1st Edition
Modernity and Spirit Worship in India An Anthropology of the Umwelt
1 Introduction: Towards an anthropology of the umwelt; Part 1 Humans and the wild śakti of deities; 2 The land of paddy fields, forests, and deities; 3 The būta shrine and deities in Perar; 4 Pāḍdana: The oral epics of deities; 5 Dances, oracles, and blessings in the ritual; 6 The transaction of wild śakti; 7 Playing with perspectives; Part 2 Social transformations and the emergence of a new umwelt; 8 Būta’s agency in conflicts over the village shrine; 9 Historical changes in land tenure in South Kanara; 10 Modern law, customary law, and the reflexive imagination; 11 Land reforms and deities as the ‘owners of land’; 12 Būtas in the midst of the development project; 13 The new umwelt in the industrial plant; 14 Conclusion: Being, pathos, and the umwelt
Biography
Miho Ishii is an associate professor at Kyoto University, Japan. Her current research focus is on the relationship between spirit worship and environmental movements in South India.
