scholarly journals KORA COMMUNITY AND THEIR EDUCATION IN WEST BENGAL: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY.

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 1285-1297
Author(s):  
Biswajit Goswami ◽  
Keyword(s):  
West Bengal ◽  
Ethnographic Study

scholarly journals How can traditional livelihoods find a place in contemporary conservation politics debates in India? Understanding community perspectives in Sundarban, West Bengal

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 861 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amrita Sen ◽  
Sarmistha Pattanaik
Keyword(s):  
Political Ecology ◽  
West Bengal ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Environmental Knowledge ◽  
Cultural Integrity ◽  
Community Perspectives ◽  
Indian Sundarban ◽  
Conservation Politics ◽  
Ecological Relations ◽  
Conservation Conflict

Abstract We document the economic and socio-cultural vulnerability of a forest-dependent community inhabiting the forest fringe island of Satjelia in the Indian Sundarban. Using simple artisanal methods, they have practiced traditional livelihoods like fishing and collecting wild honey from the forests for more than a century. Despite having established cultural integrity and traditional occupations, this group is not indigenous, and are therefore treated as 'others' and 'settlers.' An ethnographic study describes these various forms of livelihoods and the ways that threatens local subsistence. We also document the bureaucratic and hierarchical structure of protected area (PA) management, showing it has little or no accommodation of this community's local traditional knowledge. Finally, we ask whether there is any scope for integrating 'non-indigenous' environmental knowledge, for a more egalitarian transformation of socio ecological relations within these communities. Keywords: Conservation, conflict, indigenous, political ecology, Sundarban, traditional livelihoods

scholarly journals Everyday Lives in Peripheral Spaces: A Case of Bengal Borderlands

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-23
Author(s):  
Sampurna Bhaumik
Keyword(s):  
South Asian ◽  
West Bengal ◽  
Special Section ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Border Studies ◽  
Social Spaces ◽  
The West ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Everyday Lives ◽  
Borderland Communities

This article (part of a special section on South Asian border studies) is an ethnographic study of the daily lives and narratives of borderlands communities in the border districts of Cooch Behar and South Dinajpur along the West-Bengal–Bangladesh border. In order to emphasise the significance of borderland communities’ narratives and experiences to our understanding of borders, this paper explores the idea of borders as social spaces that are inherently dynamic. In attempting to understand the idea of borders through everyday lives of people living in borderland communities, this paper highlights tensions and contradictions between hard borders manifested through securitization practices, and the inherently dynamic social spaces that manifest themselves in people’s daily lives. Conceptually and thematically, this paper is situated within and seeks to contribute to the discipline of borderland studies. Key Words: Borders, Social Spaces, Security, Bengal Borderlands, South Asia 

Caste and power: An ethnography in West Bengal, India

2011 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 947-974 ◽  
Author(s):  
DAYABATI ROY
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
West Bengal ◽  
Influencing Factor ◽  
State Politics ◽  
Division Of Labour ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Grass Roots ◽  
Indian State ◽  
Micro Level

AbstractThis paper explores the institution of caste and its operation in a micro-level village setting of West Bengal, an Indian state, where state politics at grass roots level is vibrant with functioning local self-government and entrenched political parties. This ethnographic study reveals that caste relations and caste identities have overarching dimensions in the day-to-day politics of the study villages. Though caste almost ceases to operate in relation to strict religious strictures, under economic compulsion the division of labour largely coincides with caste division. In the cultural–ideological field, the concept of caste-hierarchy seems to continue as an influencing factor, even in the operation of leftist politics.

Driving Social Change Through Forum Theatre: A Study of Jana Sanskriti in West Bengal, India

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 164-177
Author(s):  
Jharna Brahma ◽  
Vinod Pavarala ◽  
Vasuki Belavadi
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
West Bengal ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Augusto Boal ◽  
Participatory Communication ◽  
Forum Theatre ◽  
Indian State ◽  
Health Related ◽  
Communication For Social Change ◽  
The Spectator

This article examines Forum Theatre as a form of participatory communication for social change. Based on an ethnographic study of Jana Sanskriti ( JS), a Forum Theatre group working for over three decades in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal, this article seeks to show how this form of theatre, developed by the Brazilian activist Augusto Boal, subverts the passivity inherent in the communicator–receiver model of the dominant paradigm by activating the critical consciousness of the spectator and triggering a process of social change through dialogue and discussion. JS has been using Forum Theatre to address some of the deeply entrenched social norms in rural West Bengal, including those related to patriarchy, child marriage, domestic violence, and maternal and child health related issues, by extending Boal’s notion of the ‘spect-actor’ to encourage the spectators to become ‘spect-activists’, who then are engaged in community-level work on social change. We suggest that this form of communication is clearly bottom-up, radically participatory, community-based and led by the oppressed, as has been advocated by several scholars working on communication for social change.

scholarly journals THE STREAMYARD CYPHERS: ONLINE PLACE-MAKING WITHIN AN INDIAN HIP HOP COMMUNITY

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pradip Kiran Sarkar
Keyword(s):  
Hip Hop ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
West Bengal ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Place Making ◽  
Third Place ◽  
Hip Hop Culture ◽  
Indian State ◽  
Internet Connections

This paper presents an ethnographic account of how a community of Bengali-speaking rappers called the Cypher Projekt, based in the Indian state of West Bengal, attempted to create an online place for conducting cyphers during India’s harsh lockdowns in 2020. As an integral practice in Hip Hop culture, a rap cypher is akin to a poetry slam and typically held in physical locations where proximity between rappers is key to lyrical improvisation and competitive engagement. The Covid-19 lockdowns imposed throughout India in 2020 forced this community of Indian rappers to explore online environments for conducting the cyphers. However, due to infrastructural constraints related to latency in Internet connections, the cyphers were replaced with informal discussion sessions. These sessions were referred to as the Streamyard cyphers, owing to use of the free version of a web-enabled video-conferencing application called Streamyard. The ethnographic study revealed how the online sessions served as lively informal hangouts for members of the community, in line with several characteristics of Ray Oldenberg’s third place. However, there were other crucial aspects that did not meet the characteristics of a third place, which necessitated the explanatory power offered by the Indian social practice of the adda. The Streamyard cyphers clearly offered a vibrant third place for the undertaking of addas amid the Covid-induced Indian lockdowns of 2020. While Oldenburg’s notion of the third place still holds relevance for the examination of informal sociality, in the Global South, its application requires augmentation with scholarly analyses of social practices in specific sociocultural contexts.

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