1st Edition
Indigeneity, Marginality and the State in Bangladesh Homeless at Home
This book explores the critical linkages between indigeneity, marginality, and the state in Bangladesh. Indigeneity is progressively gaining currency in politics and thereby becoming an active force in the larger context of national activism with transnational patronage and international support. Drawing on comprehensive and solid ethnographic accounts, the book offers a broader understanding of the process of marginalisation and the emergence of new leadership among the Khumi, an indigenous group of Bangladesh. It illuminates how the Khumi have realised their position on the margin of the state within the socio-economic, political, and ethnic history of the Chittagong Hill Tracts. It also looks at how kin-based social organisations and non-kin-based social relations become bases of power and authority as well as cooperation and reciprocity in Khumi society.
Lucid and topical, the book will be of interest to scholars and researchers of indigenous studies, anthropology, ethnic studies, sociology, political sciences, international relations, border studies, and South Asian studies, especially those concerned with Bangladesh.
List of Figures vii Preface viii Acknowledgements xi Notes on Orthography xiii List of Glossary and Acronyms xiv List of Abbreviations xvi 1 Introduction: A Triplicate Relation: Power, Marginality, and Leadership in Khumi Life 1 2 Colonial Fantasy in Postcolonial Trajectories: Emergence of Khumi and Their Indigenous Mobility Across History 32 3 The Local Installation of Global Indigeneity: Rights, Entitlements, and Activism in Khumi Life 56 4 In Search of Self: Khumi Identity, Indigeneity, and Cultural Politics in Bangladesh 77 5 A Life Better Than Before: Khumi Theory of “Development” by Reshaping Social and Material Life 92 6 Local Dynamics of Politics: Social Relations, Power, and Reciprocity in the Khumi World 119 7 Moving From the Margin: The Khumi Art of Resistance and Resilience 149 8 Conclusion: Indigeneity, Marginality, and the State 176 Appendices 185 Bibliography 200 Index 209
Biography
Nasir Uddin is a cultural anthropologist based in Bangladesh and a Professor of Anthropology at the University of Chittagong. Uddin carried out research in many universities including Oxford University, SOAS, Johns Hopkins University, LSE, University of Sydney, Ruhr University of Bochum, Heidelberg University, Kyoto University, VU University Amsterdam, University of Hull, University of Delhi and Dhaka University. He is widely known as the theorist of “subhuman life.”
