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Special Issue: Anthropology in South Asia
Man in India
Volume 91, Issue 3

The countries of South Asia –alphabetically Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka - are externally identical but internally diverse. South Asia is a distinct region for its history of decolonisation, diversity of cultural landscape, variety of languages used, composition of multi-ethnic settings, uniqueness of festivals and rituals and the dynamics of socio-political entity. There has notable homogeneity as well as remarkable heterogeneity of between and among the people of South Asian societies. The countries of South Asia are closely link to the global flows of people, goods and ideas that has created space for cultural exchange. Societies in South Asia have been suffering for decades from the dialectics between colonial domination and post-colonial negotiation, traditional beliefs and leaning to modernity, religious orthodoxies and notions of secularism, conventional cultural settings and post-modern ideologies. The tension between old and new, tradition and modern, internal values and external influence, local wisdom and global doctrine make the societies in South Asian countries dynamic in its social organisations and cultural practices. Over the decades for having its distinct regional features, South Asian societies and countries have drawn attention of scholars across disciplines from across the world for doing research on history, society, culture, religion, ecology, politics and economics. Researches undertaken by scholars from within and beyond the region have produced distinctive scholarship on South Asia to where anthropologists largely contributed. In fact, huge numbers of ethnographies on South Asian societies produced by South Asian anthropologists and anthropologists on South Asia contributed substantially to the formation of anthropological scholarship in the world in one hand. It on the other hand significantly contributed to shape an image of South Asian societies by comprehensive understanding of its social system and cultural practice. However, what actually “Anthropology of South Asia” means is still blurred and undefined within and beyond academia. Though definitional boundary indeed confines the potentiality of building scholarship, Man in India intends to draw a conceptual territory of “Anthropology of South Asia” in its special issue on Anthropology in South Asia.

Scholars across disciplines within and beyond South Asian origin working on South Asian societies are invited to contribute to the special issue of Man in India on Anthropology in South Asia with their ethnographic research findings. Submissions of original research articles are encouraged while analytical and theoretical articles are also acceptable in specific case depending on substance and strength of the article. Deadline of submission is sharply June 15, 2011. Only electronic submission is encouraged. Send your article directly to the guest editor of this special issue, Dr Nasir Uddin, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Anthropology, University of Chittagong, email: nasir.anthro@yahoo.com