Ala speaks to Ruchi Chaturvedi, whose book, Violence of Democracy, published this year, draws on years of engagement with political violence in north Kerala to think about the forms of violence produced by the very practice of democracy.
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Tag: caste
[Podcast] Rethinking ‘Keraleeyatha’: Clothing and the Politics of the Body
We wrap up this season of our podcasts with Malavika Binny and Rekha Raj. In this episode, we explore how clothing, and by extension, the body itself, have been both sites of violence and protest in Kerala, and closely tied to questions of class and caste.
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Caste and Tourism: The Case of Ancestral Homestays
Renovated ancestral homes have become a mainstay of tourism in Kerala. Soumithra investigates how ancestral homestays not only draw from existing caste and class hierarchies, but also play a role in sustaining these in the era of the supposedly free market.
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Becoming Adivasi, Becoming Dalit: Reading Mavelimantam with Kancha Ilaiah
K J Baby’s 1991 novel, Mavelimantam, is the story of the resistance of the Adiyor community against centuries-old slavery at a historical point where feudalism was joining hands with emerging colonial forces in India. Mileena re-reads the novel with reference to the concept of Dalitisation by Kancha Ilaiah.
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കെ.ആർ.നാരായണൻ നാഷണൽ ഫിലിം ഇൻസ്റ്റിറ്റ്യൂട്ടിൽ എന്താണ് സംഭവിച്ചത് ?
കെ ആർ നാരായണൻ ഇൻസ്റ്റിറ്റിയൂട്ടിൽ നടന്ന വിദ്യാർത്ഥി സമരം എങ്ങനെയാണു ഒരു ബദൽ ജ്ഞാനരൂപം നിർമിക്കുന്നതെന്നു കുഞ്ഞുണ്ണി സജീവ് എഴുതുന്നു.
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Kuzhimanthi and impurity: Taste of a Food and a Word in Social Media
Muhammed Anees delves into the recent “kuzhimanthi debate” in Kerala, focusing on the political economy of language, and analyses the role of social media as a space for contested meanings and meaning-making
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The Newness of New-Generation Malayalam Cinema
Focussing on two Malayalam films from the last decade—22 Female Kottayam (Aashiq Abu, 2012) and Varathan (Amal Neerad, 2018)—Arun Ramesh argues that despite their apparently progressive politics, new-generation films continue to be influenced by feudal norms and practices.
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Nanjiyamma and The Soundscape of Ayyappanum Koshiyum
Jaya Thampi revisits Sachy’s Ayyappanum Koshiyum (2020) to explore its cinematic soundscape and the many lives of Nanjiyamma’s songs in and beyond the film.
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Communism, Caste, and the Paradox of the ‘Party Village’ in Kerala
Kerala’s political fortunes and election outcomes have long interested researchers, but the phenomenon of ‘party villages’ and their centrality to electoral democracy in Kerala have been underexplored. Nitasha and Nisar offer us a glimpse into their study of everyday politics in a party village.
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[Podcast] Rethinking ‘Keraleeyatha’: Anti-Caste Rhetoric in Medieval Literature
Why do we see ‘modernity’ as something that emerged only in the colonial era? What do the three medieval texts tell us about alternative strands of literature? Why do we mainstream some histories while marginalizing others? In this episode, we discuss these questions with Prof. T.T. Sreekumar.
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