Fluid Boundaries: Forming and Transforming Identity in Nepal

More than an ethnography, this book clarifies one of the most important current debates in anthropology: How should anthropologists regard culture, history, and the power process? Since the 1980s, the Thakali of Nepal have searched for an identity and a clarification of their "true" culture and history in the wake of their rise to political power and achievement of economic success. Although united in this search, the Thakali are divided as to the answers that have been proposed: the "Hinduization" of religious practices, the promotion of Tibetan Buddhism, the revival of practices associated with the Thakali shamans, and secularization. Ironically, the attempts by the Thakali to define their identity reveal that to return to tradition they must first re-create it - but this process of re-creation establishes it in a way in which it has never existed. To return to "tradition" - to become Thakali again - is, in a way, to become Thakali for the very first time.

Table of Contents:
List of Maps and Tables Preface Acknowledgments Notes Glossary Works Cited Index 1. Introduction: Thakali Again for the Very First Time Meeting at the Crossroads Searching for Culture in the Past 2. Drawing Lines: On Constructing and Contesting Boundaries Imagining Thakali 3. Forging Histories Borderlands 4. Separation and Integration: Community and Contestation Tourists in Their Own Land 5. Ritual Landscapes Reclaiming Culture 6. Codifying Culture Agency/Action/Practice 7. Constructing Thakali Fluid Boundaries 8. Beyond Sanskritization The Terms of Boundary Disputes 9. Old Artificers in a New Smithy Thak Khola The Term Thakali Contesting Boundaries Membership and Status, Groups and Categories Among the Thaksatsae Thakali: Ties That Bind, Lines That Divide Cutting Across Descent Khuwale and Thak Khole Historical Narrative(s) Thakali Narratives of the Past Scholarship and the Reconstruction of the Past The Formation of the Gurkhali State The Effects of Nation Building Post--Salt Monopoly Adaptations Enter the Anthropologists, Surmising Moving On Samaj Integration and Solidarity/Competition and Cooperation Politics Eclectic Ritual Pluralism "We Don't Have Any Gods" Ancestor Rituals: Lha Chuji Weddings: Khimi Tapne Torongla Subclan Rites: Khimi Ramden Subclan Rites: Jho Khane Lha Phewa and Thakali Clans Migration and Descent Group Rituals Codification and Contestation Forming a National Samaj Mortuary Rites Institutionalizing Contestation A New Social Order Codified Culture Initial Responses to the Formation of the Thakali Sewa Samiti The Integration of the Khuwale Nationally Drawn Boundaries Locally Imposed Ongoing Changes First Contacts, First Constructs Revisionist Constructions Thakali Reconstructed Narijhowa Speaking of Thakali On Boundaries On Boundary Making Beyond Sanskritization Summary: Criss-crossing Boundaries Dhikur: Rotating Credit

About the Author :
William F. Fisher is associate professor of anthropology at Harvard University.

Review :
"This authoritative account of Thakali society remains an extremely welcome addition to... the wider body of anthropological research into the political implications of the social construction of cultural identity." -- Michael Wilmore, University of Adelaide, Australia, Ethnos " Fluid Boundaries offers a sophisticated and intellectual evaluation... The book is an essential addition." -- Mark Turin, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute "His final arguments are well made. He moves questions of ethnic identity on from quests for coherence and authenticity by actors and scholars to a matter of when and where ethnicity becomes an issue." -- Ben Campbell, Social Anthropology