ABOUT THIS BOOK

Unearthing Gender is a compelling ethnographic analysis of folksongs sung primarily by lower-caste women in north India, in the fields, at weddings, during travels, and in other settings. Smita Tewari Jassal uses these songs to explore how ideas of caste, gender, sexuality, labor, and power may be strengthened, questioned, and fine-tuned through music. At the heart of the book is a library of songs, in their original Bhojpuri and in English translation, framed by Jassal's insights into the complexities of gender and power.

The significance of these folksongs, Jassal argues, lies in their suggesting and hinting at themes, rather than directly addressing them: women sing what they often cannot talk about. Women's lives, their feelings, their relationships, and their social and familial bonds are persuasively presented in song. For the ethnographer, the songs offer an entry into the everyday cultures of marginalized groups of women who have rarely been the focus of systematic analytical inquiry.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Smita Tewari Jassal is Associate Professor Anthropology, Graduate School of Social Sciences at Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey. She is the author of Daughters of the Earth: Women and Land in Uttar Pradesh and is coauthor of The Partition Motif In Contemporary Conflicts: Germany, India-Pakistan, Israel-Palestine.

REVIEWS

“Unearthing Gender is a welcome addition to literature on South Asian gender and folklore. Jassal writes with compassion and with technical rigor—with an eye for poetry and an appreciation for the power of performance. She is clearly moved by the creativity and artistry of the performers with whom she worked, and she conveys this sentiment well.”

-- Ian Woolford Journal of Anthropological Research

“Erudite and original, this book makes a signal contribution to scholarship on gender, class, caste, sexualities, identities, and labor by bringing attention to the lives and practices of low-caste peasants in the rural North Indian countryside. Engaging and expertly written – Jassal’s prose enacts a most pleasing poetics to this reader’s ear – the genius behind Unearthing Gender lies in its use of women’s folk song genres.”

-- Antoinette DeNapoli Anthropos

“Jassal’s project breaks new ground for ethnomusicologists to take up the challenge of combining research on the labor of music making in the context of rural agrarian political economies. . . . An engaging combination of detailed ethnography and insightful interpretation of song texts and their social significance. . . .”

-- Rehanna Kheshgi Ethnomusicology Review

“Ultimately, this beautifully written and highly readable (and teachable) ethnography offers important insights into gender, caste, and kinship. Its most immediate impact is the richness of the worlds it explores and the possibilities it raises for thinking about the place of expression in the crafting of culture. What comes through most vividly, aside from the poetry of the songs themselves, is the vibrancy and warmth of the lives of those who sing them. Jassal’s portrait of women’s expressive lives is one of deep humanity and, at its core, is about possibilities for action, intimacy, and selfhood.”

-- Sarah Pinto Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

"A particularly cogent example of how much is to be gained by attending simultaneously to the structural and expressive aspects of culture and to the subtle and complex ways subversion and reinforcement can harmonize and create dissonance in the very same tune."

-- Coralynn V. Davis Asian Ethnology

"Recalling Smita Tiwari Jassal’s own ancestral roots in this rural region, I see this lovingly researched book as embodying one such way of remembering, reframing, and transmitting songs into the future."

-- Kirin Narayan Journal of Folklore Research

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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