List of Contributors
1. Biswaroop Das, is Professor at the Centre for Social Studies, Surat in India. He has written extensively on issues related to regional and urban planning, city slums, urban poverty, NGOs and rehabilitation of displaced people. He is the author of Socio-Economic Study of Slums in Surat City (CSS, Surat, 1992), Role and Impact of Micro Finance on Poor (FWWB-India, 2001), and co-author of Unknown Leaders of Micro Finance (FWWB-India, 1999) and Poor in Urban India : Life in the Slums of a Western Indian City (Rawat, 2001).
2. Abhijit Dasgupta, is Reader in Sociology at the Department of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi. He is the author of Growth with Equity : The New Technology and Agrarian Change in Bengal (Manohar, 1998), and has edited several books including State, Society and Displaced People in South Asia (University Press Ltd., 2005).
3. Tatsuro Fujikura, is Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies, Kyoto University, and an editor of Studies in Nepali History and Society. He was a researcher at the Centre for Social Research and Development (CSRD), Kathmandu from 2004 to 2005. His publications include 'Discourses of Awareness : Notes for a Criticism of Development in Nepal' Studies in Nepali History and Society 6 (2) : 271-313 (2001), The Role of Collective Imagination in the Maoist Conflict in Nepal' Himalaya 22 (1) : 21-30 (2003), and 'Vasectomies and Other Experiments with Modernity : A Reflection on the Discourses and Practices of Family Planning in Nepal' Journal of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies 16: 40-71 (2004).
4. David N. Gellner, is Lecturer in the Anthropology of South Asia, University of Oxford. From September 2003 to July 2004 he was a Visiting Professor at the Research Institute for Cultures and Languages of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. He is the author of Monk, Householder, and Tantric Priest : Newar Buddhism and its Hierarchy of Ritual (CUP, 1992) and The Anthropology of Buddhism and Hinduism : Weberian Themes (OUP, 2001), the co-author (with Sarah LeVine) of Rebuilding Buddhism : The Theravada Movement in Twentieth-Century Nepal (Harvard University Press, 2005), and has edited several other books, including Resistance and the State : Nepalese Experiences (Social Science Press, 2003).
5. Krishna Hachhethu, is Reader in Political Science and associated with the Centre for Nepal and Asian Studies (CNAS) Tribhuvan University. He is the author of Party Building in Nepal : Organization, Leadership and People (Mandala, 2002) and State of Democracy in Nepal (SDSA/N and International IDEA, 2004), and the co-author of Leadership in Nepal (Adroit, 2001), Women and Governance : Re-imagining the State from Gender Perspective (Nepal Chapter) (S2, 2002), and Nepal : Local Leadership and Governance (Adroit, 2004). He has contributed articles to several academic books and journals published in Nepal and abroad.
6. Hiroshi Ishii, is Professor Emeritus at the Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa (ILCAA), Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. He has conducted anthropological research among the Newars, the Parbate Hindus, and the Maithils in Nepal since 1970. He has published Nepal : A Himalayan Kingdom in Transition (UNU Press, 1996, with P.P. Karan et al.), as well as other books and articles in both Japanese and English.
7. Surinder S. Jodhka, is Professor at the Centre for the Study of Social Systems, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Previously he taught at the University of Hyderabad and at Panjab University, Chandigarh. He has been working in the fields of agrarian change and social identity and has published extensively, including Community and Identities : Contemporary Discourses on Culture and Politics in India (ed., Sage, 2001).
8. Mrigendra Karki, is Lecturer in Sociology in Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, and a member of the Centre for Nepal and Asian Studies.
9. Lancy Lobo, is the Director, Centre for Culture and Development, Vadodara. Earlier, he also served as Director, Centre for Social Studies, Surat. He has conducted extensive studies on Dalits, tribais, OBCs, and minorities in rural and urban Gujarat. He has authored five books and many articles in professional journals. He was an international fellow of the Woodstock Theological Centre, Georgetown University, Washington DC in 1999-2000.
10. Keshav L. Maharjan, is Professor in the Graduate School for International Development and Cooperation, Hiroshima University. He conducts research and lectures on Rural Economics and South Asian Studies. He is the author of Peasantry in Nepal : A Study on Subsistence Farmers and Their Activities Pertaining to Food Security (Research Center for Regional Geography, Hiroshima University, 2003) and Impacts of Irrigation and Drainage Schemes on Rural Economic Activities in Bangladesh (Research Center for Regional Geography, Hiroshima University, 1997). He is also one of the main contributors to H. Ishii (ed.), Ryudo-suru Nepal (Social Dynamism in Contemporary Nepal) (UTP, 2005), and has several book chapters and journal articles to his credit in Japanese and English.
11. Minoru Mio, is Associate Professor of the National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, Japan. He has written several articles in Japanese and in English, including 'National Discourse and Local Conflict : How Modernity Intervened in a Conflict over the Administration of a Sufi Saint Mausoleum in Mewar, Rajasthan', in H. Kotani et al. (eds.) Fussing Modernity : Appropriation of History and Political Mobilization in South Asia (National Museum of Ethnology, 2000) and 'Looking for Love and Miracles : Multivocal Composition and Conflicts among Believers in a Sufi Mausoleum Festival of Rajasthan, India', Bulletin of the National Museum of Ethnology 29 (1).
12. Tetsuya Nakatani, is Associate Professor in the Department of Regional Promotion at Nara Prefecrural University. His writings include 'Refugees', in Veena Das (ed.), The Oxford India Companion to Sociology and Social Anthropology (New Delhi : OUP, 2003) and 'Away from Home : the Movement and Settlement of Refugees from East Pakistan to West Bengal, India', in Imtiaz Ahmed, Abhijit Dasgupta, and Kathinka Sinha-Kerkhoff (eds.), State, Society and Displaced People in South Asia (Dhaka : UPL, 2004).
13. Katsuo Nawa, is Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Institute of Oriental Culture, the University of Tokyo. He is the author of Nepal, Byans oyobi Shuhen Chiiki ni okeru Girei to Shakaihanchu ni kansuru Minzokushiteki Kenkyu : Mo Hitotsu no 'Kindai'no Fuchi (An Ethnographic Study on Rituals and Social Categories of Byans, Nepal, and Adjacent Regions : Another Constellation of 'Modernity') (Sangensha, 2002), which was awarded the 30th Shibusawa Prize. His publications in English include 'Ethnic Categories and their Usages in Byans, Far Western Nepal' European Bulletin of Himalayan Research 18, 2000.
14. Kiyoko Ogura, is a freelance journalist based in Kathmandu. She is the author of the highly acclaimed Okoku wo Yurugashita 60 Nichi (60 Days that Shook the Kingdom) (Aki Shobo), which appeared in Japanese in 1999, in English under the title Kathmandu Spring : The People's Movement of 1990 (Himal Books) in 2001, and in Nepali as Janata Jageko Bela (When People Awoke) (Himal Kitab) in 2004. She has published articles on the Maoist insurgency in several Japanese journals.
15. Jonathan Parry, is Professor of Anthropology at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He has done field research in various parts of north and central India on various different topics. His publications include Caste and Kinship in Kangra (Routledge, 1979), Death in Banaras (Cambridge University Press, 1994), Death and the Regeneration of Life (ed. with M. Bloch, Cambridge University Press, 1982), Money and the Morality of Exchange (ed. with M. Bloch, Cambridge University Press, 1989), The Worlds of Indian Industrial Labour (ed. with J. Breman and K. Kapadia, Sage Publications, 1999) and Institutions and Inequalities (ed. with R. Guha, Oxford University Press, 1999).
16. Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka, is Professor for Social Anthropology at Bielefeld University. From October 1999 to September 2001 she was Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Development Research, University of Bonn, in charge of establishing and managing the Research Programme 'Human Rights and Development'. In 1999 she was Visiting Professor at the University of Tokyo. Her books include : Ethnic Futures : State and Identity in Four Asian Countries (ed. with A. Nandy, D. Rajasingham, and T. Gomez, Sage, New Delhi, 1999); Rituale Heute : Theorien, Kontroversen, Entwurfe (Rituals Today : Theories, Controversies, Drafts), (ed. with C. Caduff, Reimer, Berlin, 1999; 2001 : 2nd edition); Nationalism and Ethnicity in Contemporary Nepal : The Cultural Politics in a Hindu Kingdom (ed. with D.N. Gellner & J. Whelpton, Harwood Academic Publishers, 1997). Her articles include : 'Death, Ri(gh)tes, and Institutions in Immigrant Switzerland' in M. Scheinin and R. Toivannen (ed.) Rethinking Non-discrimination and Minority Rights, pp. 201-17 (Helsinki : Abo Academy of Human Rights, 2004); 'Demokratisierung und Nation-Building in Geteilten Gesellschaften', in J. Hippler (ed.), Nation-Building : Ein Schlusselkonzept fur Friedliche Konfliktbearbeitung?, pp. 49-69 (Eine Welt-Band, Bonn : Stiftung Entwicklung und Frieden, 2004); 'High Expectations, Deep Disappointment : Politics, State and Society in Nepal after 1990', in M. Hurt (ed.) People s War in a Hindu Kingdom : Maoism in Nepal, pp. 166-91 (London: Hurst, 2004).
17. Akio Tanabe, is Associate Professor at Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University. He is a co-editor of Gender and Modernity : Perspectives from Asia and the Pacific (Kyoto University Press and Trans Pacific Press, 2003), Dislocating Nation-States : Globalization in Asia and Africa (Kyoto University Press and Trans Pacific Press, 2005), and The State in India : Past and Present (OUP, forthcoming).