In the shadows of the state : indigenous politics, environmentalism, and insurgency in Jharkhand, India

In The Shadow Of The State Suggests That Well-meaning Indigenous Rights And Development Claims And Interventions May Misrepresent And Hurt The Very People They Intend To Help. It Is A Powerful Critique Based On Extensive Ethnographic Research In Jharkhand, A State In Eastern India Officially Created In 2000. While The Realization Of An Independent Jharkhand Was The Culmination Of Years Of Local, Regional, And Transnational Activism For The Rights Of The Culturally Autonomous Indigenous People Living There, Alpa Shah Argues That The Activism Unintentionally Further Marginalized The Region's Poorest People. -- Back Cover. The Dark Side Of Indigeneity -- Not Just Ghosts : Democracy As Sacral Polity -- Shadowy Practices : Development As Corruption -- Dangerous Silhouettes : Elephants, Sacrifice, And Alcohol -- Night Escape : Eco-incarceration, Purity, And Sex -- The Terror Within : Revolution Against The State? -- Arcadian Spaces Beyond The Shadows Of The State. Alpa Shah. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.

In the Shadows of the State suggests that well-meaning indigenous rights and development claims and interventions may misrepresent and hurt the very people they intend to help. It is a powerful critique based on extensive ethnographic research in Jharkhand, a state in eastern India officially created in 2000. While the realization of an independent Jharkhand was the culmination of many years of local, regional, and transnational activism for the rights of the region’s culturally autonomous indigenous people, Alpa Shah argues that the activism unintentionally further marginalized the region’s poorest people. Drawing on a decade of ethnographic research in Jharkhand, she follows the everyday lives of some of the poorest villagers as they chase away protected wild elephants, try to cut down the forests they allegedly live in harmony with, maintain a healthy skepticism about the revival of the indigenous governance system, and seek to avoid the initial spread of an armed revolution of Maoist guerrillas who claim to represent them. Juxtaposing these experiences with the accounts of the village elites and the rhetoric of the urban indigenous-rights activists, Shah reveals a class dimension to the indigenous-rights movement, one easily lost in the cultural-based identity politics that the movement produces. In the Shadows of the State brings together ethnographic and theoretical analyses to show that the local use of global discourses of indigeneity often reinforces a class system that harms the poorest people.

Contents 8 List of Illustrations 10 Acknowledgments 12 Prologue 16 1. The Dark Side of Indigeneity 24 2. Not Just Ghosts 51 3. Shadowy Practices 81 4. Dangerous Silhouettes 114 5. Night Escape 145 6. The Terror Within 177 Epilogue 199 Glossary of Terms 206 Notes 208 Bibliography 252 Index 280 In,the,Shadows,of,the,State An argument that well-meaning indigenous rights and development claims and interventions may misrepresent and hurt the very people they seek to help, based on extensive ethnographic research in eastern India. Focusing on the adivasi people of eastern India, this work explores how well-meaning indigenous rights and development discourses can further marginalize the people they claim to speak for