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In Amma's Healing Room: Gender and Vernacular Islam in South India
by Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger"[I]t is extremely salubrious to see the ways Islam works in the lives of ordinary people who are not politicized in their religious lives. . . . No other book on South Asia has material like this." —Ann Grodzins GoldIn Amma's Healing Room is a compelling study of the life and thought of a female Muslim spiritual healer in Hyderabad, South India. Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger describes Amma's practice as a form of vernacular Islam arising in a particular locality, one in which the boundaries between Islam, Hinduism, and Christianity are fluid. In the "healing room," Amma meets a diverse clientele that includes men and women, Muslim, Hindu, and Christian, of varied social backgrounds, who bring a wide range of physical, social, and psychological afflictions. Flueckiger collaborated closely with Amma and relates to her at different moments as daughter, disciple, and researcher. The result is a work of insight and compassion that challenges widely held views of religion and gender in India and reveals the creativity of a tradition often portrayed by Muslims and non-Muslims alike as singular and monolithic.
In an Ideal Business: How the Ideas of 10 Female Philosophers Bring Value into the Workplace (IE Business Publishing)
by Santiago IñiguezBusiness decisions are not just based on abstract theories or models. They reflect a world view of how a company operates and the philosophy of management that it follows. Even denying any connection between management and values is a philosophical statement in itself.Santiago Iñiguez de Onzoño, President of the prestigious IE Business School, looks to the greatest female philosophers from modern history to help us bring purpose and meaning back into the workplace and management education. He shows how their pioneering work can be applied in specific situations, from Iris Murdoch’s emphasis on compassion to Hannah Arendt’s work on making the world more human, each philosopher can, in a very practical way, help inform your own approach to work and life. Packed with examples, personal stories and anecdotes from some of the world’s most influential companies and women in business, this book examines how the contributions from female philosophers stand up in the real world, helping to drive inclusion, diversity and ultimately, innovation.
In an Outpost of the Global Economy: Work and Workers in India's Information Technology Industry
by Carol Upadhya A. R. VasaviWhile much has been written on the growth of information technology (IT) and IT-enabled services in India, little is known about the people who work in these industries, about the nature of the work itself, and about its wider social and cultural ramifications. The papers in this collection combine empirical research with theoretical insight to fill this gap and explore questions about the trajectory of globalization in India. The themes covered include: (a) sourcing and social structuring of the new global workforce; (b) the work process, work culture, regimes of control and resistance in IT-enabled industries; (c) work, culture and identity; (d) nations, borders and cross-border flows.
In and Of the Mediterranean: Medieval and Early Modern Iberian Studies (Hispanic Issues)
by Michelle M. Hamilton Nuria Silleras-FernandezThe Iberian Peninsula has always been an integral part of the Mediterranean world, from the age of Tartessos and the Phoenicians to our own era and the Union for the Mediterranean. The cutting-edge essays in this volume examine what it means for medieval and early modern Iberia and its people to be considered as part of the Mediterranean.
In and Of the Mediterranean: Medieval and Early Modern Iberian Studies (Hispanic Issues)
by Michelle M. Hamilton and Núria Silleras-FernándezThe Iberian Peninsula has always been an integral part of the Mediterranean world, from the age of Tartessos and the Phoenicians to our own era and the Union for the Mediterranean. The cutting-edge essays in this volume examine what it means for medieval and early modern Iberia and its people to be considered as part of the Mediterranean.
In and Out of This World: Material and Extraterrestrial Bodies in the Nation of Islam (Religious Cultures of African and African Diaspora People)
by Stephen C. FinleyWith In and Out of This World Stephen C. Finley examines the religious practices and discourses that have shaped the Nation of Islam (NOI) in America. Drawing on the speeches and writing of figures such as Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, Warith Deen Mohammad, and Louis Farrakhan, Finley shows that the NOI and its leaders used multiple religious symbols, rituals, and mythologies meant to recast the meaning of the cosmos and create new transcendent and immanent black bodies whose meaning cannot be reduced to products of racism. Whether examining how the myth of Yakub helped Elijah Muhammad explain the violence directed at black bodies, how Malcolm X made black bodies in the NOI publicly visible, or the ways Farrakhan’s discourses on his experiences with the Mother Wheel UFO organize his interpretation of black bodies, Finley demonstrates that the NOI intended to retrieve, reclaim, and reform black bodies in a context of antiblack violence.
In and Out: Rights of Migrants in the European Space (UNIPA Springer Series)
by Francesco Lo Piccolo Annalisa Mangiaracina Giuseppe Paternostro Vincenzo TodaroThis book examines contemporary migratory movements, starting from the European zone, but with an extension to other territorial contexts as well, with research orientation that focuses on the account of the migratory experiences collected in the research activity of the different authors, according to a multidisciplinary dimension. Starting from these key topics, the authors articulated and further developed its reflections through its own experiences at the national and international level, taking root within the current scientific debate on migration. The interdisciplinary approach and the different and innovative ways of analysing in depth the thematic contents of the migration phenomenon have made it possible to identify some key research questions. The relative answers find space in the articulated and complex system of contributions that is developed within this book and in particular in the three thematic parts into which it is divided. The first one deals with the theme of migration confronted with issues related to the 'right to the city' and the 'right to housing'; the second one deals with issues related to human rights; finally, the third one focuses on the different narratives of migrants' life experiences and aspects related to the linguistic representation of the urban space.
In Bed with the Victorians
by Vicky HolmesThis book examines the life-cycle of Victorian working-class marriage through a study of the hitherto hidden marital bed. Using coroners' inquests to gain intimate access to the working-class home and its inhabitants, this book explores their marital, quasi-marital, and post-marital beds to reveal the material, domestic, and emotional experience of working-class marriage during everyday life and at times of crisis. Drawing on the recent approach of utilising domestic objects to explore interpersonal relationships, the marital bed not only provides a rereading of the experiences of the working-class wife but also brings the much maligned or simply overlooked working-class husband into the picture. Moreover, it also extends our understanding of the various marriage-like arrangements existing throughout this class. Moving through the marital life-cycle, this book provides a greater understanding of marriages from the outset, during childbirth, at times of strife and marital breakdown, and upon the death of a spouse.
The In-Between Spaces of Asylum and Migration: A Participatory Visual Approach
by Zoë O’ReillyBased on ethnographic research with asylum seekers living in a ‘direct provision’ centre in Ireland, and comprising participatory visual methods, this work offers a unique examination of the ‘direct provision’ system that analyses the tensions between exclusion and marginalization, and involvement and engagement with local communities. It gives voice to the perspectives of residents themselves through an analysis of photographic images and texts created by the participants of the project, providing fresh insight into the everyday experiences of living in these liminal zones between borders, and the various forms of attachment, engagement and belonging that they create. While the book’s empirical focus is on the Irish context, the analysis sheds light on broader policies and experiences of exclusion and the increasing number of liminal spaces between and within borders in which people seeking protection wait. Situated at the intersection of social anthropology, human geography and participatory arts and visual culture, it will appeal to scholars and students focusing on migration and asylum, ethnicity and integration, as well as those with an interest in participatory and visual research methods.
In-Between Worlds: Performing [as] Bauls in an Age of Extremism (Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies)
by Sukanya ChakrabartiThis book examines the performance of Bauls ‘folk’ performers from Bengal, in the context of a rapidly globalizing Indian economy and against the backdrop of extreme nationalistic discourses. Recognizing their scope beyond the musical and cultural realm, Sukanya Chakrabarti engages in discussing the subversive and transformational potency of Bauls and their performances. In-Between Worlds argues that the Bauls through their musical, spiritual, and cultural performances offer ‘joy’ and ‘spirituality,’ thus making space for what Dr. Ambedkar in his famous 1942 speech had identified as ‘reclamation of human personality’. Chakrabarti destabilizes the category of ‘folk’ as a fixed classification or an origin point, and fractures homogeneous historical representations of the Baul as a ‘folk’ performer and a wandering mendicant exposing the complex heterogeneity that characterizes this group. Establishing ‘folk-ness’ as a performance category, and ‘folk festivals’ as sites of performing ‘folk-ness,’ contributing to a heritage industry that thrives on imagined and recreated nostalgia, Chakrabarti examines different sites that produce varied performative identities of Bauls, probing the limits of such categories while simultaneously advocating for polyvocality and multifocality. While this project has grounded itself firmly in performance studies, it has borrowed extensively from fields of postcolonial studies and subaltern histories, literature, ethnography and ethnomusicology, and cosmopolitan studies.
In-Betweenness in Greater Khartoum: Spaces, Temporalities, and Identities from Separation to Revolution (Space and Place #20)
by Alice Franck, Barbara Casciarri Idris Salim El-HassanFocusing on Greater Khartoum following South Sudanese independence in 2011, In-Betweenness in Greater Khartoum explores the impact on society of major political events in areas that are neither urban nor rural, public nor private. This volume uses these in-between spaces as a lens to analyze how these events, in combination with other processes, such as globalization and economic neo-liberalization, impact communities across the region. Drawing on original fieldwork and empirical data, the authors uncover the reshaping of new categories of people that reinforce old dichotomies and in doing so underscore a common Sudanese identity.
The In-Betweens: The Spiritualists, Mediums, And Legends Of Camp Etna
by Mira PtacinA young writer travels to Maine to tell the unusual story of America’s longest-running camp devoted to mysticism and the world beyond. <P><P> They believed they would live forever. So begins Mira Ptacin’s haunting account of the women of Camp Etna—an otherworldly community in the woods of Maine that has, since 1876, played host to generations of Spiritualists and mediums dedicated to preserving the links between the mortal realm and the afterlife. Beginning her narrative in 1848 with two sisters who claimed they could speak to the dead, Ptacin reveals how Spiritualism first blossomed into a national practice during the Civil War, yet continues—even thrives—to this very day. Immersing herself in this community and its practices—from ghost hunting to releasing trapped spirits to water witching— Ptacin sheds new light on our ongoing struggle with faith, uncertainty, and mortality. Blending memoir, ethnography, and investigative reportage, The In-Betweens offers a vital portrait of Camp Etna and its enduring hold on a modern culture that remains as starved for a deeper sense of connection and otherworldliness as ever.
In Black and White: A Young Barrister's Story of Race and Class in a Broken Justice System
by Alexandra Wilson**NOW WITH NEW AFTERWORD AND READING GROUP QUESTIONS**'An absolute triumph; a compelling and courageous memoir forcing the legal profession to confront uncomfortable truths about race and class. Alexandra Wilson is a bold and vital voice. This is a book that urgently needs to be read by everyone inside, and outside, the justice system.' THE SECRET BARRISTER Alexandra Wilson was a teenager when her dear family friend Ayo was stabbed on his way home from football. Ayo's death changed Alexandra. She felt compelled to enter the legal profession in search of answers. As a junior criminal and family law barrister, Alexandra finds herself navigating a world and a set of rules designed by a privileged few. A world in which fellow barristers sigh with relief when a racist judge retires: 'I've got a black kid today and he would have had no hope'. In her debut book, In Black and White, Alexandra re-creates the tense courtroom scenes, the heart-breaking meetings with teenage clients, and the moments of frustration and triumph that make up a young barrister's life. Alexandra shows us how it feels to defend someone who hates the colour of your skin, or someone you suspect is guilty. We see what it is like for children coerced into county line drug deals and the damage that can be caused when we criminalise teenagers. Alexandra's account of what she has witnessed as a young mixed-race barrister is in equal parts shocking, compelling, confounding and powerful. 'An inspirational, clear-eyed account of life as a junior barrister is made all the more exceptional by the determination, passion, humanity and drive of the author. Anyone interested in seeing how the law really works should read it.' SARAH LANGFORD'This is the story of a young woman who overcame all the obstacles a very old profession could throw at her, and she survived, with her integrity intact.' BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH(P)Octopus Publishing Group 2020
In Black and White: A Young Barrister's Story of Race and Class in a Broken Justice System
by Alexandra Wilson'An absolute triumph; a compelling and courageous memoir forcing the legal profession to confront uncomfortable truths about race and class. Alexandra Wilson is a bold and vital voice. This is a book that urgently needs to be read by everyone inside, and outside, the justice system.' THE SECRET BARRISTER 'A riveting book in the best tradition of courtroom dramas but from the fresh perspective of a young female mixed-race barrister. That Alexandra is "often" mistaken for the defendant shows how important her presence at the bar really is.' MATT RUDD, THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE'This is the story of a young woman who overcame all the obstacles a very old profession could throw at her, and she survived, with her integrity intact.' BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAHAlexandra Wilson was a teenager when her dear family friend Ayo was stabbed on his way home from football. Ayo's death changed Alexandra. She felt compelled to enter the legal profession in search of answers. As a junior criminal and family law barrister, Alexandra finds herself navigating a world and a set of rules designed by a privileged few. A world in which fellow barristers sigh with relief when a racist judge retires: 'I've got a black kid today and he would have had no hope'. In her debut book, In Black and White, Alexandra re-creates the tense courtroom scenes, the heart-breaking meetings with teenage clients, and the moments of frustration and triumph that make up a young barrister's life. Alexandra shows us how it feels to defend someone who hates the colour of your skin, or someone you suspect is guilty. We see what it is like for children coerced into county line drug deals and the damage that can be caused when we criminalise teenagers. Alexandra's account of what she has witnessed as a young mixed-race barrister is in equal parts shocking, compelling, confounding and powerful. 'An inspirational, clear-eyed account of life as a junior barrister is made all the more exceptional by the determination, passion, humanity and drive of the author. Anyone interested in seeing how the law really works should read it.' SARAH LANGFORD'The personal narrative of a young female lawyer of mixed heritage who is defying the soft bigotry of low expectations by sharing her journey inspires us all to do the same in our own way, and this is a powerful message which needs to be shared.' DR TUNDE OKEWALE MBE, FOUNDER OF URBAN LAWYERS'A refreshingly honest account of the challenges faced by a young female barrister of mixed heritage' JUDY KHAN QC, JOINT HEAD OF GARDEN COURT CHAMBERS
In Camps: Vietnamese Refugees, Asylum Seekers, and Repatriates (Critical Refugee Studies #1)
by Jana K. LipmanAfter the US war in Vietnam, close to 800,000 Vietnamese left the country by boat, survived, and sought refuge throughout Southeast Asia and the Pacific. This is the story of what happened in the camps. In Camps raises key questions that remain all too relevant today: Who is a refugee? Who determines this status? And how does it change over time? From Guam to Malaysia and the Philippines to Hong Kong, In Camps is the first major work on Vietnamese refugee policy to pay close attention to host territories and to explore Vietnamese activism in the camps and the diaspora. This book explains how Vietnamese were transformed from de facto refugees to individual asylum seekers to repatriates. Ambitiously covering people on the ground—local governments, teachers, and corrections officers—as well as powerful players such as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the US government, Jana Lipman shows that the local politics of first asylum sites often drove international refugee policy. Unsettling most accounts of Southeast Asian migration to the US, In Camps instead emphasizes the contingencies inherent in refugee policy and experiences.
In Care and After: A Positive Perspective (Anthropology And Sociology Ser.)
by Elaine Chase Antonia Simon Sonia JacksonBased on research from the Thomas Coram Research Unit, the contributors to this text look at the views and experiences of young people and provide an encouraging outlook of what those in care have the potential to achieve. Those factors that help to result in more successful outcomes are identified, and policy recommendations are made, for enabling young people in and leaving care to triumph when the odds are stacked against them. In Care and After adds a new dimension to the current literature on local authority care of young people and children. Those working within the fields of social care, health and education as well as students on social work courses will find this essential reading and a welcome addition.
In Case of Emergency: How Technologies Mediate Crisis and Normalize Inequality
by Elizabeth EllcessorA much-needed look at the growth of emergency media and its impact on our livesIn an emergency, we often look to media: to contact authorities, to get help, to monitor evolving situations, or to reach out to our loved ones. Sometimes we aren’t even aware of an emergency until we are notified by one of the countless alerts, alarms, notifications, sirens, text messages, or phone calls that permeate everyday life. Yet most people have only a partial understanding of how such systems make sense of and act upon an “emergency.” In Case of Emergency argues that emergency media are profoundly cultural artifacts that shape the very definition of “emergency” as an opposite of “normal.” Looking broadly across a range of contemporary emergency-related devices, practices, and services, Elizabeth Ellcessor illuminates the cultural and political underpinnings and socially differential effects of emergency media. By interweaving in-depth interviews with emergency-operation and app-development experts, archival materials, and discursive and technological readings of hardware and infrastructures, Ellcessor demonstrates that emergency media are powerful components of American life that are rarely, if ever, neutral. The normalization of ideologies produced and reinforced by emergency media result in unequal access to emergency services and discriminatory assumptions about who or what is a threat and who deserves care and protection. As emergency media undergo massive growth and transformation in response to digitization and attendant entrepreneurial cultures, Ellcessor asks where access, equity, and accountability fit in all of this. The first book to develop a typology of emergency media, In Case of Emergency opens a much-needed conversation around the larger cultural meanings of “emergency,” and what an ethical and care-based approach to emergency could entail.
In China's Wake: How the Commodity Boom Transformed Development Strategies in the Global South
by Nicholas JepsonIn the early 2000s, Chinese demand for imported commodities ballooned as the country continued its breakneck economic growth. Simultaneously, global markets in metals and fuels experienced a boom of unprecedented extent and duration. Meanwhile, resource-rich states in the Global South from Argentina to Angola began to advance a range of new development strategies, breaking away from the economic orthodoxies to which they had long appeared tied.In China’s Wake reveals the surprising connections among these three phenomena. Nicholas Jepson shows how Chinese demand not only transformed commodity markets but also provided resource-rich states with the financial leeway to set their own policy agendas, insulated from the constraints and pressures of capital markets and multilateral creditors such as the International Monetary Fund. He combines analysis of China-led structural change with fine-grained detail on how the boom played out across fifteen different resource-rich countries. Jepson identifies five types of response to boom conditions among resource exporters, each one corresponding to a particular pattern of domestic social and political dynamics. Three of these represent fundamental breaks with dominant liberal orthodoxy—and would have been infeasible without spiraling Chinese demand. Jepson also examines the end of the boom and its consequences, as well as the possible implications of future China-driven upheavals. Combining a novel theoretical approach with detailed empirical analysis at national and global scales, In China’s Wake is an important contribution to global political economy and international development studies.
In Chocolate We Trust: The Hershey Company Town Unwrapped (Contemporary Ethnography)
by Peter KurieIn Chocolate We Trust takes readers inside modern-day Hershey, Pennsylvania, headquarters of the iconic Hershey brand. A destination for chocolate enthusiasts since the early 1900s, Hershey has transformed from a model industrial town into a multifaceted suburbia powered by philanthropy. At its heart lies the Milton Hershey School Trust, a charitable trust with a mandate to serve "social orphans" and a $12 billion endowment amassed from Hershey Company profits. The trust is a longstanding source of pride for people who call Hershey home and revere its benevolent capitalist founder—but in recent years it has become a subject of controversy and intrigue.Using interviews, participant observation, and archival research, anthropologist Peter Kurie returns to his hometown to examine the legacy of the Hershey Trust among local residents, company employees, and alumni of the K-12 Milton Hershey School. He arrives just as a scandal erupts that raises questions about the outsized power of the private trust over public life. Kurie draws on diverse voices across the community to show how philanthropy stirs passions and interests well beyond intended beneficiaries. In Chocolate We Trust reveals the cultural significance of Hershey as a forerunner to socially conscious corporations and the cult of the entrepreneur-philanthropist. The Hershey story encapsulates the dreams and wishes of today's consumer-citizens: the dream of becoming personally successful, and the wish that the most affluent among us will serve the common good.
In The Company Of Black Men: The African Influence on African American Culture in New York City
by Craig Steven WilderFrom the subaltern assemblies of the enslaved in colonial New York City to the benevolent New York African Society of the early national era to the formation of the African Blood Brotherhood in twentieth century Harlem, voluntary associations have been a fixture of African-American communities. In the Company of Black Men examines New York City over three centuries to show that enslaved Africans provided the institutional foundation upon which African-American religious, political, and social culture could flourish. Arguing that the universality of the voluntary tradition in African-American communities has its basis in collectivism--a behavioral and rhetorical tendency to privilege the group over the individual--it explores the institutions that arose as enslaved Africans exploited the potential for group action and mass resistance. Craig Steven Wilder's research is particularly exciting in its assertion that Africans entered the Americas equipped with intellectual traditions and sociological models that facilitated a communitarian response to oppression. Presenting a dramatic shift from previous work which has viewed African-American male associations as derivative and imitative of white male counterparts, In the Company of Black Men provides a ground-breaking template for investigating antebellum black institutions.
In The Company Of Media: Cultural Constructions Of Communication, 1920's To 1930's
by Hanno HardtThis book explores the imaginative construction of a cultural history of the media in a series of essays that draw on various artistic and intellectual narratives of Western societies and trace incidental encounters with the means of social communication in cultural and political settings.
In The Company Of Men: Male Dominance And Sexual Harassment (Northeastern Series On Gender, Crime, And Law Ser.)
by James E. Gruber Phoebe MorganDespite over twenty years of discussion and study, sexual harassment remains a significant problem in the workplace. Current research focusing on organizational policy and women's career development often ignores the reality of male dominance, prevalent in areas such as the military, the police, and firefighting-occupations that see not only more frequent but also more severe harassment, even sexual assault. Meanwhile, new evidence points to the fact that men are largely responsible not only for the harassment of women but for most harassment of other men as well. This landmark collection of original essays investigates the links between male dominance and sexual harassment in light of new research and more complex understandings of masculinity. Treated not merely as a matter of worker sex ratios but as an inherent element of workplace culture, male dominance is observed from a variety of quantitative and qualitative approaches ranging from criminology and sociology to psychology and gender studies. Integrating both men's and women's viewpoints, research across occupational groups, and studies from both the United States and Europe, the chapters provide an invaluable international perspective into two inextricably intertwined problems rooted in cultural constructions of gender and institutional roles and processes.
In Conversation with Karen Barad: Doings of Agential Realism (Postqualitative, New Materialist and Critical Posthumanist Research)
by Karin Murris Vivienne BozalekIn Conversation with Karen Barad: Doings of Agential Realism is an accessible introduction to Karen Barad’s agential realist philosophy. The authors take on a unique approach to involve the readers in in/formal conversations between Karen, postgraduate and other researchers at a research event held in 2017 at Cape Town, South Africa. It features chapters that have been contributed by seminar delegates and organisers, which put forth the continuing impact that Karen Barad has had on their empirical work, research writing and drawing practices. The text further discusses the ethical and political significance of Karen’s work, especially in the context of de/colonizing South African higher education. The chapters offer a series of worked posthumanist pedagogical examples and describe how a research seminar was organised differently and more in line with Baradian radical philosophy. At its heart, this book makes a methodological and pedagogical contribution to the surge in literature on agential realism, whilst simultaneously challenging dominant research binaries and arguing for a more egalitarian way of working together in knowledge-creation by troubling human and more-than-human hierarchies. The book’s uniqueness is further fortified through its description of in/formal conversations, which are diffracted through chapters, a doing of agential realism to reconfigure relationships between lecturer and student, expert and novice, supervisor and supervised, researcher and research participants. These radical conversations are dis/continuing. This book will be invaluable for students and individuals interested in advancing their understanding of agential realism and Karen Barad’s influence at large, as well as students and scholars interested in postqualitative methods in all disciplines.
In Crime's Archive: The Cultural Afterlife of Evidence
by Katherine BiberThis book investigates what happens to criminal evidence after the conclusion of legal proceedings. During the criminal trial, evidentiary material is tightly regulated; it is formally regarded as part of the court record, and subject to the rules of evidence and criminal procedure. However, these rules and procedures cannot govern or control this material after proceedings have ended. In its ‘afterlife’, criminal evidence continues to proliferate in cultural contexts. It might be photographic or video evidence, private diaries and correspondence, weapons, physical objects or forensic data, and it arouses the interest of journalists, scholars, curators, writers or artists. Building on a growing cultural interest in criminal archival materials, this book shows how in its afterlife, criminal evidence gives rise to new uses and interpretations, new concepts and questions, many of which are creative and transformative of crime and evidence, and some of which are transgressive, dangerous or insensitive. It takes the judicial principle of open justice – the assumption that justice must be seen to be done – and investigates instances in which we might see too much, too little or from a distorted angle. It centres upon a series of case studies, including those of Lindy Chamberlain and, more recently, Oscar Pistorius, in which criminal evidence has re-appeared outside of the criminal process. Traversing museums, libraries, galleries and other repositories, and drawing on extensive interviews with cultural practitioners and legal professionals, this book probes the legal, ethical, affective and aesthetic implications of the cultural afterlife of evidence.
In Custody
by Nitya RamakrishnanIn Custody examines the professed and actual commitment to custodial justice on the part of six South Asian countries. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan have all been affected by the geopolitics of colonialism. Nineteenth century Europe is often simplistically seen as the ideological source of the rights discourse in South Asia. But, like any ideological theme, the discourse on rights is also a negotiated space. Resistance created a need to justify imperialism by importing a purpose to it. Regulation of policing was the coloniser's superior norm, and also, his tool of control. The erstwhile colonies inherited the practice of affirming norms while systems enabled their breach. Which is not to say that the purpose of norms is merely hypocritical; political struggles and intellectual discourse have, over the years, ensured the recognition of human rights in international instruments, national charters and even in the very pretexts for their breach. Though human rights are inalienable, the modern state has been uniformly guarded in its response to their imperatives. This book traces the historical and contemporary nature of the conflict between the norm and its practice. Constitutions, statutes and mechanisms of justice are reviewed with case studies and interviews that illustrate the many layers of impunity.