1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910784412003321

Autore

Das Veena

Titolo

Life and words [[electronic resource] ] : violence and the descent into the ordinary / / Veena Das ; foreword by Stanley Cavell

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Berkeley, : University of California Press, c2007

ISBN

9786612358401

1-282-35840-5

0-520-93953-0

1-4294-1914-8

1-60129-532-4

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (296 p.)

Collana

A Philip E. Lilienthal book in Asian studies

Disciplina

303.60954

Soggetti

Riots - India - History - 20th century

Sikhs - Crimes against - India

Suffering - India

Violence - India

India History Partition, 1947

India Politics and government

India Social conditions

India Social life and customs

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

"A Philip E. Lilienthal book"--P. [ii].

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Foreword -- 1. The Event and the Everyday -- 2. The Figure of the Abducted Woman: The Citizen as Sexed -- 3. Language and Body: Transactions in the Construction of Pain -- 4. The Act of Witnessing: Violence, Gender, and Subjectivity -- 5. Boundaries, Violence, and the Work of Time -- 6. Thinking of Time and Subjectivity -- 7. In the Region of Rumor -- 8. The Force of the Local -- 9. The Signature of the State: The Paradox of Illegibility -- 10. Three Portraits of Grief and Mourning -- 11. Revisiting Trauma, Testimony, and Political Community -- Notes -- Acknowledgments -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

In this powerful, compassionate work, one of anthropology's most distinguished ethnographers weaves together rich fieldwork with a



compelling critical analysis in a book that will surely make a signal contribution to contemporary thinking about violence and how it affects everyday life. Veena Das examines case studies including the extreme violence of the Partition of India in 1947 and the massacre of Sikhs in 1984 after the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. In a major departure from much anthropological inquiry, Das asks how this violence has entered "the recesses of the ordinary" instead of viewing it as an interruption of life to which we simply bear witness. Das engages with anthropological work on collective violence, rumor, sectarian conflict, new kinship, and state and bureaucracy as she embarks on a wide-ranging exploration of the relations among violence, gender, and subjectivity. Weaving anthropological and philosophical reflections on the ordinary into her analysis, Das points toward a new way of interpreting violence in societies and cultures around the globe. The book will be indispensable reading across disciplinary boundaries as we strive to better understand violence, especially as it is perpetrated against women.