CECI n'est pas EXECUTE Monica Guidolin

Monica Guidolin

Thesis Defended in July 2019

Institutional affiliation(s): EHESS

Professional contact information

monica.guidolin[at]ehess.fr

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Monica Guidolin defended her doctoral thesis on 16 July 2019

Ethnographies and Ethno-Histories of Identity and Ritual Dynamics in Central India (Madhya Pradesh). The Interactions of the Gond and Pardhan with the Hindu Milieu.

 

Dissertation director: Jean-Claude Galey

PhD program: EHESS - Social Anthropology and Ethnology

Initial registration: 2007

 

Madhya Pradesh is a unique case study, both in terms of the number of communities classified as ādivāsī (tribal) and for the complex web of diverse traditions that are found in this region of the country. The evidence of this cultural richness frames the socio-anthropological scenario, as well as the historical vitality that has characterized this "Middle-Earth" for centuries.

Adopting a comparative approach for an analysis of funeral rituality among certain Pardhan groups in eastern Madhya Pradesh has permitted a continuous and stimulating alternation in the investigation's development—between the ancient knowledge of Rāja Gond (Gond royal tradition and culture) of which the Pardhans are the first witnesses and depositaries, and, the perceived level of penetration of Hinduisation and its influence over devotional rituals and practices of mourning. In this respect, the progress of the survey followed a trend that we would define as circular; the ethnological framework derived was inextricably linked to the relationship between the urban context of Bhopal to that of rural villages in the districts of Mandlā and Dindori. It is from the "funeral culture" that we began to apply our view of the social implications put into action during this "refinement" of the saṃskāra (purification rite). The analysis of Gond-Pardhan interrelationships in Central India has provided us with an opportunity to recreate a shared cultural imaginationwhich still persists, and thus initiate reflection on other less obviously apparent themes: kinship and lineage relationships in the face of migration and urbanization processes; changes and interactions between the categories of "tradition" and "modernity;" discourses on Indian/Hindu identity; the concept of indigenousness. Our terrain has been enriched through comparison: the dialogue between the places involved has established significant coordinates for the interpretation of funeral rituals updating the established thematic of social pluralism, cohabitation with the regional forms of what is considered, in India today, to be classical Hinduism. From the cosmogonic and thanatological conceptions of the Pardhan, our investigation extends to the caste-tribe relationship in the contrast of urban-rural environments and the concept of "glocalization" with the redistributions it steers.

 

Key Words

India, Madhya Pradesh, Gond, Pardhan, tribal, rural, urban, caste, Hindu, ritual, death, myth, migration, tribal art, marginalization, minority

 

 

Last update: 23 September 2019

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