Indigeneity, Landscape and History

Asoka Kumar Sen taught history at Tata College, Chaibasa, West Singhbhum, Jharkhand, and retired as a professor (1965–2002). He is presently an independent researcher of tribal history and editor of the Journal of Adivasi and Indigenous Studies. He was awarded a brief fellowship at the Department of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, New Delhi, India. He also worked as a researcher for Sussex University, UK, on the British Academy project entitled ‘The East India Company and the Natural World: Environment, Innovation and Ideas at the Core of the British Empire’. His published works include The Educated Middle Class and Indian Nationalism (1988); Bengali Intelligentsia and Popular Uprisings 1855–73 (1992); Wilkinson’s Rules, Context, Content and Ramifications (edited, 1999); Representing Tribe: The Ho of Singhbhum during Colonial Rule (2011); and From Village Elder to British Judge: Custom, Customary Law and Tribal Society (2012).

Preface. Abbreviations. Introduction Part I Other Representation 1. Sanskritic and Colonial Representations of Tribe Part II Self Representation 2. Meanings of Self and Landscape and Dynamics of Self-fashioning 3. Myth as History: The Representation of Self-landscape in Adivasi Creation Myths 4. Notion of Territory and the Formation of a Pre-state Political Order 5. From Itinerancy to Settled Village Life 6. Norms and Mode of Self-Governance 7. Transformation of a Hunter-forager to a Cultivator 8. Water in Adivasi Perception and the Management of Water Resources 9. Forest as a Marker of Collective Identity 10. Landscape and Fashioning of Self: The Post-independence Scenario 11. Conclusion. Glossary. Bibliography. Index