Perspectives on Work, Home, and Identity From Artisans in Telangana

Providing an ethnographic account of the everyday life of a household of artisans in the Telangana state of southern India, Chandan Bose engages with craft practice beyond the material (in this case, the region's characteristic murals, narrative cloth scrolls, and ritual masks and figurines). In situating the voice of the artisans themselves as the central focus of study, simultaneous and juxtaposing histories of craft practice emerge, through which artisans assemble narratives about work, home, and identity through multiple lenses. These perspectives include: the language artisans use to articulate their experience of materials, materiality, and the physical process of making; the shared and collective memory of practitioners through which they recount the genealogy of the practice; the everyday life of the household and its kinship practices, given the integration of the studio-space and the home-space; the negotiations between practitioners and the nation-state over matters of patronage; and the capacities of artisans to both conform to and affect the practices of the neo-liberal market.

Undertakes a uniquely making and narrative-oriented anthropological approach to the practice of craft Weaves together an ethnographer's sensory engagement with the voice of the artisan and a scholarly reflection on the cultural, political, and economic environment Bridges narratives on artisanal life in South India from critical ethnography, post-colonial anthropology and historiography, art history, material culture studies, kinship and gender studies, and phenomenology

Autorentext

Chandan Bose is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the Department of Liberal Arts, Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad, India. He researches and publishes on material practices and knowledge systems amongst artisanal communities in India.

Zusammenfassung
"The book is a valuable addition to the frugal materials available on the contemporary sociology/social anthropology of Indian craft, both at home and abroad. ... The book's sale and publicity, we are assured, will give the artiste back her agency. No better reason than this to buy, read and recommend this painstakingly scholarly yet passionate book." (Contributions to Indian Sociology, Vol. 54 (1), 2020)
"The detailed explanation of usage of technologies and the nuances used by the practitioner, inputs into how to sit while painting and how to hold the brushes provides the know-how of the art of patam-pradarshankatha, making the book a useful tool to many. ... the crux of the book which is a pleasure to read, especially for those who are fascinated towards crafts, anthropology and ancient arts forms." (Telangana Today, June 30, 2019)

Inhalt

Chapter 1: Introduction.-Chapter 2: Craft: Doing, Telling, Writing - Part 1.-Chapter 3: Craft: Doing, Telling, Writing - Part 2.-Chapter 4: 'Goddess' and 'King,' 'Migration' and 'Boon': Artists and Their Histories.-Chapter 5: Craft-Through-Relatedness; Relatedness-Through-Craft.-Chapter 6. Showing, Making and Selling for the Market.-Chapter 7: Desire for the Nation-State.-Chapter 8: Conclusion. <p