Hebbar

In a world where people are predominantly on the move, mobility has not received as much attention as sedentism. Is it because mobility is a disavowal of a sedentary disposition? Or is it that, as social frontiers, mobile lives disrupt the linear narrative of social evolution and civilization inherent in the idea of settlement? This book engages with the substance of these strains in the lived experiences of mobile populations, in what it means to be recalcitrant and find one’s bearings in mobility.

Mobility is also transformative as it brings with it sentience, an awareness of the faultline in the system. Drawing on mobile ethnographies from different parts of India - a nomadic community in Kutch, tribal youth in Ranchi, mobile rural youth in Chhattisgarh, the Musahars, an ex-untouchable community in Bihar, migrant labour in Delhi during the COVID-19 lockdown, north Indian Muslim migrants and the homeless in Mumbai, tribal plantation workers in Kerala and the Char dwellers in Assam - the book explores the cadence of dissent and what it conveys about the inconstancy of relentless human pursuits, and the human desire for transcendence, wholeness, and unity. The book explores how all ethnographies are inherently mobile, traversing through lives, contexts, and locales to capture the ever-evolving human condition.

Part of the Social Movements and Transformative Dissent series, this book will be of interest to students and researchers of sociology, anthropology, social work, cultural studies, inequality studies, migration and labour studies. It will be of use to social activists and policymakers as well.

Ritambhara Hebbar, a professor and chairperson in the Centre for Study of Developing Societies, School of Development Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, writes regularly on tribes in India, specifically on culture, self-rule, women and land rights. Her other research areas are sociology of mobility, social institutions and change in India. Her book publications include Ecology, Equality and Freedom: Engagement with Self-Rule in Jharkhand (2011), a coedited book, Towards a New Sociology in India (2016) and a special issue in the Sociological Bulletin on Tribes in Contemporary India (2024).