Editor

Kanchan Mukhopadhyay is Tagore National Fellow, Anthropological Survey of India. He has obtained his master's degree in anthropology from University of Calcutta and doctoral degree from Vidyasagar University. He has worked for Anthropological Survey of India for most part of his career largely in eastern and north-eastern parts of India and in Andaman and Nicobar Islands. One major area of his research interest has remained construction and maintenance of identity among migrants and refugees; he has worked among such groups in West Bengal and Andaman Islands. He took part in the national ethnographic survey called People of India, especially in North-East India, which helped him to gain some insight into the multifaceted ethnic situation prevalent there. He has also taken interest in the study of relationship between small communities and nation-state and has written on paradigms of development and programmes for welfare of Scheduled Tribe communities. His other major work was study of impact of technological developments such as introduction of irrigation facilities, high-yielding varieties of seeds and chemical fertilisers on small-scale cultivators. He has also worked on methodological and ethical issues in social science research. Another area he has worked in is visual anthropology; he has supervised the ‘Visual Anthropology Unit’ of Anthropological Survey of India for many years and has made several films on various subjects like modes of cultural transmission, traditional knowledge system among artisanal fishermen and people's initiative for conservation of culture. A film on the last topic ‘Tryst with Times’ was screened at Kolkata International Film Festival in 2017.His interest in ideas and practices related to food developed since early 1990s when he studied processes of food production, distribution and consumption among certain socially and economically weak communities. He has probed into dimensions of power relations as expressed through food behaviour, collective memory of availability or scarcity of food, and food as symbol of social status.As a Tagore National Fellow, he is researching on changing food practices in rural India. He is passionate about food and travel and loves to indulge in adventures while eating and travelling.

Contributors

Ala Uddin has been teaching anthropology in the Department of Anthropology, University of Chittagong, Bangladesh, since 2003. He has been conducting research on diverse issues of the indigenous people in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. His major research dealt mainly with the survival strategies of the indigenous people—how they try to manage their survival affected by the outsiders (i.e., settler Bengalis). Among other issues, he worked on religious pluralism, street vending, health and diseases, refugees and diaspora, and forest management. He has written a book entitled (in Bengali) and several articles published in peer-reviewed national and international journals. His current research works look into the plight of the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and the urbanized lifeways of the indigenous migrants.

Amitabha Sarkar is a MSc, PhD (science) in anthropology from the University of Calcutta and specialized in advanced social-cultural anthropology. His remarkable empirical contribution in anthropological research arena is on impact of industrialization, tribal ethnography, culture ecology, ethno-science, religious belief system as integrative process, culture change, and management of environment with traditional knowledge. He has published approximately 19 books and more than 170 research papers in reputed journals. He possesses 35 years’ research experience and carried out empirical study among tribal and weaker sections of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and West Bengal. He is the life member of Indian National Confederation and Academy of Anthropologists (INCAA), Indian Science Congress Association and Indian Anthropological Society. He was associated with Anthropological Survey of India from 1977 to 2012. He is also a consultant researcher and involved in collecting empirical data from tribal areas of Odisha.

B. Francis Kulirani was formerly Deputy Director (Cultural), Anthropological Survey of India, Kolkata. Kulirani obtained his MSc degree from the Pune University and Doctoral Degree from University of Calicut. He has written or edited 10 books and many articles in national and international journals. He was awarded Shastri Indo-Canadian Research Fellowship in 2006. Upon retirement from Anthropological Survey of India he was Course Director, Department of Tribal and Rural Sociology, Kannur University, Kerala, during 2015–2017 and visiting faculty during 2018. Currently, Kulirani is pursuing Tagore Research Scholar programme of Ministry of Culture (Government of India) and attached to the Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya, Bhopal. He is founder secretary of the Anthropological Association, Mysore, a life member of the Indian National Confederation and Academy of Anthropologists (INCAA), Kolkata, and the North East India Council of Social Science Research (NEICSSR), Shillong, Meghalaya.

Chhanda Mukhopadhyay obtained her master's degree in anthropology from University of Calcutta and doctoral degree from Vidyasagar University. She has worked in Anthropological Survey of India and has worked extensively on social inequality, cultural syncretism and urban studies in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and eastern and north-eastern parts of India. Her major work was on sex-workers and their children in Kolkata city, where she tried to understand the process of socialization in a marginalized and socially outcast group.

Dharitri Narzary teaches history to undergraduate and post-graduate students at School of Liberal Studies, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar University Delhi (AUD). She specializes in Japanese studies and her interest areas include race and minority issues, marginality, multiculturalism, imperialism and colonialism, society and culture. She is also the founding convenor of the North East Forum (NEF, 2011–2017) at AUD and closely works with the University's Centre for Community Knowledge (CCK). She completed her BA and MA in history, MPhil from the Department of Chinese and Japanese Studies and PhD from the Department of East Asian Studies, University of Delhi.

Madhumita Mazumdar is associate professor at the Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information Communication Technology, Gandhinagar, Gujarat. She has a specialized interest in the social history of science and technology and in colonial and post-colonial histories of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Apart from her publications on the disciplinary histories of science in Bengal, she has co-authored a book titled (2016).

Manish Chandi works in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands on the interface between communities and the natural environment. He has been working in the islands for past 25 years in association with the Andaman Nicobar Environmental Team (ANET). He completed his doctoral thesis in 2016 with the Oceans and Coasts programme of the Nature Conservation Foundation, Mysore, in which he explored the impact of the 2004 earthquake and tsunami on community sharing mechanisms in the Nicobar Islands. In the Andaman & Nicobar archipelago, Chandi began work as a volunteer restoring forest vegetation at the ANET base station at Wandoor village while also creating the water harvesting structures for the location. Since then, he has been involved in various projects related to primary research, collaborative projects, applied social-ecology projects in both the Andaman and Nicobar groups of islands with communities such as the Karen of Mayabunder, settlers in the Andamans and Nicobarese of Little Nicobar Island. His interests and work have ranged from surveys and research work on salt-water crocodiles, sea turtles, forest trees and indigenous communities particularly of the A&N archipelago. He has presented papers at international and national conferences while also giving speeches to interested groups and communities on his work and understandings at various fora. He is currently on sabbatical for one year, living with his wife and new-born child in Aldona village, Goa.

Moumita Dey is an assistant professor in Department of Geography, Amity University (Kolkata campus). She has done her doctoral research in feminist geography from Department of Geography, University of Calcutta. Her main areas of interest are gender, feminism, culture and society. She has deep interest in visual and qualitative methodologies. She has published papers in different national and international journals and has also worked as a reviewer in a peer-reviewed journal.

Nabakumar Duary has obtained master's degree from University of Calcutta and doctorate degree from Ranchi University. He has been working for Anthropological Survey of India since 1992. Duary has published several research papers in journals and edited books. He has edited two books and has authored one on education in tribal communities of West Bengal. He has also done significant research on folk painting, traditional knowledge, tribal education, tribal and folk culture and visual anthropology. He has remained involved in anthropological research and in making of several documentary films.

Om Gurung holds PhD in anthropology from Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. He is one of the founding faculty members at the Central Department of Sociology/Anthropology at Tribhuvan University, Nepal. He has been teaching anthropology to graduate students at Tribhuvan University for more than 37 years. In addition to teaching, he is heavily engaged in organizing national and international seminars and managing academic exchange programmes. He has completed a number of research projects on contemporary social, political and environmental issues in Nepal and published dozens of research articles in national and international scholarly journals. He is a co-author of several ethnographic profiles of indigenous peoples of Nepal. He is also a co-editor of ILO Convention 169 and Peace Building in Nepal (2005) published by NEFIN and ILO Nepal, Occasional Papers in Sociology and Anthropology of Nepal (2009–2011), Ethnicity and Federalization in Nepal (2012) and Social Inclusion Atlas and Ethnographic Profiles (2014) published by Tribhuvan University. He is also a Member of Editorial Board of (2006–207).Dr Gurung has received many prestigious fellowships from various institutions. He received research fellowship from Norwegian University Committees for Development Education and Research (NUFU), Developing Country Training Fellowship from Wenner-Gren Foundation for anthropological research for his graduate studies at Cornell University, PhD Dissertation Research Fellowships from Social Science Research Council (SSRC), New York, Research Grants from National Geographic Society, and World Wildlife Fund, Washington DC. He also received several visiting fellowships to University of Wisconsin, Madison; Cornell University, Ithaca, New York; University of Bergen, Norway; Liverpool John Moores University, UK; and University of Lille, France.During the 37 years of his teaching service at Tribhuvan University, Dr Gurung headed the Central Department of Sociology/Anthropology for more than 13 years. He also served as a chair of the Curricula Development Committee, executive member of the Center for Economic and Development Administration, research director of Social Inclusion Atlas and Ethnographic Profile and an executive member of Faculty Board of Humanities and Social Sciences at Tribhuvan University. Beside academic positions, he also holds various public as well as social positions in Nepal. He is the former general secretary of Nepal Federation of Indigenous Nationalities (NEFIN), adviser to Indigenous Peoples’ CA Members’ Caucus in the Constituent Assembly of Nepal, coordinator of High Level Task Force for the Revision of Official List of Indigenous Nationalities, member of National Development Council of National Planning Commission, member of Social Inclusion Program Monitoring Committee of National Planning Commission, board member of Poverty Alleviation Fund (PAF), coordinator of Dialogue Team of NEFIN to lead the dialogue with the Government of Nepal, member of the High Level Monitoring Commission on Code of Conduct of Ceasefire, and a member of High level Local Body Reform Advisory Committee.Dr Gurung is an influencing intellectual and a prominent public leader. As an academic and a public leader, he has made substantial contributions both scholarly and socially to the understanding of social and political issues of Nepal. He is a promising intellectual leader of ethnic rights and politics of social inclusion in Nepal. He has played a critical role to raise social awareness among Indigenous peoples of Nepal and mobilize them for an assertion of their ethnic identity and cultural rights.

Ratna Dhar has completed her post-graduation in anthropology with specialization in socio-cultural anthropology from University of Calcutta. She earned her doctorate degree from Vidyasagar University, West Bengal. In her initial years of career, she worked among the Santal community in rural as well as in industrial areas of Birbhum District of West Bengal, in a research project in Visva-Bharati University. Presently she is attached with Anthropological Survey of India as a member of the research wing. Her major research concerns in early years have been the folk traditions of the Manganiyar musicians and Bhopa performers of Rajasthan. She has varied experience in working in the tribal regions of Sikkim, Jharkhand and Nagaland. In recent years, she looked into the problem areas of biosphere and has published a number of articles on development issues and conservation process in Sundarban Biosphere as well as in tribal areas in reputed journals. She has two books to her credit which include an interpretation of folk music and contents of songs practised by Manganiyars’ folk singers within the socio-cultural matrix and another on impact of tourism on the heritage site of Chittorgarh fort. She is currently working on issues involving the problems of border communities, enclaves, identity and citizenship in Nagaland–Myanmar border and West Bengal–Bangladesh border.

Saradindu Biswas is an activist working for the cause of Dalit and Bahujan communities. He has researched intensively on sociological aspects of folklore and has collected vast body of material on folk-music, folk-theatre, rituals and fairytales from many communities. While investigating into origin of the Bengali-speaking people, he has searched for their roots in the language, arts and lifeways of the Santal, Munda, Oraon, Pahariya, Mal, Asur and other indigenous communities of Eastern India. He has written several articles in Bengali on ethno-history of indigenous communities, some of which have been highly appreciated.

Saw John Aung Thong is from the Andaman Islands, a second-generation Sgaw Karen from Webi village. Saw John has managed the Andaman Nicobar Environmental Team (ANET) research station at North Wandoor for past 25 years, playing multiple managerial roles in facilitating various research projects. His work has ranged from interfacing with local government offices, individual researchers, visitors and in construction as well as field research including much work which has contributed to this article. John's background managerial work has helped develop various facilities and infrastructure at ANET. Belonging to the small community of Karen in the Andaman Islands, much has been learnt by his co-authors from and through him. He has played a particularly critical position in leveraging many researchers into the islands especially into Middle and North Andaman by hosting them at his home. Over the last few years he has begun a homestay facility while also coordinating and facilitating the growth of a women's self-help group called the Andaman Karen Craft Society which was initiated by ANET as a small project towards becoming an entity in its own form. Through such engagement he has also seen the community he belongs to through dual lenses and works with others in facilitating positive change on various fronts.

Shiba Desor is a researcher and facilitator exploring the intersections of policy, culture and ecology. Her work experience ranges from studying forest governance issues at the national level with the environmental NGO Kalpavriksh to facilitating local action of women-based collectives with Maati Collective in Munsiari and Dakshin Foundation in Andaman. She is a co-author of ‘Dhontang-Food in Ladakh’ and ‘Something to Chew On’, publications that highlight multiple dimensions of food. She is presently a senior research associate with ATREE, working as part of a team studying the political ecology of the green economy. Desor is an avid believer in the healing power of art, and afternoon naps.

Shibani Roy, after obtaining PhD in anthropology from University of Delhi, conducted empirical research among tribes, castes and religious minorities of Northern, Western, North Western, Central, North Eastern regions of India and Iran. Based on the findings she has authored 24 books and contributed 135 research papers in national and international journals. Her seminal contribution in the field of women's role among inbred Muslim families has earned her a place of distinguished scholars of Indian anthropological studies on minorities. She has served Indian Council of Medical Research, New Delhi; National Institute of Health and Family Welfare, New Delhi; Anthropological Survey of India, Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts and Culture, New Delhi; and Office of Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India, New Delhi, in various capacities. She has been the recipient of Fellowship of ICSSR, New Delhi; CSIR, New Delhi. She was awarded senior fellowship of Ministry of Culture, Government of India. She has been the technical consultant, National Commission of Denotified Tribes, Nomads and Semi Nomadic communities, New Delhi; adviser, Vimarsh Solutions, Gurugram, Haryana. At present she is guest faculty at National Institute of Criminology and Forensic Science, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. Her training and field experience have enabled her to contribute in understanding of human behaviour within the precincts of cultural matrix of Indian population groups.

Sreenathan M. is professor and dean, Faculty of Linguistics, Thunchathu Ezhuthachan Malayalam University, Kerala. He was formerly associated with the Central University of Kerala and Dravidian University as well as with the Anthropological Survey of India. His research experience in anthropological linguistics includes work on the Palaeolithic remnants of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands among tribal and caste population in mainland India. He is reputed far and wide as a productive member/leader of teams of anthropological or linguistic survey, an inspiring teacher-cum-researcher, a motivating head of academic or administrative departments, a persuasive director of research projects, a painstaking author/editor/compiler of academic books and reports of projects, capable of executing time-bound minor or mega programmes successfully. His publications consisting of numerous technical or popularizing papers and dozens of books and reports constitute an unparalleled contribution to various aspects of language and culture.

Sumit Mukherjee, MA (Geog.), PhD, formerly a field-based researcher in the Human Ecology section of Anthropological Survey. Currently he is engaged as guest teacher in the Department of Geography, University of Calcutta. His major research works in human ecology include several high altitude tribal communities in Himachal Pradesh, the Onges of Little Andaman, the Khasi and Garo of Meghalaya, Social Impact Assessment (SIA) in six core villages of Achankmar Amarkantak Biosphere Reserve, Chhattisgarh, issues in man and environment relation in eight Biosphere Reserves of India. He has co-authored five books and several research articles in national and international journals including two atlases on Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes of India.

Svetlana Ryzhakova is a leading research fellow in Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Science, Moscow. She is PhD and Dr. habil. from Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Science, Moscow, 1998 and 2011. She is also associated with Indian Anthropological Society, European Association of Social Anthropologists. Her major research interests include cultural anthropology, ethnology, mythology and folklore, symbols, regional culture and nationalism, religious practices and performing studies. She has carried out extensive fieldwork in India (West Bengal, Assam, Kerala, Karnataka and Rajasthan), Indonesia (Bali) and Baltic countries since 1998, exploring traditional culture and day-to-day life, local and ethnic identities, myth-making, invention of traditions, communities engaged in arts and crafts creation and transmission. Her writings include books and numerous articles published in scientific international journals: (2002), (with Dr S. Arutiunov, 2004), (2004), (2010); publications on neo-paganism ( and ); various local traditions and communities of India. In 1996 she joined class of Guru Rajendra Kumar Gangani in (New Delhi), so she has both practical experience and theoretical knowledge in Kathak as well as some other forms of performance (kinesthetic and dance traditions of Bengal, Kerala and Karnataka, Manipur, Bali). She performs in India, Russia and European countries, representing both traditional Indian dance styles and her own artistic vision based on extensive research in comparative arts history and theory, philosophy, spirituality and ethnography.

Uddhav Rai completed MA in anthropology from Tribhuvan University (TU), Kathmandu, Nepal, and completed MA (Econ.) in applied social research at Manchester University, UK. Furthermore, he completed post-graduate diploma in universalizing social security for the poor from the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, Netherlands. Dr Rai received PhD in anthropology from TU with a fellowship from Wenner-Gren foundation at Cornell University with the thesis entitled ‘Food Security and Exclusion among the Chepangs of Nepal’. Dr Rai has taught anthropology in TU for 18 years and engaged in development research and provided consultancy services in agriculture and rural development projects of national and international organizations. He has published research papers and articles, and presented papers in national and international symposiums. He is a pioneer to the work on food security of indigenous people of Nepal. Dr Rai has interests in the work on policy issues of food security of marginalized communities of Nepal, South and East Asia.

Urmimala Sarkar Munsi, PhD in social anthropology (with specialization in dance studies), is an associate professor at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, teaching dance studies and performance documentation methodology. Sarkar Munsi is a choreographer and scholar, and has published widely in national and international journals. Her edited books are co-edited with Aishika Chakraborty (2017), and (2010). She has co-authored (2010) with Dr Bishnupriya Dutt.

Vishvajit Pandya is a professor of anthropology. He earned his doctorate in anthropology from The University of Chicago. He has been involved in ethnographic research in the Andaman Islands since 1983 and has published widely. He has held teaching positions in the United States, New Zealand and India.

Ziya Us Salam is a noted literary and social commentator. A student of history from the University of Delhi, he is engaged in building bridges of commonality between communities through recourse to the Quran and the Vedas. He has been associated with for almost two decades and has been its features editor for North India editions for 16 years. At present, he is an associate editor, , and writes on sociocultural issues for the magazine besides doing book reviews. A prolific and an acclaimed author, in 2019, he published , a take on victims of hate violence, and , a book that aims to introduce Islam to children. In the previous year, he had released , a take on the challenges to the idea of India, and , a study of various divorce options available in Islam. His book , a study of cinemas since the talkie era began, was released in 2016. His book has been released recently. Ziya was a jury member of the International Film Festival of India (non-feature film, 2011), Best Writing on Cinema (2008) and Vatavaran.