Innovative Departures

Ravindra K. Jain is former Professor of Sociology, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. He has also taught at the University of Oxford and held several other research and teaching positions. He has been Emeritus Fellow, University Grants Commission; National Fellow, Indian Council of Social Science Research; Tagore National Fellow; and T.H.B. Symons Fellow in Commonwealth Studies. He was previously Chairman, Indian National Confederation and Academy of Anthropologists (INCAA) and received the Life Time Achievement Award of the Indian Sociological Society (2013). He is on the editorial boards of the journals South Asian Diaspora and Global Networks. His published works include South Indians on the Plantation Frontier in Malaya (1970); Indian Communities Abroad (1993); The Universe as Audience: Metaphor and Community among the Jains of North India (1999); Between History and Legend: Status and Power in Bundelkhand (2002); Indian Transmigrants: Malaysian and Comparative Essays (2009/2011, which won the G.S. Ghurye Book Award); and Nation, Diaspora, Trans-Nation: Reflections from India (2010). Among his edited volumes are Text and Context: The Social Anthropology of Tradition (1977); Adversity to Advantage: The Saga of People of Indian Origin in South Africa (2010); and The Making of a Museum (2013). A festschrift, Dual Identity: Indian Diaspora and Other Essays, was published in 2013 in his honour.

Preface and Acknowledgements. Introduction 1. Horizons of Anthropology 2. Anthropology Yesterday and Today 3. Anthropology and Diaspora Studies: Comparative Perspective 4. Anthropology and Diaspora Studies: Data and Interpretation 5. Race, Ethnicity and Identity in Diaspora 6. Nation and Trans-nation in Diasporic Geopolitics 7. Diasporic Integration and Social Justice in South Africa 8. Contemporary Malaysian Indians 9. Ascription, Aspiration and Achievement: Malaysian Indian Trajectory. Conclusion: Anthropology at Home and Abroad. Bibliography