Suicide Protest in South Asia

Suicide Protest in South Asia PDF

Author: Simanti Lahiri

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-04-03

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 1317803124

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The radical act of suicide protest is undertaken by social movement participants in order to demand a particular previously articulated political outcome. This book examines the history and impact of suicide protest, which has been increasingly used as a protest tactic since World War II, adding to a growing area of research on the ability of certain actions to impact policy in favour of movement goals. The book offers a combination of historical and contemporary cases analysis from South Asia, where different iterations of this tactic have been used extensively throughout the latter half of the twentieth century, including the use of fasting to the death, self-immolation, and deliberate drowning. Focussing on the success or failure or a particular action relevant to the movement’s broader mobilization strategy, the author examines the internal impact this has on the movement and the mechanisms by which suicide as a form of protest evolves. Providing a unique contribution to the field of comparative politics, political violence and social movement studies this book will be of interest to scholars working on political science, sociology and South Asian studies.

Suicide Protest in South Asia

Suicide Protest in South Asia PDF

Author: Simanti Lahiri

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-04-03

Total Pages: 183

ISBN-13: 1317803132

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The radical act of suicide protest is undertaken by social movement participants in order to demand a particular previously articulated political outcome. This book examines the history and impact of suicide protest, which has been increasingly used as a protest tactic since World War II, adding to a growing area of research on the ability of certain actions to impact policy in favour of movement goals. The book offers a combination of historical and contemporary cases analysis from South Asia, where different iterations of this tactic have been used extensively throughout the latter half of the twentieth century, including the use of fasting to the death, self-immolation, and deliberate drowning. Focussing on the success or failure or a particular action relevant to the movement’s broader mobilization strategy, the author examines the internal impact this has on the movement and the mechanisms by which suicide as a form of protest evolves. Providing a unique contribution to the field of comparative politics, political violence and social movement studies this book will be of interest to scholars working on political science, sociology and South Asian studies.

Sacred Suicide

Sacred Suicide PDF

Author: Carole M. Cusack

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-04-08

Total Pages: 295

ISBN-13: 1317060180

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The label 'Suicide Cults' has been applied to a wide variety of different alternative religions, from Jonestown to the Solar Temple to Heaven's Gate. Additionally, observers have asked if such group suicides are in any way comparable to Islamist suicide terrorism, or to historical incidents of mass suicide, such as the mass suicide of the ancient community of Masada. Organizationally and ideologically diverse, it turns out that the primary shared trait of these various groups is a common stereotype of religion as an irrational force that pushes fanatics to undertake acts of suicidal violence. Offering a valuable perspective on New Religious Movements and on religion and violence, Sacred Suicide brings together contributions from a diverse range of international scholars of sociology, religious studies and criminology.

Indigenous Identity in South Asia

Indigenous Identity in South Asia PDF

Author: Tamina M. Chowdhury

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2016-11-10

Total Pages: 217

ISBN-13: 1317202937

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In the immediate aftermath of the creation of Bangladesh in 1971, an armed struggle ensued in its remote south-eastern corner. The hill people in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, more commonly referred to as paharis, demanded official recognition, and autonomy, as the indigenous people of the Tracts. This demand for autonomy was primarily based on the claim that they were ethnically distinct from the majority ‘Bengali’ population of Bangladesh, and thereby needed to protect their unique identity. This book challenges the general perception within existing scholarship that indigenous claims coming from the Tracts are a recent and contemporary phenomenon, which emerged with the founding of the Bangladesh state. By analysing the processes of colonisation in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, the author argues that identities of distinct ethnicity and tradition predate the creation of Bangladesh, and first began to evolve under British patronage. It is asserted that claims to indigeneity must be understood as an outcome of prolonged and complex processes of interaction between hill peoples – largely the Hill Tracts elites – and the Raj. Using hitherto unexplored archival sources, Indigenous Identity in South Asia sheds new light on how the concepts of ‘territory’, and of a ‘people indigenous to it’ came to be forged and politicised. By showing a far deeper historical lineage of claims making in the Tracts, it adds a new dimension to existing studies on Bangladesh’s borders and its history. The book will also be a key resource for scholars of South Asian history and politics, colonial history and those studying indigenous identity.

Islam, Sufism and Everyday Politics of Belonging in South Asia

Islam, Sufism and Everyday Politics of Belonging in South Asia PDF

Author: Deepra Dandekar

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-09-13

Total Pages: 381

ISBN-13: 1317435966

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This book looks at the study of ideas, practices and institutions in South Asian Islam, commonly identified as ‘Sufism’, and how they relate to politics in South Asia. While the importance of Sufism for the lives of South Asian Muslims has been repeatedly asserted, the specific role played by Sufism in contestations over social and political belonging in South Asia has not yet been fully analysed. Looking at examples from five countries in South Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Afghanistan), the book begins with a detailed introduction to political concerns over ‘belonging’ in relation to questions concerning Sufism and Islam in South Asia. This is followed with sections on Producing and Identifying Sufism; Everyday and Public Forms of Belonging; Sufi Belonging, Local and National; and Intellectual History and Narratives of Belonging. Bringing together scholars from diverse disciplines, the book explores the connection of Islam, Sufism and the Politics of Belonging in South Asia. It is an important contribution to South Asian Studies, Islamic Studies and South Asian Religion.

Global Forensic Cultures

Global Forensic Cultures PDF

Author: Ian Burney

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2019-05-21

Total Pages: 357

ISBN-13: 1421427508

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Essays explore forensic science in global and historical context, opening a critical window onto contemporary debates about the universal validity of present-day genomic forensic practices. Contemporary forensic science has achieved unprecedented visibility as a compelling example of applied expertise. But the common public view—that we are living in an era of forensic deliverance, one exemplified by DNA typing—has masked the reality: that forensic science has always been unique, problematic, and contested. Global Forensic Cultures aims to rectify this problem by recognizing the universality of forensic questions and the variety of practices and institutions constructed to answer them. Groundbreaking essays written by leaders in the field address the complex and contentious histories of forensic techniques. Contributors also examine the co-evolution of these techniques with the professions creating and using them, with the systems of governance and jurisprudence in which they are used, and with the socioeconomic, political, racial, and gendered settings of that use. Exploring the profound effect of "location" (temporal and spatial) on the production and enactment of forms of forensic knowledge during the century before CSI became a household acronym, the book explores numerous related topics, including the notion of burden of proof, changing roles of experts and witnesses, the development and dissemination of forensic techniques and skills, the financial and practical constraints facing investigators, and cultures of forensics and of criminality within and against which forensic practitioners operate. Covering sites of modern and historic forensic innovation in the United States, Europe, and farther-flung imperial and global settings, these essays tell stories of blood, poison, corpses; tracking persons and attesting documents; truth-making, egregious racism, and sinister surveillance. Each chapter is a finely grained case study. Collectively, Global Forensic Cultures supplies a historical foundation for the critical appraisal of contemporary forensic institutions which has begun in the wake of DNA-based exonerations. Contributors: Bruno Bertherat, José Ramón Bertomeu Sánchez, Binyamin Blum, Ian Burney, Marcus B. Carrier, Simon A. Cole, Christopher Hamlin, Jeffrey Jentzen, Projit Bihari Mukharji, Quentin (Trais) Pearson, Mitra Sharafi, Gagan Preet Singh, Heather Wolffram

Usurping Suicide

Usurping Suicide PDF

Author: Professor Suman Gupta

Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.

Published: 2017-08-15

Total Pages: 154

ISBN-13: 1786991012

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Can an individual act of suicide be socially significant, or does it present too many imponderable features? This book examines suicide like no other. Unconcerned with the individual dispositions that lead a person to commit such an act, Usurping Suicide focuses on the reception suicides have produced – their political, social and cultural implications. How does a particular act of suicide enable a collective significance to be attached to it? And what contextual circumstances predispose a politicised public response? From Mohamed Bouazizi’s self-immolation during regime change in Tunisia to Dimitris Christoulas’s public shooting at a time of increased political upheaval in Greece, and beyond – this remarkable work examines how the individuality of the act of suicide poses a disturbing symbolic conundrum for the dominant liberal order.

A Cruel Theatre of Self-Immolations

A Cruel Theatre of Self-Immolations PDF

Author: Grzegorz Ziółkowski

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-02-13

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 0429602227

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A Cruel Theatre of Self-Immolations investigates contemporary protest self-burnings and their echoes across culture. The book provides a conceptual frame for the phenomenon and an annotated, comprehensive timeline of suicide protests by fire, supplemented with notes on artworks inspired by or devoted to individual cases. The core of the publication consists of six case studies of these ultimate acts, augmented with analyses and interpretations hailing from the visual arts, film, theatre, architecture, and literature. By examining responses to these events within an interdisciplinary frame, Ziółkowski highlights the phenomenon’s global reach and creates a broad, yet in-depth, exploration of the problems that most often prompt these self-burnings, such as religious discrimination and harassment, war and its horrors, the brutality and indoctrination of authoritarian regimes and the apathy they produce, as well as the exploitation of the so-called "subalterns" and their exclusion from mainstream economic systems. Of interest to scholars from an array of fields, from theatre and performance, to visual art, to religion and politics, A Cruel Theatre of Self-Immolations offers a unique look at voluntary, demonstrative, and radical performances of shock and subversion.