I’m starting to put together my syllabi for next year. And so I’ve been reading some new books that I plan to use for my classes. Currently, I’m working my way through an incredibly interesting book on Nepal: Many Tongues, One People
The book is about the social construction of Tharu ethnicity in Nepal. I’m interested in national imaginaries—particularly the idea that national identities can be (de/re)constructed over time. Essentially, that’s what I think I’m seeing in Bolivia.
This book is interesting, because the Tharu were originally a number of different “tribes” or “castes” along the Nepal-India border that have different customs, speak different languages, and have few (if any) kinship ties between them. But recently (only since the 1950s) they’ve come to think of themselves as a singular ethnic group (who, ironically, must use either Hindi or Nepali to communicate). Guneratne argues that it’s their relationship to the state (and their response to an “integrationist” Nepali state) that determines this social construction; various Tharu peoples on the Indian side of the border prefer to use their more particularistic identity in the context of India’s “pluralist” state.
As a comparativist, I like case studies. I plan to use three short books in my upper-level third world politics course at Mount Saint Mary’s. The other two are Chiefs, Power, and Social Change
The Vaughan book is about the institutionship of chiefship in Botswana, and how it has survived both the colonial & post-colonial period, adapting itself to the modern state of Botswana (and leaving its imprint on it). The Zulawski book is about public health policy in early 20th century Bolivia—and particularly the modernizing state’s efforts to treat the “Indian problem” as health issue.
