The Gaddi Beyond Pastoralism

Making Place in the Indian Himalayas
1. Auflage 2013
ISBN: 978-0-85745-929-9
Verlag: Berghahn Books

Buch, Englisch, 214 Seiten, Format (B × H): 157 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 471 g

The Gaddi of North India are agro-pastoralists who rear sheep and goats following a seasonal migration around the first Himalayan range. While studies on pastoralists have focused either on the pastoralists’ adaptation to their physical environment or treated the environment from a symbolic perspective, this book offers a new, holistic perspective that analyzes the ways in which people “make” place. Based on extensive fieldwork, this book not only describes a contemporary understanding of the Gaddi’s engagement with the environment but also analyzes religious practices and performances of social relations, as well as media practices and notions of aesthetics. Thereby, the landscape in which the Gaddi live is understood as a network of places that is constantly being built and rebuilt through these local practices. The book contributes to the growing interest in approaches of practice within environmental anthropology.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Wagner, Anja

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Ethnologie Umwelt und Kultur, Kulturökologie
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde Historische & Regionale Volkskunde

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgements

Note on transliteration and spelling

Abbreviations

Introduction

Chapter 1. The study of environment reconsidered

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Rethinking nature and society – toward an anthropology of environment

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Between adaptation and ideology: Himalayan pastoralism in the literature

Chapter 2. The Gaddi in images

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Popular imagery

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Ethnographic representations

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Evaluation of popular representations

Chapter 3. A sheep for Shiva

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Living like Siv-ji - Shiva and Gaddi identity

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A sheep for Shiva – the nuala ritual

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Identity and performative creation of community

Chapter 4. Doing kinship, doing place

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Seasonal migration and ancestral villages

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Belonging to multiple places

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Ancestral villages and family deities

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Kinship and the inside space

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How children do kinship and plac

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Kinship, place and habitus

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Extending networks, accessing new territory

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The landscape of the Dhauladhar – from metaphor to practice

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Excursus: Walking

Chapter 5. Visiting the deities, enacting the mountains

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"Gaddi deities"

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"To go with a goat" – jagraand jatar

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Gune Mata and Banni Mata

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Enacting environment through movements

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High altitude lakes, nag deities and the practice of nhaun

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Power of place – performing altitude

Chapter 6. Environment and the body – understanding "water change"

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The phenomenon of "water change"

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On the connection between person and place in India

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Ethnographic findings: The concept of adat

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Getting attuned to place

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Water as a vehicle

Chapter 7. Cool water, short green grass and fir trees – the aesthetics of environment

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The aesthetics of environment

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"Good" places – the mountains revisited

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Environmental aesthetics in photographic motifs

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What is in a picture? Photography as socially defined practice

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Gaddi photography collections

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On the meaning of short green grass and fir trees

Conclusion: Doing place

Appendix

Glossary

Bibliography

Über Autor(innen)

Wagner, Anja
Anja Wagner is Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Münster. She received her doctoral degree in anthropology from the University of Heidelberg, and her studies have been supported by a scholarship from the German National Academic Foundation. She is the vice-spokesperson of the Himalayan studies group of the German Anthropological Association.

Anja Wagner is Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Münster. She received her doctoral degree in anthropology from the University of Heidelberg, and her studies have been supported by a scholarship from the German National Academic Foundation. She is the vice-spokesperson of the Himalayan studies group of the German Anthropological Association.