Village institutions such as those governing access to land are shown to have evolved in subtle but clear ways over time, while individual entrepreneurship and initiative is found to play a critical role in driving and responding to the forces of change. And yet, against a backdrop of real economic growth and structural transformation, the book documents how human development outcomes have shown only weak progress and remain stubbornly resistant to change.

Is Gay Tourism More Than Tourism? A Case Study of Puerto Vallarta, MX

2021 ◽  
pp. 016059762110140
Author(s):  
Emma G. Bailey
Keyword(s):  
Gay Men ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Gender And Race ◽  
Tourist Destinations ◽  
Gay Community ◽  
Men I ◽  
Oppressed Group ◽  
Normative Standard

The reasons gay men seek out gay travel destinations has been well established in the literature. However, less research has been published on the consequences of that travel on the destinations themselves and the effect of gay tourism on the LGBTQ+ community as a whole. I use ethnographic research in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, a popular international gay tourist destinations for American and Canadian gay men. I focus on how gay destinations are constructed as sites where members of the gay community can experience acceptance and inclusion and I ask the following questions, is this acceptance and inclusion dependent upon consumption? Are the tourist site and expectations for behavior in those sites oppressively normal? That is, does the site create a normative standard of behavior for gay tourists? Furthermore, while gay tourists may experience inclusion and a level of acceptance, how does gay tourism affect the destination site itself? Is this acceptance and inclusion problematized by larger systems of inequality such as class, gender, and race? Lastly, as members of a historically oppressed group, does and should gay tourism rise above its commodification to produce just, equitable relationships within and beyond the LGBTQ+ community including the environment?

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