Department of Anthropology

Status is a relative and incomprehensible term. There are certain determinants which mark the position or status of people in the society. There are various hypothesis regarding the status of tribal women, especially in hunting, pastoral, horticulture and agriculture communities. In tribal societies, the engagements in subsistence activities form one of the major determinants of status and the status of women in these societies varies considerably.

Traditionally, craft depended communities were a crucial part of the village economy and heritage. However, most rural communities, especially the craft depended communities are struggling for their survival and sustenance. Pottery is one of the most profound crafts that dominate the local craft in the area under study. For the socioeconomic upliftment of such communities and sustenance of their cultural heritage, creative and productive undertakings are essential. Integration of new technological aspects in the traditional socioeconomic fabric of such community and their embellishments in tune with the modern day local demands might perhaps be the only way for the sustenance of the livelihood of these communities. Not only in the rural areas but also in the urban spaces there is an increasing demand for crafts, especially pottery items. These invisible demands needs to be appropriately tackled and managed in order to maintain its sustainability.

Environmental concerns and sustainability has been a growing agenda in the developing world. In addressing the environmental issues, the government machinery and institutional frameworks mostly found to be unsuccessful. This is especially because of lack of objective based environmental policy, guiding principles and monitoring system. In addition, uncontrolled urbanization and poor waste management practices further add environmental issues. Hence, a joint responsibility between the government and the public is required to address the environmental issues. Environmental Policy approach and environmental awareness among the public would to a certain extent address the
environmental problems.
The Stockholm Conference, 1972 was the UN’s first major conference on environmental issues at international level. This conference contributed much in enhancing awareness on environmental problems.
Kerala is usually referred to as God’s own country especially because of its scenic beauty and prevalence of almost all requisites of nature. Kerala is a consumerist state as well. Generally, consumerist way of life creates a detrimental impact on the environment. The consumerist culture is clearly indicative in the shopping behavior and conspicuous consumption of the Keralites. Consumerism paves way for a throwaway culture which generates waste. Hence, waste is an aftermath of human actions and is also an unmanageable environmental issue in the world. As per David Attenborough “surely we have a responsibility to leave for future generations a planet that is healthy, inhabitable by all species”.

The book is based on the study carried out with the objective to understand the nature of participation of the people in the process of democratic decentralisation in Kerala through the People’s Planning programme, the nature, and impact of the Programmes on the livelihood pattern of the weaker sections, and the extent of their empowerment in the process of its operation. In the light of such analysis, it was also intended to look into the concept of poverty itself within the sustainable development and livelihood paradigm. The study was undertaken in Dharmadam Panchayat in Kannur District, with specific focus on the weaker sections, namely, the Scheduled Castes, BPL families and the women. Household Survey and Interviews were carried out, Case Studies were collected, and the participatory tools were applied in understanding the processes and the patterns concerning planning, participation, empowerment, and livelihood vis-à-vis the weaker sections.
The book primarily aims at academicians, researchers and other personnel including the development administrators, planners and implementers, who are all interested in development themes. It is believed that it would be useful to anthropologists, sociologists, economists, political scientists and other social scientists, and all those who are interested in the issues of poverty, decentralisation, livelihood, empowerment, and sustainable development. It is also expected that it would appeal to the level of research and theory-building and cater to the needs of the PG level social science students, and research scholars as well. It would particularly be a valuable source of reference for students of Development Anthropology, Development Sociology, and Applied Economics, and for students of political science especially with particular reference to Decentralised Governance.

The year 2012­13 marked a milestone in the History of Anthropology in Kerala for multiple reasons. Among many things, it marked the 25 years of PG teaching in Anthropology in Kerala and the Department of Anthropology had the unique privilege of organizing the Indian Anthropological Congress, the 10th Congress of the Indian National Confederation and Academy of Anthropologists (INCAA). The INCAA Congress, which was held as a full Congress once in three years and inter­Congresses in between, would henceforth be holding its full Congress every year under the name 'Indian Anthropological Congress', for which Kannur sets its beginning. The 2013 Congress held between 14 and 16 February 2013 aimed at taking a fresh look at the anthropological identities and approaches in the context of the emerging challenges and examines its potentiality for the future of the humankind. Hence, the focal Theme of the IAC 2013 was 'Anthropology and the Future of Humankind. The theme of the Congress was chosen in the context of the dilemma Anthropology confronts between its professional commitment and the tendency to compromise its autonomy in order to erase out its anti­establishment stance, and hence of the urgency to examine the role of Anthropology vis­à­vis the future of humankind. The Congress attracted senior and young Anthropologists, from all over India, from the North, North East, East, West and South, with a total of about 250 participants, more than two third of them being from outside Kerala.

The Indian Anthropology Congress: 2013 was organised by the Department of Anthropology, Kannur University, in association with INCAA – Kerala Chapter, on the occasion of the Silver Jubilee of Post Graduate Teaching in Anthropology (1988-2013), under the Aegis of the Indian National Confederation and Academy of Anthropologists (INCAA). The programme was held during February 14 and 16 2013 with the explicit objective of taking a fresh look at the anthropological identities and approaches in the context of the emerging challenges. Besides, it also aimed at examining the potentialities of Anthropology in approaching the possible future of the humankind. Thus, the Focal Theme of the Indian Anthropology Congress: 2013: Anthropology and the Future of Humankind appears evidently appropriate.
The theme of the Congress was chosen in the context of a contemporary dilemma Anthropology that confronts between its professional commitments and though seldom overtly visible, the apparent tendency toward a compromise of its academic autonomy in order to erase out its assumed anti-establishment stance. Hence is the urgency to examine the role of Anthropology vis-à-vis the future of humankind.
Thirteen eminent Anthropologists from all over the country made deliberations at the Round Table: 2013, on the Focal Theme of the Congress, providing expressions to quite a few significant concerns related to the academic and social situation that together justify certain methodological and analytical changes within Anthropology as an academic discipline. INCAA had already brought out in 2014 a compilation of the deliberations at the Round Table under the title: Anthropology and the Future of Humankind’. Beside, an Overview of the Congress has also been circulated by the Kerala Chapter of INCAA, under the title, Anthropology Engaging With Society – An Overview of 10th INCAA Congress, capturing its various dimensions as well as highlighting its richness through photographs covering all events of the Congress, including the cultural presentations and incorporating the extent of media coverage, participant feedback and the comprehensive List of Participants from various Institutes and Universities from all over India.
The Scientific Sessions of the Congress included six symposia on varied topics, related (i) Ethnic Identity, Tribal Rights, Conflicts and Inclusion-Exclusion, (ii) Economy, Ecology, Participation and Sustainable Development, (iii) Health and Disease, (iv) Growth, Nutrition, Human Genetics, Forensics, Archaeology (v) Multi-culturalism, Migration, Knowledge, Traditions, Language, Education, Media and Communication, (vi) Institutions, Conflicts, Identity and Approaches, each with three Technical Sessions. Nearly 70 papers had been presented in these sessions, followed by searching academic interventions. The Poster Session of the Congress had papers across all the themes of the Symposium. A selection from those papers are scheduled to be published by INCAA under the Title: On Sustainable Development: Praxis and perspectives.

There is a wider debate among the Social Anthropologists, regarding the advantages and disadvantages of studying one’s own society. Professor M N Srinivas has been a pioneering Social Anthropologist of India to study a society that is strictly considered as the ‘other’ culture while in a wider sense, which is one’s own, whether it is the Coorg society, or the Rampura village. There is no singular opinion either about the nature of these studies or about the extent of advantages or disadvantages in these studies. M N Srinivas himself, in his various analyses of the methodological issues in Anthropology, touches upon these aspects with a professional integrity and deeper insight.
The present paper looks into the debate arising out of the study of one’s own society in the context of the works of a pioneering Anthropologist par excellence, Professor M N Srinivas, with his own ideas and insights, and examines the merit of these debates in the refinement of the methodological sharpness, and practical advantage and utility, especially within the multi-cultural context of Indian diaspora.

The Indian Anthropological Congress 2013, which is the 10th INCAA (Indian National Confederationand Academy of Anthropologists) Congress, held between 14 and 16 February 2013, aimed at taking a fresh look at the anthropological identities and approaches in the context of the emerging challenges and examining its potentiality for the future of the humankind. Hence, the focal Theme of the IAC 2013 was ‘Anthropology and the Future of Humankind. The theme of the Congress was chosen in the context of the dilemma Anthropology confronts between its professional commitment and the tendency to compromise its autonomy in order to erase out its anti-establishment stance, and hence of the urgency to examine the role of Anthropology vis-à-vis the future of humankind. The Congress attracted senior and young Anthropologists, with a total of about 240 participants, from all over India, with about two third of them being from outside Kerala, from the North, North East, East, West and South. The Congress had provided an opportunity for all, and particularly for the young Anthropologists, to get exposed to the wider canvas of Indian Anthropology. This Overview of the Proceedings of the Congress, aptly titled as Anthropology Engaging With Society, it is expected,  would help in getting a glimpse of the richness of this unique event, with the hope to expose the great and immense potentialities of Anthropology for the ‘Future of Humankind’.
Prof. (Dr). S. Gregory
Organising Secretary of the Indian Anthropological Congress 2013

The book is based on the study carried out with the objective to understand the nature of participation of the people in the process of democratic decentralisation in Kerala through the People’s Planning programme, the nature, and impact of the Programmes on the livelihood pattern of the weaker sections, and the extent of their empowerment in the process of its operation. In the light of such analysis, the book takes a look at the concept of poverty itself within the sustainable development and livelihood paradigm. The book primarily aims at academicians, researchers and other personnel including the development administrators, planners and implementers, who are all interested in development themes. It is believed that it would be useful to anthropologists, sociologists, economists, political scientists and other social scientists, and all those who are interested in the issues of poverty, decentralisation, livelihood, empowerment, and sustainable development. It is also expected that it would appeal to the level of research and theory-building and cater to the needs of the PG level social science students, and research scholars as well. It would particularly be a valuable source of reference for students of Development Anthropology, Development Sociology, and Applied Economics, and for students of political science especially with particular reference to Decentralised Governance

Politics, in its multiple dimensions, is such a powerfule force that it influences and determines the course of lives of the teaming millions as well as affects the social, economic and cultural contours of national life. At the same time, it is not uncommon to hear that politics is a dirty game played world over. In this context, a critical and comparative understanding of the divergent political philosophies of Machiavelli and More,-who were contemporaries in the 15 th and 16 th century Europe,-as spelt out in their respective classics The Prince and Utopia, which have moulded the political thought over time, down the centuries till the present, assumes great significance and contemporary relevance.

Family is traditionally considered in all societies as the primary social unit of human existence and hence, the basis for expressing and moulding the basic tenets of social behavior and relationship in society. It has been a subject of interest and of serious study at various levels down the centuries, and has always attracted the attention of the social scientists, for long. In India, for most part, the traditional system had survived for centuries without any major institutional alterations or dislocations. However, with the advent of the British, and later with the processes of industrialisation, modernisation, and the recent trends of globalisation, the structural features and the functional implications of family have started changing. The present paper attempts to understand and assess the dynamics of family, focusing mainly on the variations in the structural and functional aspects of family with multiple implications for the emerging social realities and their possible impact and implications for the future of the Indian Society.

Human life today is very much influenced by the political systems and governance prevalent in a particular society. The conditions of one’s life and one’s day today activities are very much determined by the political situation in which one lives. The prevailing political dispensations globally have been the products of different ideological leanings invariably but differentially influenced by the political theories of John Locke and Karl Marx. Locke’s Treatises on Government and Marx’s Communist Manifesto have remained till date as masterpieces par excellence on the political orientations of a particular human society. The attempt here is to take a look at these masterpieces to understand how the questions of property relations, equality and individual freedom have received differential emphasis and sometimes contrasting focus, even while identifying their invaluable contributions to political philosophy and in the political formation of present day human society.

Democratic planning has been the inspiring force of all planned developmental efforts in India. However, in spite of almost six decades of independence, India is yet to achieve significant development in the lives of the rural masses who form nearly seventy per cent of the nation’s population. In many aspects, India is still far behind its projected targets of its planned efforts. The recognition, by Kusum Nair, of human factor in development, as paramount significance in the planning process of India, in her classic book Blossoms in the Dust: The Human Element in Indian Development, as early as in the beginning of the sixties, just a decade after the beginning of development plans in India, is quite revealing and highly pragmatic. The book reflects development issues that are most apt and relevant even today, especially in the context of globalisation and liberalisation on the one hand, and the increasing efforts towards democratic decentralisation and people’s participation in the planning process, on the other.Through her work, Kusum Nair, makes a bold attempt to convey to the readers a fair idea of the tremendous diversity of the problems, faced by economic planning in the country’s rural sector. It is an extensive picture of the village India by a scholar with a journalistic orientation, in contrast to another contemporary work by S. C. Dube (1958), of a typical Indian village in Western Uttar Pradesh, based on an intensive group research under his guidance, done with an anthropological orientation, portraying the changing Indian villages, while identifying the human factors in community development. There had been several ethnographic studies of Indian villages during the early years of India’s independence (e.g., Beals, 1962; Dube, 1955), from all of which, Nair’s study stands out by its wider and extensive coverage of Indian villages, capturing an all India perspective with its multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic and geo-ecological differences and variations, within a developmental context.

“Theory and research that capture the contours of collectives have been fundamental objectives of social science since its inception.” (Cohen, 1989: 273). There are different traditions of thought that have adopted different perspectives and conceptualised the social reality emphasising one aspect over the other, drawing inspiration from the conceptual development of natural science. However, in the recent past, according to Giddens and Turner, a dramatic change has occurred within the philosophy of natural sciences which has inevitably influenced thinking about the social sciences. This, according to them, has resulted in the proliferation of approaches in theoretical thinking (1989: 2). Anthony Giddens stands out and enjoys a distinctive position, through the evolution of his theory of structuration, giving a major new perspective to the contemporary social thought. This paper attempts to locate the significance of Gidden’s theory in the development of sociological thought and dwells on the salient features of his theory.

Considering its well-established ethnographic traditions, cultural relativistic approaches, and the natural proximity to the people, Anthropology could very well be called as the people’s science. However, in spite of the strength and uniqueness of Anthropology, it is yet to achieve a status of a popular science among people as well as among academic circles. Drawing attention to the strength of Anthropology as the humanistic and field-based science, with integrated and holistic perspective, the paper traces out the contemporary crisis faced by Anthropology as a discipline, in the context of the emerging global trends and expectations. Also pointing to the increased trend of ‘specialism’ at the cost of integration, lack of sustained ‘dynamism’, and ironically, with a growing ethnocentrism about the claim to capture the holistic and integrated reality of the ‘world’, the paper further emphasises and elaborates on the urgent need to “reinvent anthropology as a means of engaging with society”.

Sericulture being a labour-intensive and income-generative agro-industry, it has been instrumental in bringing about socioeconomic mobility among different sections of society and assuming increasing significance in the rural development paradigm in the past few decades. The present paper, based on intensive studies in some of the sericulture villages in Tamil Nadu, looks into the concept of socioeconomic mobility and identifies the groups undergoing mobility in the context of sericulture. The paper also specifically examines the extent of socioeconomic mobility among the three disadvantaged categories in the rural context, based on class, caste and gender, exploring the social relevance of sericulture in the process of rural development, with an emphasis on the need to identify the appropriate interventions and strategic approaches in making sericulture one of the sustainable forces of rural development in India.

The present volume, Anthropology and the Future of Humankind, is the outcome of the Round Table: 2013, one of the academic discourses of the Indian Anthropological Congress 2013, organised by the Indian National Confederation and Academy of Anthropologists (INCAA) at Kannur University, Kerala, during February 14 through 16 2013. The theme chosen for deliberations at the Round Table was “Anthropology and the Future of Humankind”. All contributions incorporated in this volume emerged in a way out of the responses to a somewhat provocative write up that was circulated by the Organising Committee among all prospective Speakers at the Round Table. The intention was neither to enforce unanimity in this respect, nor even to arrive at a consensus. The basic objective of the whole exercise was to examine the issues from various angles and dimensions in order to highlight alternative views regarding the subject. Therefore, no attempt has been made toward any synthesis of the views expressed by individual authors. After all, alternative views reflect greater realities of any given situation that enforced convergence of thoughts as are often found in practice.