As our increasingly globalized world alters the dynamics of migration, the ideas that migrants have about returning to their home countries have evolved as well. This diverse collection examines the changes and complexities of migration patterns in a range of Asian countries and cities, exploring how globalization and transnationalism shape and give meaning to the …
Transnational Migration and Asia: The Question of Return Read More »
What is happening to India’s television industry? How is it adapting to the rapid changes in the country? And what does India’s television programming tell us about the state of the nation? Television touches almost everyone. It is rapidly expanding and becoming socially ever-more powerful, but is simultaneously facing a crisis of credibility. In Behind …
Behind a Billion Screens: What Television Tells Us about Modern India Read More »
(Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction; finalist for the 2016 PEN/Faulkner Award and the 2015 Los Angeles Times Book Prize; one of the New York Times’ 100 notable books of 2015) The winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, as well as seven other awards, The Sympathizer is the breakthrough novel of …
The international bodies and legal instruments governing refugees, originating from European imperatives, have limited reach over the different types of forced migration circumstances we see today. Researching forced migration in Asia reveals a particular set of epistemological and political issues, including the sustained effects of colonial legacies and how culturally specific notions of territory, sovereignty …
Eschewing tired doctrines of strict demarcation between development, religion and politics, this volume takes up the task of critically analysing this triple nexus. The chapters brought together in this landmark collection draw on detailed empirical studies from around contemporary Asia. Through their engagements with Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, and secularism, among other traditions, the chapters argue …
Religion and the Politics of Development: Critical Perspectives on Asia Read More »
Azan on the Moon is an in-depth anthropological study of people’s lives along the Pamir Highway in eastern Tajikistan. Based on extensive fieldwork and through an analysis of construction, mobility, technology, media, development, Islam, and the state along the Pamir Highway, Mostowlansky shows how conceptualizations of modernity are both challenged and reinforced in contemporary Tajikistan.
The neglected intersection between religion and disaster relief should be given much greater attention. This emerging field is an intellectually compelling area for study, though much work stills needs to be done to explore the processes that take place on the ground in different settings. It is also important for practitioners and policy makers involved …
From ARI organized Inter-Asia Roundtable “Transnational Migration and Children in Asian Contexts”, 2-3 August 2010.
Religious philanthropy has become a significant force in contemporary China. This essay explores the interactions between policy toward religious philanthropy and religious groups that have undergone significant changes since their philanthropic involvement. Religious groups (sometimes under the name of the leader) have been providing social services since the state’s “opening-up” policies in the early 1980s. …
In urban India, there are religious practices intersecting with the process of urbanisation at various levels. This paper looks at the practice of tree worship which continues to be a part of the everyday lives of the people. Specifically, it looks at how the Peepul tree (Ficus Religiosa) shrine with its serpent stones and the …
